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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/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_7_1_install_and_overview_video_from_Marcelo_Salvador.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu 7.1 install and overview video from Marcelo Salvador</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28          8th October 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
  32 Salvador had published a
  33 <ahref="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc">video on
  34 Youtube</a> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
  35 Skolelinux profile.  This is the profile intended for use at home or
  36 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
  37 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
  38 in other word a single user machine).  The result is 11 minutes long,
  39 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
  40 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
  41 showing the <ahref="http://www.zygotebody.com/no_webgl.html">Zygote
  42 Body 3D model of the human body</a>, but I guess he did not know about
  43 those or find other programs more interesting. :)</p>
  44
  45 <p>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:</p>
  46
  47 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
  48
  49 <p>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux?  Please let
  50 me know. :)</p>
  51
  52       </div>
  53       <div class="tags">
  54
  55
  56         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
  57
  58
  59       </div>
  60     </div>
  61     <div class="padding"></div>
  62
  63     <div class="entry">
  64       <div class="title">
  65         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html">Finally, Debian Edu Wheezy is released today!</a>
  66       </div>
  67       <div class="date">
  68         29th September 2013
  69       </div>
  70       <div class="body">
  71         <p>A few hours ago, the announcement for the first stable release of
  72 Debian Edu Wheezy went out from the Debian publicity team.  The
  73 complete announcement text can be found at
  74 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130928">the Debian News
  75 section</a>, translated to several languages.  Please check it out.</p>
  76
  77 <p>There is one minor known problem that we will fix very soon.  One
  78 can not install a amd64 Thin Client Server using PXE, as the /var/
  79 partition is too small.  A workaround is to extend the partition (use
  80 lvresize + resize2fs in tty 2 while installing).</p>
  81
  82       </div>
  83       <div class="tags">
  84
  85
  86         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
  87
  88
  89       </div>
  90     </div>
  91     <div class="padding"></div>
  92
  93     <div class="entry">
  94       <div class="title">
  95         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
  96       </div>
  97       <div class="date">
  98         27th September 2013
  99       </div>
 100       <div class="body">
 101         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
 102 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
 103 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
 104 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
 105
 106 <ul>
 107
 108 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
 109 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
 110
 111 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
 112 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 113
 114 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
 115 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
 116 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
 117 (Youtube)</li>
 118
 119 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
 120 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
 121
 122 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
 123 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 124
 125 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
 126 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
 127 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
 128
 129 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
 130 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
 131 (Youtube)</li>
 132
 133 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
 134 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
 135
 136 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
 137 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
 138
 139 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
 140 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
 141 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
 142
 143 </ul>
 144
 145 <p>A larger list is available from
 146 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
 147 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
 148
 149 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
 150 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
 151 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
 152 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
 153 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
 154 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
 155 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
 156 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
 157 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
 158 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
 159 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
 160
 161       </div>
 162       <div class="tags">
 163
 164
 165         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
 166
 167
 168       </div>
 169     </div>
 170     <div class="padding"></div>
 171
 172     <div class="entry">
 173       <div class="title">
 174         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_and_probably_last_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Wheezy.html">Third and probably last beta release of Debian Edu Wheezy</a>
 175       </div>
 176       <div class="date">
 177         16th September 2013
 178       </div>
 179       <div class="body">
 180         <p>The third wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
 181 today.  This is the release announcement from Holger Levsen:</p>
 182
 183 <blockquote>
 184 <p>Hi,</p>
 185
 186 <p>it is my pleasure to announce the third beta release (beta 2 for
 187 short) of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
 188 Skolelinux</a> based on Debian Wheezy!</p>
 189
 190 <p>Please test these images extensivly, if no new problems are found
 191 we plan to do this final Debian Edu Wheezy release this coming
 192 weekend.  We are not aware of any major problems or blockers in beta2,
 193 if you find something, please notify us immediately!</p>
 194
 195 <p>(More about the remaining steps for the Edu Wheezy release in
 196 another mail to the edu list tonight or tomorrow...)</p>
 197
 198 <p>Noteworthy changes and software updates for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b2
 199 compared to beta1:</p>
 200
 201 <ul>
 202
 203 <li>The KDE proxy setup has been adjusted to use the provided wpad.dat. This
 204 also gets Chromium to use this proxy.</li>
 205 <li>Install kdepim-groupware with KDE desktops to make sure korganizer
 206 understand ical/dav sources.</li>
 207 <li>Increased default maximum size of /var/spool/squid and /skole/backup on the
 208 main server.</li>
 209 <li>A source DVD image containing all source packages is now available as well.</li>
 210 <li>Updates for chromium (29.0.1547.57-1~deb7u1), imagemagick
 211 (6.7.7.10-5+deb7u2), php5 (5.4.4-14+deb7u4), libmodplug
 212 (0.8.8.4-3+deb7u1+git20130828), tiff (4.0.2-6+deb7u2), linux-image
 213 (3.2.0-4-486_3.2.46-1+deb7u1).</li>
 214
 215 </ul>
 216
 217 <p>Where to get it:</p>
 218
 219 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
 220
 221 <ul>
 222 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso</a></li>
 223 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso</a></li>
 224 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso .</li>
 225 </ul>
 226
 227 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is:  3a1c89f4666df80eebcd46c5bf5fedb866f9472f</p>
 228
 229 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use
 230 <ul>
 231 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso</a></li>
 232 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso</a></li>
 233 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso .</li>
 234 </ul>
 235
 236 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 702d1718548f401c74bfa6df9f032cc3ee16597e</p>
 237
 238 <p>The Source DVD image has the filename
 239 debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-source-DVD.iso and the SHA1SUM
 240 089eed8b3f962db47aae1f6a9685e9bb2fa30ca5 and is available the same way
 241 as the other isos.</p>
 242
 243 <p>How to report bugs</p>
 244
 245 <p>For information how to report bugs please see
 246 <br><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
 247
 248
 249 <p>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</p>
 250
 251 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
 252 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
 253 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
 254 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
 255 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
 256 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
 257 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
 258 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
 259 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
 260 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
 261 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
 262 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
 263 can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
 264
 265 <p>This is the seventh test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
 266 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
 267 Squeeze release.</p>
 268
 269 <p>Notes for upgrades from Alpha Prereleases</p>
 270
 271 <p>Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
 272 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
 273 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
 274 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
 275 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined on the mailing list. (2)
 276 Accept the new version of gosa.conf and replace both contained admin
 277 password placeholders with the password hashes found in the old one
 278 (backup copy!). In both cases all users need to change their password
 279 to make sure a password is set for CIFS access to their home
 280 directory.</p>
 281
 282
 283 <p>cheers,
 284 <br>        Holger</p>
 285 </blockquote>
 286
 287       </div>
 288       <div class="tags">
 289
 290
 291         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 292
 293
 294       </div>
 295     </div>
 296     <div class="padding"></div>
 297
 298     <div class="entry">
 299       <div class="title">
 300         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
 301       </div>
 302       <div class="date">
 303         10th September 2013
 304       </div>
 305       <div class="body">
 306         <p>I was introduced to the
 307 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
 308 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
 309 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
 310 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
 311 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
 312 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
 313 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
 314 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
 315
 316 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
 317 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
 318 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
 319 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
 320 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
 321
 322 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
 323 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
 324 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
 325 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
 326 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
 327 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
 328 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
 329 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
 330 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
 331 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
 332 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
 333 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
 334 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
 335 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
 336 missing in Debian).</p>
 337
 338 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
 339 scripts
 340 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
 341 and a administrative web interface
 342 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
 343 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
 344 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
 345 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
 346 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
 347 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
 348 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
 349 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
 350 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
 351 this is really working yet, see
 352 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
 353 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
 354 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
 355 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
 356 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
 357 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
 358 with lots of half baked features.</p>
 359
 360 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
 361 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
 362 at.</p>
 363
 364 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
 365
 366 <ol>
 367
 368 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
 369 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
 370 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
 371 to the Debian installer:<p>
 372 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
 373
 374 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
 375 install on.</li>
 376
 377 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
 378 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
 379
 380 </ol>
 381
 382 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
 383
 384 <ol>
 385
 386 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
 387 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
 388 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
 389 <pre>
 390 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
 391 </pre></li>
 392 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
 393 <pre>
 394 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
 395    apt-key add -
 396 apt-get update
 397 apt-get install freedombox-setup
 398 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
 399 </pre></li>
 400 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
 401
 402 </ol>
 403
 404 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
 405 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
 406 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
 407 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
 408 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
 409
 410 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
 411 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
 412 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
 413 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
 414
 415 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
 416 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
 417 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
 418 irc.debian.org and the
 419 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
 420 mailing list</a>.</p>
 421
 422 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
 423 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
 424 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
 425 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
 426 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
 427 default password is 'secret'.</p>
 428
 429       </div>
 430       <div class="tags">
 431
 432
 433         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
 434
 435
 436       </div>
 437     </div>
 438     <div class="padding"></div>
 439
 440     <div class="entry">
 441       <div class="title">
 442         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_release__beta_1__of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second beta release (beta 1) of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
 443       </div>
 444       <div class="date">
 445         22nd August 2013
 446       </div>
 447       <div class="body">
 448         <p>The second wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
 449 today, slightly delayed because of some bugs in the initial Windows
 450 integration fixes .  This is the release announcement:</p>
 451
 452 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b1 released 2013-08-22</strong></p>
 453
 454 <p>These are the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 455 7.1+edu0~b1, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
 456
 457 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
 458
 459 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
 460 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
 461 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
 462 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
 463 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
 464 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
 465 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
 466 the main server from CD or USB stick all other machines can be
 467 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
 468 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
 469 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
 470 desktop contains
 471 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
 472 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
 473 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
 474 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
 475
 476 <p>This is the sixth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically this
 477 is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the Squeeze
 478 release.</p>
 479
 480 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
 481 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
 482 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
 483 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
 484 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined
 485 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/08/msg00127.html">on
 486 the mailing list</a>. (2) Accept the new version of gosa.conf and
 487 replace both contained admin password placeholders with the password
 488 hashes found in the old one (backup copy!). In both cases every user
 489 need to change their their password to make sure a password is set for
 490 CIFS access to their home directory.</p>
 491
 492 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
 493
 494 <ul>
 495
 496 <li>Added ssh askpass packages to default installation, to ensure ssh
 497     work also without a attached tty.</li>
 498 <li>Add the command-not-found package to the default installation to
 499     make it easier to figure out where to find missing command line
 500     tools. Please note, that the command 'update-command-not-found'
 501     has to be run as root to actually make it useful (internet access
 502     required).</li>
 503
 504 </ul>
 505
 506 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
 507
 508 <ul>
 509
 510 <li>Adjusted the USB stick ISO image build to include every tool
 511 needed for desktop=xfce installations.</li>
 512 <li>Adjust thin-client-server task to work when installing from USB
 513 stick ISO image.</li>
 514 <li>Made new grub artwork (changed png from indexed to RGB format).</li>
 515 <li>Minor cleanup in the CUPS setup.</li>
 516 <li>Make sure that bootstrapping of the Samba domain really happens
 517     during installation of the main server and adjust SID handling to
 518     cope with this.</li>
 519 <li>Make Samba passwords changeable (again) via GOsa².</li>
 520 <li>Fix generation of LM and NT password hashes via GOsa² to avoid
 521     empty password hashes.</li>
 522 <li>Adapted Samba machine domain joining to latest change in the
 523     smbldap-tools Perl package, fixing bugs blocking Windows machines
 524     from joining the Samba domain.</li>
 525
 526 </ul>
 527
 528 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
 529
 530 <ul>
 531
 532 <li>KDE fails to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
 533     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
 534 <li>Chromium also fails to use the proxy when using the KDE desktop
 535     (using the KDE configuration).</li>
 536
 537 </ul>
 538
 539 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
 540
 541 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
 542
 543 <ul>
 544
 545 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
 546
 547 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
 548
 549 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso .</li>
 550
 551 </ul>
 552
 553 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 1e357f80b55e703523f2254adde6d78b
 554 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 7157f9be5fd27c7694d713c6ecfed61c3edda3b2</p>
 555
 556 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
 557
 558 <ul>
 559
 560 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
 561 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
 562 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso .</li>
 563
 564 </ul>
 565
 566 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 7a8408ead59cf7e3cef25afb6e91590b
 567 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: f1817c031f02790d5edb3bfa0dcf8451088ad119</p>
 568
 569
 570 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
 571
 572 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
 573
 574       </div>
 575       <div class="tags">
 576
 577
 578         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 579
 580
 581       </div>
 582     </div>
 583     <div class="padding"></div>
 584
 585     <div class="entry">
 586       <div class="title">
 587         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
 588       </div>
 589       <div class="date">
 590         18th August 2013
 591       </div>
 592       <div class="body">
 593         <p>Earlier, I reported about
 594 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
 595 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
 596 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
 597 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
 598 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
 599 currently on the disk.</p>
 600
 601 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
 602 <a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
 603 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
 604 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
 605 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
 606 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
 607 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
 608 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
 609 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
 610 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
 611 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
 612 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
 613 the broken disks.</p>
 614
 615       </div>
 616       <div class="tags">
 617
 618
 619         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>.
 620
 621
 622       </div>
 623     </div>
 624     <div class="padding"></div>
 625
 626     <div class="entry">
 627       <div class="title">
 628         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/90_percent_done_with_the_Norwegian_draft_translation_of_Free_Culture.html">90 percent done with the Norwegian draft translation of Free Culture</a>
 629       </div>
 630       <div class="date">
 631          2nd August 2013
 632       </div>
 633       <div class="body">
 634         <p>It has been a while since my last update.  Since last summer, I
 635 have worked on a Norwegian
 636 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
 637 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
 638 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright
 639 law.  Yesterday, I finally broken the 90% mark, when counting the
 640 number of strings to translate.  Due to real life constraints, I have
 641 not had time to work on it since March, but when the summer broke out,
 642 I found time to work on it again.  Still lots of work left, but the
 643 first draft is nearing completion.  I created a graph to show the
 644 progress of the translation:</p>
 645
 646 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
 647
 648 <p>When the first draft is done, the translated text need to be
 649 proof read, and the remaining formatting problems with images and SVG
 650 drawings need to be fixed.  There are probably also some index entries
 651 missing that need to be added.  This can be done by comparing the
 652 index entries listed in the SiSU version of the book, or comparing the
 653 English docbook version with the paper version.  Last, the colophon
 654 page with ISBN numbers etc need to be wrapped up before the release is
 655 done.  I should also figure out how to get correct Norwegian sorting
 656 of the index pages.  All docbook tools I have tried so far (xmlto,
 657 docbook-xsl, dblatex) get the order of symbols and the special
 658 Norwegian letters ÆØÅ wrong.</p>
 659
 660 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
 661 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
 662 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
 663 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
 664 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
 665 around?  There are also some legal terms that are unfamiliar to me.
 666 If you want to help, please get in touch with me, and check out the
 667 project files currently available from
 668 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
 669
 670 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
 671 the updated
 672 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
 673 and
 674 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
 675 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
 676 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
 677 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
 678
 679       </div>
 680       <div class="tags">
 681
 682
 683         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
 684
 685
 686       </div>
 687     </div>
 688     <div class="padding"></div>
 689
 690     <div class="entry">
 691       <div class="title">
 692         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First beta release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
 693       </div>
 694       <div class="date">
 695         27th July 2013
 696       </div>
 697       <div class="body">
 698         <p>The first wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
 699 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
 700
 701 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b0 released
 702 2013-07-27</strong></p>
 703
 704 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 705 7.1+edu0~b0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
 706
 707 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
 708
 709 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
 710 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
 711 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
 712 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
 713 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
 714 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
 715 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
 716 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
 717 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
 718 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
 719 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
 720 desktop contains
 721 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
 722 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
 723 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
 724 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
 725
 726 <p>This is the fifth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
 727 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
 728 Squeeze release.</p>
 729
 730 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
 731 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
 732 release.</p>
 733
 734 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
 735
 736 <ul>
 737
 738 <li>Switched roaming workstation profiles from wicd to network-manager
 739    for network configuration, as wicd didn't work any more.</li>
 740 <li>Changed version numbers of patched gosa and libpam-mklocaluser
 741    packages to make sure our locally patched versions will be replaced
 742    by the official packages when they are released from Debian. Those
 743    installing alpha version need to reinstall or manually downgrade gosa
 744    and libpam-mklocaluser.</li>
 745 <li>Added bluetooth tools to the default desktop (bluedevil, blueman).</li>
 746 <li>Added tools for sharing the desktop on KDE (krdc, krfb).</li>
 747 <li>Added valgrind to the default installation for easier debugging of
 748    crash bugs.</li>
 749
 750 </ul>
 751
 752 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
 753
 754 <ul>
 755
 756 <li>Fixed artwork package to work with gnome, no longer break
 757    desktop=gnome installations.</li>
 758 <li>Adjusted installer to now work when forced to use a proxy with the
 759    netinst CD.</li>
 760 <li>Fixed code detecting and setting/loading hardware specific
 761    setup/firmware to work more robust out of the box.</li>
 762 <li>Adjusted Kerberos setup to detect realm and server settings at
 763    install time instead of dynamically at run time. This avoid a crash
 764    with krb5-auth-dialog on diskless workstations without a DNS name.</li>
 765 <li>Worked around misfeature in network-manager not calling the dhclient
 766    exit hooks, causing automatic proxy configuration and automatic host
 767    name setting at run time to work again.</li>
 768 <li>Fixed feature setting the default Iceweasel start page from URL
 769    fetched from LDAP, to allow schools to set the global default by
 770    updating the dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no LDAP object.</li>
 771 <li>Changed default host name on all networked machines to be unique
 772    (generated from MAC or reverse DNS) after boot.</li>
 773 <li>Adjusted partition sizes to make sure they are big enough.</li>
 774
 775 </ul>
 776
 777 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
 778
 779 <ul>
 780
 781 <li>Grub is missing the new artwork.</li>
 782 <li>KDE fail to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
 783     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
 784 <li>Chromium also fail to use the proxy.</li>
 785
 786 </ul>
 787
 788 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
 789
 790 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
 791
 792 <ul>
 793
 794 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
 795
 796 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
 797
 798 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso .</li>
 799
 800 </ul>
 801
 802 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 55d5de9765b6dccd5d9ec33cf1a07109
 803 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 996a1d9517740e4d627d100de2d12b23dd545a3f</p>
 804
 805 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
 806
 807 <ul>
 808
 809 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
 810 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
 811 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso .</li>
 812
 813 </ul>
 814
 815 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: d8f0818c51a78d357de794066f289f69
 816 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 49185ca354e8d0543240423746924f76a6cee733</p>
 817
 818
 819 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
 820
 821 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
 822
 823       </div>
 824       <div class="tags">
 825
 826
 827         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 828
 829
 830       </div>
 831     </div>
 832     <div class="padding"></div>
 833
 834     <div class="entry">
 835       <div class="title">
 836         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
 837       </div>
 838       <div class="date">
 839         17th July 2013
 840       </div>
 841       <div class="body">
 842         <p>Today I switched to
 843 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
 844 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
 845 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
 846 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
 847 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
 848 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
 849 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
 850 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
 851 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
 852 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
 853 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
 854 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
 855 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
 856 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
 857 station from now on.</p>
 858
 859 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
 860 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
 861 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
 862 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
 863 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
 864 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
 865 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
 866 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
 867 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
 868 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
 869 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
 870 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
 871
 872 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
 873 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
 874 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
 875 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
 876 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
 877 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
 878 parameters are tuned:</p>
 879
 880 <ul>
 881
 882 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
 883     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
 884
 885 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
 886     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
 887     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
 888
 889 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
 890     systems.</li>
 891
 892 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
 893     /etc/fstab.</li>
 894
 895 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
 896
 897 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
 898     cron.daily).</li>
 899
 900 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
 901     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
 902
 903 </ul>
 904
 905 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
 906 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
 907 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
 908 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
 909 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
 910 from getting the data on the disk (see
 911 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
 912 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
 913 right thing to do.</p>
 914
 915 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
 916 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
 917 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
 918
 919 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
 920 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
 921 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
 922 instead of during my work.</p>
 923
 924 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
 925 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
 926
 927 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
 928 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
 929 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
 930
 931 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
 932 there.</p>
 933
 934 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
 935 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
 936 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
 937 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
 938 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
 939 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
 940 back.</p>
 941
 942       </div>
 943       <div class="tags">
 944
 945
 946         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>.
 947
 948
 949       </div>
 950     </div>
 951     <div class="padding"></div>
 952
 953     <div class="entry">
 954       <div class="title">
 955         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
 956       </div>
 957       <div class="date">
 958         10th July 2013
 959       </div>
 960       <div class="body">
 961         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
 962 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
 963 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
 964 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
 965 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
 966 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
 967 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
 968 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
 969
 970 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
 971 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
 972 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
 973 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
 974 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
 975 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
 976 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
 977 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
 978 lock up when I download a new
 979 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
 980 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
 981 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
 982
 983 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
 984 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
 985 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
 986 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
 987 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
 988 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
 989
 990 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
 991 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
 992 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
 993 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
 994 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
 995 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
 996
 997 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
 998 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
 999 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
1000 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
1001 exist).</p>
1002
1003       </div>
1004       <div class="tags">
1005
1006
1007         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>.
1008
1009
1010       </div>
1011     </div>
1012     <div class="padding"></div>
1013
1014     <div class="entry">
1015       <div class="title">
1016         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
1017       </div>
1018       <div class="date">
1019          9th July 2013
1020       </div>
1021       <div class="body">
1022         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
1023 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
1024 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
1025 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
1026 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1027 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
1028 Bitraf</a>.</p>
1029
1030 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
1031 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
1032 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
1033 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
1034 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
1035
1036       </div>
1037       <div class="tags">
1038
1039
1040         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>.
1041
1042
1043       </div>
1044     </div>
1045     <div class="padding"></div>
1046
1047     <div class="entry">
1048       <div class="title">
1049         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
1050       </div>
1051       <div class="date">
1052          5th July 2013
1053       </div>
1054       <div class="body">
1055         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
1056 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
1057 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
1058 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
1059 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
1060 ended up picking a
1061 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
1062 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
1063 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
1064 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
1065 on that below.</p>
1066
1067 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
1068 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
1069 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
1070 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
1071 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
1072 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
1073 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
1074 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
1075 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
1076
1077 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
1078 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
1079 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
1080 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
1081 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
1082 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
1083 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
1084
1085 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
1086 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
1087
1088 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
1089 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
1090 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
1091 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
1092 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
1093 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
1094 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
1095 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
1096 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
1097 kernel developers as
1098 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
1099 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
1100 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
1101 Lenovo forums, both for
1102 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
1103 2012-11-10</a> and for
1104 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
1105 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
1106 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
1107 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
1108 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
1109 There is even a
1110 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
1111 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
1112 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
1113
1114 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
1115 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
1116 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
1117 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
1118 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
1119 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
1120 fixed. :)</p>
1121
1122       </div>
1123       <div class="tags">
1124
1125
1126         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>.
1127
1128
1129       </div>
1130     </div>
1131     <div class="padding"></div>
1132
1133     <div class="entry">
1134       <div class="title">
1135         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
1136       </div>
1137       <div class="date">
1138          4th July 2013
1139       </div>
1140       <div class="body">
1141         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
1142 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
1143 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
1144 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
1145 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
1146 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
1147 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
1148 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
1149 with an expencive door stop.</p>
1150
1151 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
1152 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
1153 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
1154 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
1155 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
1156 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
1157 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
1158
1159 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
1160 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
1161 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
1162 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
1163 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
1164 new laptop now. :)</p>
1165
1166 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
1167
1168       </div>
1169       <div class="tags">
1170
1171
1172         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>.
1173
1174
1175       </div>
1176     </div>
1177     <div class="padding"></div>
1178
1179     <div class="entry">
1180       <div class="title">
1181         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fourth_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Fourth alpha release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
1182       </div>
1183       <div class="date">
1184          3rd July 2013
1185       </div>
1186       <div class="body">
1187         <p>The fourth wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
1188 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
1189
1190 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~alpha3 released
1191 2013-07-03</strong></p>
1192
1193 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1194 7.1+edu0~alpha3, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
1195
1196 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
1197
1198 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
1199 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
1200 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
1201 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
1202 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
1203 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
1204 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
1205 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
1206 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
1207 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
1208 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
1209 desktop contains
1210 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
1211 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
1212 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
1213 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
1214
1215 <p>This is the fourth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
1216 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
1217 Squeeze release.</p>
1218
1219 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
1220 <ul>
1221   <li>Dropped ispell dictionaries from our default installation.</li>
1222   <li>Dropped menu-xdg from the KDE desktop option, to drop the Debian
1223     submenu.  It was not included with Gnome, LXDE or Xfce, so this
1224     brings KDE in line with the others.</li>
1225   <li>Dropped xdrawchem, xjig and xsok from our default installation as
1226     they don't have a desktop menu entry and thus won't show up in the
1227     menu now that menu-xdg was removed.</li>
1228   <li>Removed the killer system to kill left behind processes on
1229     multi-user machines, as it was no longer able to understand when a
1230     X display was in use and killed the processes of the active users
1231     too.</li>
1232   <li>Dropped the golearn (from goplay) package as the debtags in wheezy
1233     are too few to make the package useful.</li>
1234 </ul>
1235 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
1236 <ul>
1237   <li>Updated artwork matching http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/Joy
1238   <li>Multi-arch i386/amd64 USB stick ISO available.</li>
1239   <li>Got rid of ispell/wordlist related debconf questions that showed
1240     up for some language options.</li>
1241   <li>Switched to using http.debian.net as APT source by default.</li>
1242   <li>Fixed proxy configuration on Main Server installations.</li>
1243   <li>Changed LTSP setup to ask dpkg to use force-unsafe-io the same way
1244     d-i is doing it.</li>
1245   <li>Made sure root and user passwords were not left behind in the
1246     debconf database after installation on Main Server installations.</li>
1247   <li>Made Roaming Workstation dynamic setup more robust and added draft
1248     script setup-ad-client to hook a Roaming Workstation up to a
1249     Active Directory server instead of a Debian Edu Main Server.</li>
1250   <li>Update system to install needed firmware packages during
1251     installation, to work properly in Wheezy.</li>
1252   <li>Update system to handle hardware quirks (debian-edu-hwsetup).</li>
1253   <li>Corrected PXE installation setup to properly pass selected desktop
1254     and keymap settings to PXE installation clients.</li>
1255   <li>LTSP diskless workstations use sshfs by default, allowing them to
1256     work without adding them to DNS and NIS netgroups for NFS access.</li>
1257 </ul>
1258 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
1259 <ul>
1260   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
1261     available yet (698840).</li>
1262   <li>Artwork not enabled for all desktops.</li>
1263 </ul>
1264 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
1265
1266 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
1267 <ul>
1268   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
1269   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
1270   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso .</li>
1271 </ul>
1272
1273 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 2b161a99d2a848c376d8d04e3854e30c
1274 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 498922e9c508c0a7ee9dbe1dfe5bf830d779c3c8</p>
1275
1276 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
1277 <ul>
1278   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
1279   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
1280   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso .</li>
1281 </ul>
1282
1283 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 25e808e403a4c15dbef1d13c37d572ac
1284 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 15ecfc93eb6b4f453b7eb0bc04b6a279262d9721</p>
1285
1286 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
1287
1288 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
1289
1290       </div>
1291       <div class="tags">
1292
1293
1294         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1295
1296
1297       </div>
1298     </div>
1299     <div class="padding"></div>
1300
1301     <div class="entry">
1302       <div class="title">
1303         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
1304       </div>
1305       <div class="date">
1306         25th June 2013
1307       </div>
1308       <div class="body">
1309         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
1310 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
1311 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
1312 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
1313 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
1314 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
1315 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
1316 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
1317 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
1318 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
1319 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
1320
1321 <p><pre>
1322 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
1323 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
1324 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
1325 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
1326 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
1327 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
1328 firmware-ipw2x00
1329 firmware-ipw2x00
1330 Preconfiguring packages ...
1331 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
1332 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
1333 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
1334 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
1335 #
1336 </pre></p>
1337
1338 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
1339 printed instead:</p>
1340
1341 <p><pre>
1342 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
1343 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
1344 #
1345 </pre></p>
1346
1347 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
1348 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
1349
1350 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
1351 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
1352 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
1353 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
1354 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
1355 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
1356 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
1357 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
1358 machine.</p>
1359
1360 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
1361 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
1362 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
1363 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
1364 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
1365 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
1366
1367       </div>
1368       <div class="tags">
1369
1370
1371         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1372
1373
1374       </div>
1375     </div>
1376     <div class="padding"></div>
1377
1378     <div class="entry">
1379       <div class="title">
1380         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_value_of_a_good_distro_wide_test_suite___.html">The value of a good distro wide test suite...</a>
1381       </div>
1382       <div class="date">
1383         22nd June 2013
1384       </div>
1385       <div class="body">
1386         <p>In the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
1387 Skolelinux</a> project, we include a post-installation test suite,
1388 which check that services are running, working, and return the
1389 expected results.  It runs automatically just after the first boot on
1390 test installations (using test ISOs), but not on production
1391 installations (using non-test ISOs).  It test that the LDAP service is
1392 operating, Kerberos is responding, DNS is replying, file systems are
1393 online resizable, etc, etc.  And it check that the PXE service is
1394 configured, which is the topic of this post.</p>
1395
1396 <p>The last week I've fixed the DVD and USB stick ISOs for our Debian
1397 Edu Wheezy release.  These ISOs are supposed to be able to install a
1398 complete system without any Internet connection, but for that to
1399 happen all the needed packages need to be on them.  Thanks to our test
1400 suite, I discovered that we had forgotten to adjust our PXE setup to
1401 cope with the new names and paths used by the netboot d-i packages.
1402 When Internet connectivity was available, the installer fall back to
1403 using wget to fetch d-i boot images, but when offline it require
1404 working packages to get it working.  And the packages changed name
1405 from debian-installer-6.0-netboot-$arch to
1406 debian-installer-7.0-netboot-$arch, we no longer pulled in the
1407 packages during installation.  Without our test suite, I suspect we
1408 would never have discovered this before release.  Now it is fixed
1409 right after we got the ISOs operational.</p>
1410
1411 <p>Another by-product of the test suite is that we can ask system
1412 administrators with problems getting Debian Edu to work, to run the
1413 test suite using <tt>/usr/sbin/debian-edu-test-install</tt> and see if
1414 any errors are detected.  This usually pinpoint the subsystem causing
1415 the problem.</p>
1416
1417 <p>If you want to help us help kids learn how to share and create,
1418 please join us on
1419 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
1420 irc.debian.org</a> and the
1421 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@</a> mailing
1422 list.</p>
1423
1424       </div>
1425       <div class="tags">
1426
1427
1428         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1429
1430
1431       </div>
1432     </div>
1433     <div class="padding"></div>
1434
1435     <div class="entry">
1436       <div class="title">
1437         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html">Debian Edu interview: Victor Nițu</a>
1438       </div>
1439       <div class="date">
1440         17th June 2013
1441       </div>
1442       <div class="body">
1443         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
1444 Skolelinux</a> distribution have users and contributors all around the
1445 globe.  And a while back, an enterprising young man showed up on
1446 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">our IRC channel
1447 #debian-edu</a> and started asking questions about how Debian Edu
1448 worked.  We answered as good as we could, and even convinced him to
1449 help us with translations.  And today I managed to get an interview
1450 with him, to learn more about him.</p>
1451
1452 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1453
1454 <p>I'm a 25 year old free software enthusiast, living in Romania,
1455 which is also my country of origin. Back in 2009, at a New Year's Eve
1456 party, I had a very nice <strike>beer</strike> discussion with a
1457 friend, when we realized we have no organised Debian community in our
1458 country. A few days later, we put together the infrastructure for such
1459 community and even gathered a nice Debian-ish crowd. Since then, I
1460 began my quest as a free software hacker and activist and I am
1461 constantly trying to cover as much ground as possible on that
1462 field.</p>
1463
1464 <p>A few years ago I founded a small web development company, which
1465 provided me the flexible schedule I needed so much for my
1466 activities. For the last 13 months, I have been the Technical Director
1467 of <a href="http://ceata.org/">Fundația Ceata</a>, which is a free
1468 software activist organisation endorsed by the FSF and the FSFE, and
1469 the only one we have in our country.</p>
1470
1471 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
1472 project?</strong></p>
1473
1474 <p>The idea of participating in the Debian Edu project was a surprise
1475 even to me, since I never used it before I began getting involved in
1476 it. This year I had a great opportunity to deliver a talk on
1477 educational software, and I knew immediately where to look. It was a
1478 love at first sight, since I was previously involved with some of the
1479 technologies the project incorporates, and I rapidly found a lot of
1480 ways to contribute.</p>
1481
1482 <p>My first contributions consisted in translating the installer and
1483 configuration dialogs, then I found some bugs to squash (I still
1484 haven't fixed them yet though), and I even got my eyes on some other
1485 areas where I can prove myself helpful. Since the appetite for free
1486 software in my country is pretty low, I'll be happy to be the first
1487 one around here advocating for the project's adoption in educational
1488 environments, and maybe even get my hands dirty in creating a flavour
1489 for our own needs. I am not used to make very advanced plannings, so
1490 from now on, time will tell what I'll be doing next, but I think I
1491 have a pretty consistent starting point.</p>
1492
1493 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1494 Edu?</strong></p>
1495
1496 <p>Not a long time ago, I was in the position of configuring and
1497 maintaining a LDAP server on some Debian derivative, and I must say it
1498 took me a while. A long time ago, I was maintaining a bigger
1499 Samba-powered infrastructure, and I must say I spent quite a lot of
1500 time on it. I have similar stories about many of the services included
1501 with Skolelinux, and the main advantage I see about it is the
1502 out-of-the box availability of them, making it quite competitive when
1503 it comes to managing a school's network, for example.</p>
1504
1505 <p>Of course, there is more to say about Skolelinux than the
1506 availability of the software included, its flexibility in various
1507 scenarios is something I can't wait to experiment "into the wild" (I
1508 only played with virtual machines so far). And I am sure there is a
1509 lot more I haven't discovered yet about it, being so new within the
1510 project.</p>
1511
1512 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1513 Edu?</strong></p>
1514
1515 <p>As usual, when it comes to Debian Blends, I see as the biggest
1516 disadvantage the lack of a numerous team dedicated to the
1517 project. Every day I see the same names in the changelogs, and I have
1518 a constantly fear of the bus factor in this story.  I'd like to see
1519 Debian Edu advertised more as an entry point into the Debian
1520 ecosystem, especially amongst newcomers and students. IMHO there are a
1521 lot low-hanging fruits in terms of bug squashing, and enough
1522 opportunities to get the feeling of the Debian Project's dynamics. Not
1523 to mention it's a very fun blend to work on!</p>
1524
1525 <p>Derived from the previous statement, is the delay in catching up
1526 with the main Debian release and documentation. This is common though
1527 to all blends and derivatives, but it's an issue we can all work
1528 on.</p>
1529
1530 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1531
1532 <p>I can hardly imagine myself spending a day without Vim, since my
1533 daily routine covers writing code and hacking configuration files. I
1534 am a fan of the Awesome window manager (but I also like the
1535 Enlightenment project a lot!),
1536 <a href="http://www.claws-mail.org/‎">Claws Mail</a> due to its ease of
1537 use and very configurable behaviour. Recently I fell in love with
1538 <a href="https://launchpad.net/redshift">Redshift</a>, which helps me
1539 get through the night without headaches. Of course, there is much more
1540 stuff in this bag, but I'll need a blog on my own for doing this!</p>
1541
1542 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1543 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1544
1545 <p>Well, on this field, I cannot do much more than experiment right
1546 now. So, being far from having a recipe for success, I can only assume
1547 that:</p>
1548
1549 <ul>
1550
1551 <li>schools would like to get rid of proprietary software</li>
1552
1553 <li>students will love the openness of the system, and will want to
1554     experiment with it - maybe we need to harvest the native curiosity
1555     of teenagers more?</li>
1556
1557 <li>there is no "right one" when it comes to strategies, but it would
1558     be useful to have some success stories published somewhere, so
1559     other can get some inspiration from them (I know I'd promote
1560     them!)</li>
1561
1562 <li>more active promotion - talks, conferences, even small school
1563     lectures can do magical things if they encounter at least one
1564     person interested. Who knows who that person might be? ;-)</li>
1565
1566 </ul>
1567
1568 <p>I also see some problems in getting Skolelinux into schools; for
1569 example, in our country we have a great deal of corruption issues, so
1570 it might be hard(er) to fight against proprietary solutions. Also,
1571 people who relied on commercial software for all their lives, would be
1572 very hard to convert against their will.</p>
1573
1574       </div>
1575       <div class="tags">
1576
1577
1578         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
1579
1580
1581       </div>
1582     </div>
1583     <div class="padding"></div>
1584
1585     <div class="entry">
1586       <div class="title">
1587         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html">Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</a>
1588       </div>
1589       <div class="date">
1590         12th June 2013
1591       </div>
1592       <div class="body">
1593         <p>There is a certain cross-over between the
1594 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1595 project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
1596 project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
1597 effort between the projects.  One person with a foot in both camps is
1598 Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
1599
1600 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1601
1602 <p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
1603 days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
1604 getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>
1605
1606 <p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
1607 opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
1608 each other.</p>
1609
1610 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
1611 project?</strong></p>
1612
1613 <p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
1614 first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
1615 [Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
1616 London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
1617 Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
1618 it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
1619 was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
1620 day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
1621 over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
1622 been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
1623 still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
1624 we'll get there one day.</p>
1625
1626 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1627 Edu?</strong></p>
1628
1629 <p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
1630 it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
1631 that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
1632 very high quality work.</p>
1633
1634 <p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
1635 set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
1636 with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
1637 helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
1638 community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>
1639
1640 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1641 Edu?</strong></p>
1642
1643 <p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
1644 separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
1645 what I originally rambled on about)</p>
1646
1647 <p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
1648 project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
1649 think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
1650 content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
1651 on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
1652 years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
1653 concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
1654 more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
1655 myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
1656 currently.</p>
1657
1658 <p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
1659 for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
1660 their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
1661 educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
1662 have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
1663 much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
1664 autonomous.</p>
1665
1666 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1667
1668 <p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
1669 Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
1670 some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
1671 particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
1672 so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>
1673
1674 <p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
1675 git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
1676 which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
1677 while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
1678 Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
1679 it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
1680 up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
1681 X.</p>
1682
1683 <p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
1684 using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
1685 people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
1686 it :p)
1687
1688 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1689 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1690
1691 <p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
1692 many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
1693 don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
1694 that.</p>
1695
1696 <p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
1697 problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
1698 advantage of that.</p>
1699
1700 <p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
1701 some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
1702 Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
1703 general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
1704 Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
1705 that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
1706 best solution for them.</p>
1707
1708 <p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
1709 educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
1710 make a decision that would work for them.</p>
1711
1712       </div>
1713       <div class="tags">
1714
1715
1716         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
1717
1718
1719       </div>
1720     </div>
1721     <div class="padding"></div>
1722
1723     <div class="entry">
1724       <div class="title">
1725         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
1726       </div>
1727       <div class="date">
1728         11th June 2013
1729       </div>
1730       <div class="body">
1731         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
1732 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
1733 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
1734 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
1735 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
1736 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
1737 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
1738 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
1739 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
1740 i915 driver used by the
1741 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
1742 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
1743
1744 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
1745 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
1746 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
1747 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
1748 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
1749
1750 <pre>
1751 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
1752 update-initramfs -u -k all
1753 </pre>
1754
1755 <p>Since March 2012 there is
1756 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
1757 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
1758 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
1759 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
1760 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
1761 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
1762 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
1763 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
1764 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
1765 number.</p>
1766
1767 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
1768 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
1769
1770 <p><pre>
1771 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
1772     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
1773     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
1774  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
1775  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
1776     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
1777  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
1778     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
1779  Latency: 0
1780  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
1781  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
1782  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
1783  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
1784  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
1785  Capabilities: <access denied>
1786  Kernel driver in use: i915
1787 </pre></p>
1788
1789 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
1790
1791 <p><pre>
1792 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
1793        ...
1794         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
1795         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
1796        ...
1797 }
1798 </pre></p>
1799
1800 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
1801 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
1802 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
1803 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
1804 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
1805 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
1806 yet shown up in
1807 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
1808 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
1809 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
1810 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
1811 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
1812 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
1813
1814 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
1815 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
1816 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
1817 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
1818 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
1819 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
1820 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
1821 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
1822 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
1823 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
1824 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
1825 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
1826
1827 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
1828 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
1829 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
1830 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
1831 backlight.</p>
1832
1833       </div>
1834       <div class="tags">
1835
1836
1837         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>.
1838
1839
1840       </div>
1841     </div>
1842     <div class="padding"></div>
1843
1844     <div class="entry">
1845       <div class="title">
1846         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Third alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
1847       </div>
1848       <div class="date">
1849         10th June 2013
1850       </div>
1851       <div class="body">
1852         <p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
1853 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
1854
1855 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
1856 2013-06-10</strong></p>
1857
1858 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
1859 alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
1860
1861 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
1862
1863 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
1864 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
1865 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
1866 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
1867 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
1868 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
1869 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
1870 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
1871 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
1872 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
1873 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
1874 desktop contains
1875 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
1876 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
1877 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
1878 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
1879
1880 <p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
1881 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
1882 Squeeze release.</p>
1883
1884 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
1885
1886 <ul>
1887
1888 <li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
1889 <li>Updated libxv (DSA-2674), libxvmc (DSA-2675), libxfixes (DSA-2676), libxrender (DSA-2677), mesa (DSA-2678), xserver-xorg-video-openchrome (DSA-2679), libxt (DSA-2680), libxcursor (DSA-2681), libxext (DSA-2682), libxi (DSA-2683), libxrandr (DSA-2684), libxp (DSA-2685), libxcb (DSA-2686), libfs (DSA-2687), libxres (DSA-2688), libxtst (DSA-2689), libxxf86dga (DSA-2690), libxinerama (DSA-2691), libxxf86vm (DSA-2692), libx11 (DSA-2693), chromium-browser (DSA-2695), gnutls26 (DSA-2697), wireshark (DSA-2700), krb5 (DSA-2701), telepathy-gabble (DSA-2702) and subversion (DSA-2703).
1890 <li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
1891 <li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
1892 <li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
1893
1894 </ul>
1895
1896 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
1897
1898 <ul>
1899
1900 <li>The subnet-change script is now able to change all files needing a change on the main-server when changing the IP network used.
1901 <li>Updated translation of the installation.
1902 <li>New Romanian translation.
1903 <li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
1904 <li>Fix roaming workstation setup (Closed in libpam-mklocaluser/0.8, libpam-mklocaluser/0.8~deb7u1: #706753: libpam-mklocaluser: Fail to create local user during first login).
1905 <li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
1906 <li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
1907 <li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
1908 <li>More testsuite tests.
1909 <li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
1910 <li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
1911
1912 <li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
1913 LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
1914
1915 <li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
1916 them up with GOsa².</li>
1917
1918 <li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
1919
1920 <li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
1921 slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
1922 entered password). </li>
1923
1924 </ul>
1925
1926 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
1927
1928 <ul>
1929
1930 <li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
1931
1932 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
1933 available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
1934 missing import feature).</li>
1935
1936 <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
1937
1938 <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
1939 own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
1940 unfixed.</li>
1941
1942 </ul>
1943
1944 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
1945
1946 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
1947
1948 <ul>
1949
1950 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
1951
1952 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
1953
1954 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
1955
1956 </ul>
1957
1958 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
1959 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
1960
1961 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
1962
1963 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
1964
1965       </div>
1966       <div class="tags">
1967
1968
1969         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1970
1971
1972       </div>
1973     </div>
1974     <div class="padding"></div>
1975
1976     <div class="entry">
1977       <div class="title">
1978         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_there_a_PHP_expert_in_the_building___Debian_Edu_need_help_.html">Is there a PHP expert in the building?  Debian Edu need help!</a>
1979       </div>
1980       <div class="date">
1981          5th June 2013
1982       </div>
1983       <div class="body">
1984         <p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
1985 We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
1986 hope to get released soon.  The two problems require some with PHP
1987 skills, and we seem to lack anyone with both time and PHP skills in
1988 the project:
1989
1990 <ol>
1991
1992 <li>It is impossible to log into the slbackup web interface
1993   (slbackup-php) using the root user and password.  This is
1994   <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">BTS report #700257</a>.
1995   This used to work, but stopped working some time since Squeeze.
1996   Perhaps some obsolete PHP feature was used?</li>
1997
1998 <li>It is not possible to "mass import" user lists in Gosa, neither
1999   using ldif nor using CSV files.  The feature was disabled after a
2000   major rewrite of Gosa, and need to be ported to the new system.
2001   This is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">BTS report
2002   #698840</a>.</li>
2003
2004 </ol>
2005
2006 <p>If you can help us, please join us on IRC
2007 (<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
2008 irc.debian.org</a>) and provide patches via the BTS.</p>
2009
2010       </div>
2011       <div class="tags">
2012
2013
2014         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2015
2016
2017       </div>
2018     </div>
2019     <div class="padding"></div>
2020
2021     <div class="entry">
2022       <div class="title">
2023         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</a>
2024       </div>
2025       <div class="date">
2026          4th June 2013
2027       </div>
2028       <div class="body">
2029         <p>It has been a while since my last English
2030 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
2031 interview last November.  But the developers and translators are still
2032 pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
2033 time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
2034 in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
2035
2036 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2037
2038 <p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
2039 professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
2040 mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
2041 probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
2042
2043 <p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
2044 and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
2045 packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
2046
2047 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
2048 project?</strong></p>
2049
2050 <p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
2051 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
2052 Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
2053 then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
2054 manual.
2055
2056 <p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
2057 virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
2058 shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
2059 how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
2060
2061 <p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
2062 ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
2063 by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>.  What pleased
2064 me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
2065 there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
2066 to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
2067 artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
2068 <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
2069 movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
2070 <a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
2071
2072 <p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
2073 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
2074 Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
2075 beautiful project.</p>
2076
2077 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2078 Edu?</strong></p>
2079
2080 <p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
2081 community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
2082 fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
2083
2084 <p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
2085 distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
2086 of educational free software.</p>
2087
2088 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2089 Edu?</strong></p>
2090
2091 <p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
2092 project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
2093 not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
2094 solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
2095 is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
2096
2097 <p>One can find support from a company by looking at
2098 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
2099 wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
2100 companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
2101 Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
2102 for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
2103 consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
2104 support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
2105
2106 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2107
2108 <p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
2109 most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
2110 scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice.  I am
2111 also using the mathematical software
2112 <a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about‎">Scilab</a> and
2113 <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html‎">Sage</a> (built from
2114 source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
2115
2116 <p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
2117 using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
2118 statistics?</strong></p>
2119
2120 <p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
2121 university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/‎">R</a> and
2122 Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
2123 geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
2124
2125 <ul>
2126
2127 <li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
2128 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig‎">kig</a> to do
2129 constructions in planar geometry
2130
2131 <li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
2132 to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
2133 groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
2134
2135 </ul>
2136
2137 <p>I like also
2138 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
2139 provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
2140 <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave‎">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
2141
2142 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2143 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2144
2145 <p>My suggestions would be to</p>
2146
2147 <ul>
2148
2149 <li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
2150
2151 <li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
2152     well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
2153     OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
2154
2155 <li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
2156
2157 <li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
2158     system.</li>
2159
2160 </ul>
2161
2162       </div>
2163       <div class="tags">
2164
2165
2166         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
2167
2168
2169       </div>
2170     </div>
2171     <div class="padding"></div>
2172
2173     <div class="entry">
2174       <div class="title">
2175         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">Educational applications included in Debian Edu / Skolelinux (the screenshot collection :-)</a>
2176       </div>
2177       <div class="date">
2178          1st June 2013
2179       </div>
2180       <div class="body">
2181         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2182 Skolelinux</a>, there are quite a lot of educational software.
2183 Created to help teachers teach, and pupils learn.  We have tried to
2184 tag them all using debtags use::learning and role::program, and using
2185 the debtags I was happy to be able to create a collage of the
2186 educational software packages installed by default, sorted by the
2187 debtag field.  Here it is.  Click on a image to learn more about the
2188 program.</p>
2189
2190 <!-- for f in $(debtags tagcat|grep field::|awk '{print $2}'); do   echo; echo "<p><strong>$f</strong></p>"; echo "<p>";   (     for p in $(debtags search --names "use::learning && interface::x11 && role::program && $f"); do img="<img src='http://screenshots.debian.net/thumbnail/$p' alt='$p'>"; if dpkg -s $p > /dev/null 2>&1; then           echo "<a href='http://packages.qa.debian.org/$p'>$img</a>"; fi;     done;   ) | LANG=C sort; echo "</p>"; done -->
2191
2192 <p><strong>field::arts</strong></p>
2193 <p>
2194 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=audacity'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/audacity.png' alt='audacity'></a>
2195 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
2196 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=denemo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/denemo.png' alt='denemo'></a>
2197 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=freebirth'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/freebirth.png' alt='freebirth'></a>
2198 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
2199 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gimp'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gimp.png' alt='gimp'></a>
2200 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=hydrogen'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/hydrogen.png' alt='hydrogen'></a>
2201 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=lilypond'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/lilypond.png' alt='lilypond'></a>
2202 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=lmms'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/lmms.png' alt='lmms'></a>
2203 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=rosegarden'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/rosegarden.png' alt='rosegarden'></a>
2204 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scribus'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scribus.png' alt='scribus'></a>
2205 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=solfege'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/solfege.png' alt='solfege'></a>
2206 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=stopmotion'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/stopmotion.png' alt='stopmotion'></a>
2207 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=tuxpaint'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/tuxpaint.png' alt='tuxpaint'></a>
2208 </p>
2209
2210 <p><strong>field::astronomy</strong></p>
2211 <p>
2212 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=celestia-gnome'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/celestia-gnome.png' alt='celestia-gnome'></a>
2213 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpredict'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gpredict.png' alt='gpredict'></a>
2214 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kstars'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kstars.png' alt='kstars'></a>
2215 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=planets'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/planets.png' alt='planets'></a>
2216 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=stellarium'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/stellarium.png' alt='stellarium'></a>
2217 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xplanet'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xplanet.png' alt='xplanet'></a>
2218 </p>
2219
2220 <p><strong>field::biology:structural</strong></p>
2221 <p>
2222 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=pymol'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/pymol.png' alt='pymol'></a>
2223 </p>
2224
2225 <p><strong>field::chemistry</strong></p>
2226 <p>
2227 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=atomix'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/atomix.png' alt='atomix'></a>
2228 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=chemtool'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/chemtool.png' alt='chemtool'></a>
2229 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=easychem'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/easychem.png' alt='easychem'></a>
2230 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gchempaint'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gchempaint.png' alt='gchempaint'></a>
2231 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gdis'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gdis.png' alt='gdis'></a>
2232 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=ghemical'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/ghemical.png' alt='ghemical'></a>
2233 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gperiodic'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gperiodic.png' alt='gperiodic'></a>
2234 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kalzium'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kalzium.png' alt='kalzium'></a>
2235 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=pymol'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/pymol.png' alt='pymol'></a>
2236 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=viewmol'>[viewmol]</a>
2237 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xdrawchem'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xdrawchem.png' alt='xdrawchem'></a>
2238 </p>
2239
2240 <p><strong>field::electronics</strong></p>
2241 <p>
2242 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
2243 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpsim'>[gpsim]</a>
2244 </p>
2245
2246 <p><strong>field::geography</strong></p>
2247 <p>
2248 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kgeography'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kgeography.png' alt='kgeography'></a>
2249 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=marble'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/marble.png' alt='marble'></a>
2250 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xplanet'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xplanet.png' alt='xplanet'></a>
2251 </p>
2252
2253 <p><strong>field::linguistics</strong></p>
2254 <p>
2255 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
2256 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kanagram'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kanagram.png' alt='kanagram'></a>
2257 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=khangman'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/khangman.png' alt='khangman'></a>
2258 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=klettres'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/klettres.png' alt='klettres'></a>
2259 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=parley'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/parley.png' alt='parley'></a>
2260 </p>
2261
2262 <p><strong>field::mathematics</strong></p>
2263 <p>
2264 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
2265 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=drgeo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/drgeo.png' alt='drgeo'></a>
2266 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
2267 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geogebra'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/geogebra.png' alt='geogebra'></a>
2268 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geomview'>[geomview]</a>
2269 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=grace'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/grace.png' alt='grace'></a>
2270 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=graphmonkey'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/graphmonkey.png' alt='graphmonkey'></a>
2271 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=graphthing'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/graphthing.png' alt='graphthing'></a>
2272 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kalgebra'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kalgebra.png' alt='kalgebra'></a>
2273 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kbruch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kbruch.png' alt='kbruch'></a>
2274 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kig'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kig.png' alt='kig'></a>
2275 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kmplot'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kmplot.png' alt='kmplot'></a>
2276 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=mathwar'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/mathwar.png' alt='mathwar'></a>
2277 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=rocs'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/rocs.png' alt='rocs'></a>
2278 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scratch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scratch.png' alt='scratch'></a>
2279 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=tuxmath'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/tuxmath.png' alt='tuxmath'></a>
2280 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xabacus'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xabacus.png' alt='xabacus'></a>
2281 </p>
2282
2283 <p><strong>field::physics</strong></p>
2284 <p>
2285 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
2286 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=step'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/step.png' alt='step'></a>
2287 </p>
2288
2289 <p><strong>field::TODO</strong></p>
2290 <p>
2291 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=blinken'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/blinken.png' alt='blinken'></a>
2292 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=cgoban'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/cgoban.png' alt='cgoban'></a>
2293 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
2294 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
2295 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gnuchess'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gnuchess.png' alt='gnuchess'></a>
2296 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gnugo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gnugo.png' alt='gnugo'></a>
2297 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gtans'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gtans.png' alt='gtans'></a>
2298 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=ktouch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/ktouch.png' alt='ktouch'></a>
2299 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=librecad'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/librecad.png' alt='librecad'></a>
2300 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scratch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scratch.png' alt='scratch'></a>
2301 </p>
2302
2303 <p>In total, 61 applications.  3 of them lacked screen shots on
2304 <a href="http://screenshot.debian.net">screenshot.debian.net</a>.  If
2305 you know of some packages we should install by default, please let us
2306 know on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu
2307 on irc.debian.org</a>, or our
2308 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">mailing list
2309 debian-edu@</a>.</p>
2310
2311       </div>
2312       <div class="tags">
2313
2314
2315         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2316
2317
2318       </div>
2319     </div>
2320     <div class="padding"></div>
2321
2322     <div class="entry">
2323       <div class="title">
2324         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
2325       </div>
2326       <div class="date">
2327         27th May 2013
2328       </div>
2329       <div class="body">
2330         <p>Two days ago, I asked
2331 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">how
2332 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
2333 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
2334 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
2335 and Windows 8.</p>
2336
2337 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
2338 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
2339 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
2340 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
2341 enough to tell.</p>
2342
2343 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
2344 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
2345 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
2346 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
2347 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
2348 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
2349 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
2350 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
2351 to follow.</p>
2352
2353 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
2354 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
2355 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
2356 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
2357 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
2358 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
2359 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
2360 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
2361
2362 <p>I've updated the
2363 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
2364 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
2365 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
2366 machine.</p>
2367
2368 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
2369 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
2370
2371       </div>
2372       <div class="tags">
2373
2374
2375         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>.
2376
2377
2378       </div>
2379     </div>
2380     <div class="padding"></div>
2381
2382     <div class="entry">
2383       <div class="title">
2384         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
2385       </div>
2386       <div class="date">
2387         25th May 2013
2388       </div>
2389       <div class="body">
2390         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
2391 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
2392 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
2393 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
2394 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
2395 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
2396
2397 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
2398 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
2399 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
2400 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
2401 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
2402 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
2403 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
2404 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
2405 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
2406 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
2407
2408 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
2409 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
2410 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
2411 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
2412 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
2413 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
2414
2415 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
2416 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
2417 on new Laptops?</p>
2418
2419       </div>
2420       <div class="tags">
2421
2422
2423         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>.
2424
2425
2426       </div>
2427     </div>
2428     <div class="padding"></div>
2429
2430     <div class="entry">
2431       <div class="title">
2432         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
2433       </div>
2434       <div class="date">
2435         17th May 2013
2436       </div>
2437       <div class="body">
2438         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
2439 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
2440 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
2441 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
2442 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
2443 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
2444 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
2445 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
2446 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
2447 donate some money</a>.
2448
2449 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
2450 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
2451 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
2452 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
2453 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
2454
2455 <p>The script,
2456 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
2457 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
2458 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
2459 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
2460
2461 <ol>
2462
2463 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
2464 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
2465 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
2466     our configuration.</li>
2467 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
2468     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
2469     according to the profile specified in the config above,
2470     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
2471 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
2472     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
2473 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
2474
2475 </ol>
2476
2477 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
2478 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
2479 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
2480 the needed packages.</p>
2481
2482 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
2483 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
2484 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
2485 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
2486 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
2487 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
2488
2489 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
2490 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
2491 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
2492
2493 <p><pre>
2494 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
2495 DESKTOP="lxde"
2496 </pre></p>
2497
2498 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
2499 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
2500 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
2501 boot.</p>
2502
2503       </div>
2504       <div class="tags">
2505
2506
2507         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>.
2508
2509
2510       </div>
2511     </div>
2512     <div class="padding"></div>
2513
2514     <div class="entry">
2515       <div class="title">
2516         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
2517       </div>
2518       <div class="date">
2519         14th May 2013
2520       </div>
2521       <div class="body">
2522         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2523 project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
2524 release today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
2525
2526 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
2527 2013-05-14</strong></p>
2528
2529 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
2530 alpha1, based on <a href="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a> with
2531 codename "Wheezy".</p>
2532
2533 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
2534
2535 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
2536 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
2537 configured school network. Immediatly after installation a school
2538 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
2539 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
2540 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
2541 initial installation of the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all
2542 other machines can be installed via the network.</p>
2543
2544 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
2545 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
2546 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
2547
2548 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
2549 <ul>
2550   <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
2551     default.</li>
2552   <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
2553   <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
2554   <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
2555     ibus-anthy.</li>
2556 </ul>
2557
2558 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
2559 <ul>
2560
2561   <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
2562     reliability improvements.</li>
2563   <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
2564     of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
2565   <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
2566     problems.</li>
2567   <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
2568     direct:// URL.</li>
2569   <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
2570   <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
2571   <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
2572   <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
2573     servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
2574   <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
2575     log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
2576 </ul>
2577
2578 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
2579 <ul>
2580
2581   <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
2582     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>).  Only install
2583     libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
2584   <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
2585   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
2586     available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
2587   <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
2588   <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
2589   <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
2590     (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
2591   <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
2592     password submission problem
2593     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
2594
2595 </ul>
2596
2597 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
2598
2599 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
2600 <ul>
2601
2602   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</a></li>
2603   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</a></li>
2604   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</li>
2605
2606 </ul>
2607
2608 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
2609
2610 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</p>
2611
2612 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
2613
2614 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
2615
2616       </div>
2617       <div class="tags">
2618
2619
2620         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2621
2622
2623       </div>
2624     </div>
2625     <div class="padding"></div>
2626
2627     <div class="entry">
2628       <div class="title">
2629         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
2630       </div>
2631       <div class="date">
2632         11th May 2013
2633       </div>
2634       <div class="body">
2635         <P>In January,
2636 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
2637 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
2638 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
2639 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
2640 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
2641 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
2642 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
2643 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
2644 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
2645 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
2646 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
2647 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
2648
2649 <p><table>
2650 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos">brickos</a></td><td>alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++</td></tr>
2651 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
2652 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt">libnxt</a></td><td>utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX</td></tr>
2653 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
2654 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
2655 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
2656 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt">python-nxt</a></td><td>python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot</td></tr>
2657 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer">python-nxt-filer</a></td><td>simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT</td></tr>
2658 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch">scratch</a></td><td>easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up</td></tr>
2659 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
2660 </table></p>
2661
2662 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
2663 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
2664 available in experimental.</p>
2665
2666 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
2667 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
2668 for LEGO designers.</p>
2669
2670       </div>
2671       <div class="tags">
2672
2673
2674         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
2675
2676
2677       </div>
2678     </div>
2679     <div class="padding"></div>
2680
2681     <div class="entry">
2682       <div class="title">
2683         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
2684       </div>
2685       <div class="date">
2686          5th May 2013
2687       </div>
2688       <div class="body">
2689         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
2690 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
2691 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
2692 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
2693 soon.</p>
2694
2695 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
2696 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
2697 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
2698 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
2699 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
2700 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
2701 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
2702 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
2703 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
2704 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
2705 Edu.</a>
2706
2707 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
2708 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
2709 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
2710 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
2711 follow.<p>
2712
2713       </div>
2714       <div class="tags">
2715
2716
2717         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>.
2718
2719
2720       </div>
2721     </div>
2722     <div class="padding"></div>
2723
2724     <div class="entry">
2725       <div class="title">
2726         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
2727       </div>
2728       <div class="date">
2729         26th April 2013
2730       </div>
2731       <div class="body">
2732         <p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
2733 its first Wheezy based release today.  This is the release
2734 announcement:</p>
2735
2736 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu ~7.0.0 alpha0 released
2737 2013-04-26</strong></p>
2738
2739 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
2740 edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
2741
2742 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
2743
2744 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
2745 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
2746 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
2747 network. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
2748 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
2749 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
2750 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
2751 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
2752 installed via the network.</p>
2753
2754 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
2755 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
2756 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
2757
2758 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
2759
2760 <ul>
2761 <li>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
2762   <ul>
2763      <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
2764      <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
2765          (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
2766          manual.)</li>
2767      <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
2768      <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
2769      <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
2770      <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
2771      <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
2772      <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
2773      <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
2774      <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
2775      <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
2776      <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
2777      <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
2778      <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
2779          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
2780          manual</a> for more details.</li>
2781      <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
2782          installation.</li>
2783      <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
2784          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/releasenotes">release notes</a> and the <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation manual</a>.</li>
2785   </ul></li>
2786 </ul>
2787
2788 <p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
2789 <ul>
2790 <li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
2791     German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
2792     for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
2793 </ul>
2794
2795 <p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
2796 <ul>
2797 <li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
2798     choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
2799     server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
2800 </ul>
2801
2802 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
2803 <ul>
2804 <li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
2805     configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
2806     entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
2807 <li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
2808     functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
2809     completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
2810 </ul>
2811
2812 <p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
2813 <ul>
2814 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
2815     yet.</li>
2816 </ul>
2817
2818 <p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
2819
2820 <ul>
2821 <li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
2822     screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
2823     had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
2824 </ul>
2825
2826 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
2827
2828 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
2829 <ul>
2830 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
2831 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
2832 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
2833 </ul>
2834
2835 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
2836
2837 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
2838
2839 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
2840
2841 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
2842
2843       </div>
2844       <div class="tags">
2845
2846
2847         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2848
2849
2850       </div>
2851     </div>
2852     <div class="padding"></div>
2853
2854     <div class="entry">
2855       <div class="title">
2856         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_developer_gathering_in_2013_take_place_in_Trondheim.html">First Debian Edu / Skolelinux developer gathering in 2013 take place in Trondheim</a>
2857       </div>
2858       <div class="date">
2859         16th April 2013
2860       </div>
2861       <div class="body">
2862         <p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
2863 Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
2864 Details about the gathering can be found
2865 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
2866 the FRiSK wiki</a>.  The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
2867 participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
2868 and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
2869 weekend.</p>
2870
2871 <p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
2872 infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
2873 Edu release.</p>
2874
2875 <p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
2876
2877       </div>
2878       <div class="tags">
2879
2880
2881         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2882
2883
2884       </div>
2885     </div>
2886     <div class="padding"></div>
2887
2888     <div class="entry">
2889       <div class="title">
2890         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
2891       </div>
2892       <div class="date">
2893          3rd April 2013
2894       </div>
2895       <div class="body">
2896         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
2897 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
2898 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
2899 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
2900
2901 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
2902 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
2903 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
2904 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
2905 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
2906 BTS. :)</p>
2907
2908       </div>
2909       <div class="tags">
2910
2911
2912         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2913
2914
2915       </div>
2916     </div>
2917     <div class="padding"></div>
2918
2919     <div class="entry">
2920       <div class="title">
2921         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Change_the_font__save_the_world__and_save_some_money_in_the_process_.html">Change the font, save the world (and save some money in the process)</a>
2922       </div>
2923       <div class="date">
2924         26th March 2013
2925       </div>
2926       <div class="body">
2927         <p>Would you like to help the environment and save money at the same
2928 time, without much sacrifice?  A small step could be to change the
2929 font you use when printing.</p>
2930
2931 <p>Three years ago,
2932 <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/04/last-year-printer-comparison-website/">Ars
2933 Technica</a> reported how the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
2934 changed their default front from
2935 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial">Arial</a> to
2936 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic">Century
2937 Gothic</a> to save money.  The Century Gothic font uses 30% less toner
2938 than Arial to print the same text.  In other word, you could cut your
2939 toner costs by 30% (or actually, increase your toner supply life time
2940 by more than 30%), by simply changing the default font used in your
2941 prints.</p>
2942
2943 <p>But it is not quite obvious how much one will save by switching.
2944 The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay said it used $100,000 per year
2945 on ink and toner cartridges, according to
2946 <a href="http://www.twincities.com/ci_14833097">a report from
2947 TwinCities.com</a>, and expected to save between $5,000 and $10,000
2948 per year by asking staff and students to use a different font.  Not
2949 all PDFs and documents are created internally, and those from external
2950 sources will most likely still use a different font.  Also, the
2951 Century Gothic font is slightly wider than Arial, and thus might use
2952 more sheets of paper to print the same text, so the total saving
2953 depend on the documents printed.</p>
2954
2955 <p>But it is definitely something to consider, if you want to reduce
2956 the amount of trash, decrease the amount of toner used in the world,
2957 and save some money in the process.</p>
2958
2959 <p>Update 2013-04-10: If you want to know how much ink/toner could be
2960 saved when switching between fonts, Inkfarm got a
2961 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/What-the-Font">service to calculate the
2962 difference between font pairs</a>.  They also
2963 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/Recommended-Ink-Saving-Fonts---">recommend
2964 which fonts to use</a> to save ink.  Check it out. :) While updating
2965 this blog post, I also came across a blog post from InkCloners,
2966 <a href="http://inkcloners.com/blog/ink-cartridges/change-fonts-to-save-ink-costs/">listing
2967 the fonts they recommend</a>, with Centory Gothic at the top.</p>
2968
2969       </div>
2970       <div class="tags">
2971
2972
2973         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2974
2975
2976       </div>
2977     </div>
2978     <div class="padding"></div>
2979
2980     <div class="entry">
2981       <div class="title">
2982         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Typesetting_a_short_story_using_docbook_for_PDF__HTML_and_EPUB.html">Typesetting a short story using docbook for PDF, HTML and EPUB</a>
2983       </div>
2984       <div class="date">
2985         24th March 2013
2986       </div>
2987       <div class="body">
2988         <p>A few days ago, during a discussion in
2989 <a href="http://www.efn.no/">EFN</a> about interesting books to read
2990 about copyright and the data retention directive, a suggestion to read
2991 the 1968 short story Kodémus by
2992 <a href="http://web2.gyldendal.no/toraage/">Tore Åge Bringsværd</a>
2993 came up.  The text was only available in old paper books, and thus not
2994 easily available for current and future generations.  Some of the
2995 people participating in the discussion contacted the author, and
2996 reported back 2013-03-19 that the author was OK with releasing the
2997 short story using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative
2998 Commons</a> license.  The text was quickly scanned and OCR-ed, and we
2999 were ready to start on the editing and typesetting.</p>
3000
3001 <p>As I already had some experience formatting text in my project to
3002 provide a Norwegian version of the Free Culture book by Lawrence
3003 Lessig, I chipped in and set up a
3004 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook</a> processing framework to
3005 generate PDF, HTML and EPUB version of the short story.  The tools to
3006 transform DocBook to different formats are already in my Linux
3007 distribution of choice, <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, so
3008 all I had to do was to use the
3009 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a>,
3010 <a href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/epub/README">dbtoepub</a>
3011 and <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/xmlto/">xmlto</a> tools to do the
3012 conversion.  After a few days, we decided to replace dblatex with
3013 xsltproc/fop (aka
3014 <a href="http://wiki.docbook.org/DocBookXslStylesheets">docbook-xsl</a>),
3015 to get the copyright information to show up in the PDF and to get a
3016 nicer &lt;variablelist&gt; typesetting, but that is just a minor
3017 technical detail.</p>
3018
3019 <p>There were a few challenges, of course.  We want to typeset the
3020 short story to look like the original, and that require fairly good
3021 control over the layout.  The original short story have three
3022 parts/scenes separated by a single horizontally centred star (*), and
3023 the paragraphs do not contain only flowing text, but dialogs and text
3024 that started on a new line in the middle of the paragraph.</p>
3025
3026 <p>I initially solved the first challenge by using a paragraph with a
3027 single star in it, ie &lt;para&gt;*&lt;/para&gt;, but it made sure a
3028 placeholder indicated where the scene shifted.  This did not look too
3029 good without the centring.  The next approach was to create a new
3030 preprocessor directive &lt;?newscene?&gt;, mapping to "&lt;hr/&gt;"
3031 for HTML and "&lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;&lt;fo:leader
3032 leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;&lt;/fo:block&gt;"
3033 for FO/PDF output (did not try to implement this in dblatex, as we had
3034 switched at this time).  The HTML XSL file looked like this:</p>
3035
3036 <p><blockquote><pre>
3037 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
3038 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
3039   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
3040     &lt;hr/&gt;
3041   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
3042 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
3043 </pre></blockquote></p>
3044
3045 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
3046
3047 <p><blockquote><pre>
3048 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
3049 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
3050   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
3051     &lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;
3052       &lt;fo:leader leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;
3053     &lt;/fo:block&gt;
3054   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
3055 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
3056 </pre></blockquote></p>
3057
3058 <p>Finally, I came across the &lt;bridgehead&gt; tag, which seem to be
3059 a good fit for the task at hand, and I replaced &lt;?newscene?&gt;
3060 with &lt;bridgehead&gt;*&lt;/bridgehead&gt;.  It isn't centred, but we
3061 can fix it with some XSL rule if the current visual layout isn't
3062 enough.</p>
3063
3064 <p>I did not find a good DocBook compliant way to solve the
3065 linebreak/paragraph challenge, so I ended up creating a new processor
3066 directive &lt;?linebreak?&gt;, mapping to &lt;br/&gt; in HTML, and
3067 &lt;fo:block/&gt; in FO/PDF.  I suspect there are better ways to do
3068 this, and welcome ideas and patches on github.  The HTML XSL file now
3069 look like this:</p>
3070
3071 <p><blockquote><pre>
3072 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
3073 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
3074   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
3075     &lt;br/&gt;
3076   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
3077 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
3078 </pre></blockquote></p>
3079
3080 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
3081
3082 <p><blockquote><pre>
3083 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
3084 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'
3085   xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"&gt;
3086   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
3087     &lt;fo:block/&gt;
3088   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
3089 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
3090 </pre></blockquote></p>
3091
3092 <p>One unsolved challenge is our wish to expose different ISBN numbers
3093 per publication format, while keeping all of them in some conditional
3094 structure in the DocBook source.  No idea how to do this, so we ended
3095 up listing all the ISBN numbers next to their format in the colophon
3096 page.</p>
3097
3098 <p>If you want to check out the finished result, check out the
3099 <a href="https://github.com/sickel/kodemus">source repository at
3100 github</a>
3101 (<a href="https://github.com/EFN/kodemus">future/new/official
3102 repository</a>).  We expect it to be ready and announced in a few
3103 days.</p>
3104
3105       </div>
3106       <div class="tags">
3107
3108
3109         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
3110
3111
3112       </div>
3113     </div>
3114     <div class="padding"></div>
3115
3116     <div class="entry">
3117       <div class="title">
3118         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_6_got_a_video_review_from_Pcwizz.html">Skolelinux 6 got a video review from Pcwizz</a>
3119       </div>
3120       <div class="date">
3121         17th March 2013
3122       </div>
3123       <div class="body">
3124         <p>Via
3125 <a href="https://twitter.com/pcwizz/status/313044373262716930">twitter</a>
3126 I just discovered that <a href="http://pcwizz.net/">Pcwizz</a> have
3127 done a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzTZ61Pcuc">video
3128 review</a> on Youtube of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
3129 / Debian Edu</a> version 6.  He installed the standalone profile and
3130 the video show a walk-through of of the menu content, demonstration of
3131 a few programs and his view of our distribution.</p>
3132
3133 <p>There is also some really nice quotes (transcribed by me, might
3134 have heard wrong).  While looking thought the Graphics menu:</p>
3135
3136 <blockquote>
3137 "Basically everything you ever need in a school environment."
3138 </blockquote>
3139
3140 <p>And as a general evaluation of the entire distribution:</p>
3141
3142 <blockquote>
3143 "So, yeah, a bit bloated.  It kept all the Debian stuff in there, just
3144 to keep it nice and GNU.  So, I do not want to go on about it, but
3145 lets give it 7 out of 10.  I am not going to use it.  That is because
3146 I am not deploying a school network.  There may be some mythical
3147 feature to help you deploy Skolelinux on a school network."
3148 </blockquote>
3149
3150 <p>To bad he did not test the server profile, and discovered the PXE
3151 installation option.  It make it possible to install only the main
3152 server from CD, and the rest of the machines via the net, and might be
3153 considered the mythical feature he talk about. :)</p>
3154
3155 <p>While looking through the menus, there is also this funny comment
3156 about the part of the K menu generated from the Debian menu subsystem:
3157
3158 <blockquote>
3159 "[The K menu] have a special Debian section for software that no-one
3160 is going to look at, because it contain lots of junky stuff that you
3161 actually don't need in the education distribution, but have just been
3162 included because it isn't stripped out for some reason."
3163 </blockquote>
3164
3165 <p>I guess it is yet another argument for merging the Debian menu and
3166 Gnome/KDE desktop menu entries into
3167 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries">one
3168 consistent menu system</a> instead of two incomplete and partly
3169 inconsistent menu systems.</p>
3170
3171 <p>The entire video is available below for those accepting iframe
3172 embedding:</p>
3173
3174 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPzTZ61Pcuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
3175
3176       </div>
3177       <div class="tags">
3178
3179
3180         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
3181
3182
3183       </div>
3184     </div>
3185     <div class="padding"></div>
3186
3187     <div class="entry">
3188       <div class="title">
3189         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_update_released.html">First Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze update released</a>
3190       </div>
3191       <div class="date">
3192          8th March 2013
3193       </div>
3194       <div class="body">
3195         <p>Last Sunday, 2013-03-03,, Holger Levsen announced the first update
3196 of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
3197 based on Debian Squeeze.  This is the first update since
3198 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
3199 initial release 2012-03-11</a>.  This is the
3200 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2013/03/msg00000.html">release
3201 announcement email from Holger</a>:</p>
3202
3203 <blockquote><p>Hi,</p>
3204
3205 <p>it's my pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Debian
3206 Edu 6.0.7+r1 ("Debian Edu Squeeze").</p>
3207
3208 <p>Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 is an incremental update to Debian Edu
3209 6.0.4+r0, containing all the changes between Debian 6.0.4 and 6.0.7 as
3210 well Debian Edu specific bugfixes and enhancements. See below (in this
3211 mail) for the full list of (edu) changes.  Please see
3212 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311">http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311</a>
3213 for more information on "Debian Edu Squeeze".</p>
3214
3215 <p>Images are available for download at
3216 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/</a></p>
3217
3218 <p>md5sums:
3219 <br>1fe79eb4f0f9ae1c58fc318e26cc1e2e  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
3220 <br>a6ddd924a8bd9a1b5ca122e8fe1c34ec  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
3221 <br>ac6c72cd7925ccec51bfbf58e2a7c69c  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
3222
3223 <p>sha1sums:
3224 <br>a4b58233b672a99c7df8dc24fb6de3327654a5c3  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
3225 <br>9b524915e0ff2aa793f13d93123e5bd2bab2dbaa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
3226 <br>43997614893fc5e9e59ad6ce066b05d07fd836fa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
3227
3228 <p>These images are suitable for amd64+i386.</p>
3229
3230 <p>Changes for Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 Codename "Squeeze", released
3231 2013-03-03:</p>
3232
3233 <ul>
3234   <li>sitesummary was updated from 0.1.3 to 0.1.8
3235   <ul>
3236         <li>Make Nagios configuration more robust and efficient</li>
3237         <li>Comply with 3.X kernel</li>
3238   </ul></li>
3239   <li>debian-edu-doc from 1.4~20120310~6.0.4+r0 to 1.4~20130228~6.0.7+r1
3240   <ul>
3241         <li>Minor updates from the wiki</li>
3242         <li>Danish translation now complete</li>
3243   </ul></li>
3244   <li>debian-edu-config from 1.453 to 1.455
3245      <ul>
3246         <li>Fix /etc/hosts for LTSP diskless workstations. Closes: #699880</li>
3247         <li>Make ltsp_local_mount script work for multiple devices.</li>
3248         <li>Correct Kerberos user policy: don't expire password after 2 days.
3249                 Closes: #664596</li>
3250         <li>Handle '#' characters in the root or first users password.
3251                 Closes: #664976</li>
3252         <li>Fixes for gosa-sync:
3253            <ul>
3254                 <li>Don't fail if password contains "</li>
3255                 <li>Don't disclose new password string in syslog</li>
3256            </ul></li>
3257         <li>Fixes for gosa-create:
3258            <ul>
3259                 <li>Invalidate libnss cache before applying changes</li>
3260                 <li>Multiple failures during mass user import into GOsa²</li>
3261                 <li>gosa-netgroups plugin: don't erase entries of attribute type
3262                          "memberNisNetgroup". Closes: #687256</li>
3263                 <li>First user now uses the same Kerberos policy as all other users</li>
3264            </ul></li>
3265         <li>Add Danish web page</li>
3266     </ul>
3267   <li>debian-edu-install from 1.528 to 1.530
3268     <ul>
3269         <li>Improve preseeding support and documentation</li>
3270     </ul></li>
3271 </ul>
3272
3273 <p>End-user documentation in English is available at
3274 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/</a>
3275 - translations to French, Italian, Danish and German are available in
3276 the debian-edu-doc package. (Other languages could use your help!)</p>
3277
3278 <p>If you want to contribute to Debian Edu, please join our
3279 mailinglist
3280 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@lists.debian.org</a>!
3281 </p></blockquote>
3282
3283 <p>I am very happy to see the fruits of a year of hard work. :)</p>
3284
3285       </div>
3286       <div class="tags">
3287
3288
3289         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3290
3291
3292       </div>
3293     </div>
3294     <div class="padding"></div>
3295
3296     <div class="entry">
3297       <div class="title">
3298         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen___Complete_TV_station_organised_using_the_web.html">Frikanalen - Complete TV station organised using the web</a>
3299       </div>
3300       <div class="date">
3301          3rd March 2013
3302       </div>
3303       <div class="body">
3304         <p>Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and
3305 broadcast them on the air?  Using free software?  With video on demand
3306 support using
3307 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
3308 open standards</a>?  Included a web based video stream as well?  And
3309 administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world?  A
3310 few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel
3311 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> have been building a
3312 system to do just this.  The source code for the solution is licensed
3313 using the GNU LGPL, and
3314 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from github</a>.</p>
3315
3316 <p>The idea is simple.  You upload a video file over the web, and
3317 attach meta information to the file.  You select a time slot in the
3318 program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and
3319 in the web stream.  It is also made available in a video on demand
3320 solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time.  All
3321 you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.</p>
3322
3323 <p>There are several parts to this web based solution.  I'll mention
3324 the three most important ones.  The first part is the database of
3325 videos and the schedule.  This is written in Django and include a REST
3326 API.  The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to
3327 PostgreSQL.  At the moment this system can be tested on
3328 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/">beta.frikanalen.tv</a>.  The
3329 second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from
3330 the database and providing a video stream to broadcast.  This is done
3331 using <a href="http://www.casparcg.com/">CasparCG from SVT</a> and
3332 <a href="http://www.mltframework.org/">Media Lovin' Toolkit</a>.  Video
3333 signal distribution is handled using
3334 <a href="http://www.ob-encoder.com/">Open Broadcast Encoder</a>.  The
3335 third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded
3336 video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video
3337 on demand.  It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet
3338 decided what it will end up using.  Note that the source of the latter
3339 two parts are not yet pushed to github.  The lead author want to clean
3340 them up a bit more first.</p>
3341
3342 <p>The development is coordinated on the
3343 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23frikanalen">#frikanalen IRC
3344 channel</a> (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on
3345 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/frikanalen">the
3346 frikanalen mailing list</a>. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim
3347 (phed on IRC).  Anyone is welcome to participate in the
3348 development.</p>
3349
3350       </div>
3351       <div class="tags">
3352
3353
3354         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
3355
3356
3357       </div>
3358     </div>
3359     <div class="padding"></div>
3360
3361     <div class="entry">
3362       <div class="title">
3363         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dr__Richard_Stallman__founder_of_Free_Software_Foundation__give_a_talk_in_Oslo_March_1st_2013.html">Dr. Richard Stallman, founder of Free Software Foundation, give a talk in Oslo March 1st 2013</a>
3364       </div>
3365       <div class="date">
3366         27th February 2013
3367       </div>
3368       <div class="body">
3369         <p>Dr. <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a>,
3370 founder of <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>,
3371 is giving <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">a
3372 talk in Oslo March 1st 2013 17:00 to 19:00</a>.  The event is public
3373 and organised by <a href="">Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG)</a>
3374 (where I am the chair of the board) and
3375 <a href="http://www.friprog.no/">The Norwegian Open Source Competence
3376 Center</a>.  The title of the talk is «The Free Software Movement and
3377 GNU», with this description:
3378
3379 <p><blockquote>
3380 The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to
3381 cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement
3382 developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the
3383 kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.
3384 </blockquote></p>
3385
3386 <p>The meeting is open for everyone.  Due to space limitations, the
3387 doors opens for NUUG members at 16:15, and everyone else at 16:45.  I
3388 am really curious how many will show up.  See
3389 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">the event
3390 page</a> for the location details.</p>
3391
3392       </div>
3393       <div class="tags">
3394
3395
3396         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
3397
3398
3399       </div>
3400     </div>
3401     <div class="padding"></div>
3402
3403     <div class="entry">
3404       <div class="title">
3405         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikart___Free_Garmin_maps_for_European_countries_based_on_OpenStreetmap.html">Frikart - Free Garmin maps for European countries based on OpenStreetmap</a>
3406       </div>
3407       <div class="date">
3408         15th February 2013
3409       </div>
3410       <div class="body">
3411         <p>If you, like me, want an updated a map for your Garmin GPS, there is
3412 now a great source of free maps available from
3413 <a href="http://www.frikart.no/garmin/index.html">Frikart</a>.  To
3414 download a map, just click on the country you are interested in, and
3415 download the map type you want.  There are 8 different maps available,
3416 using different colours and data selection.  Pick one of Roadmap, Topo
3417 Summer, Topo Winter, Roadmap II, Topo Summer II, Topo Winter II,
3418 "Trails - overlay map" and "Cross country - overlay map" (see the web
3419 page for descriptions).</p>
3420
3421 <p>The maps are updated weekly, so if you find something wrong in the
3422 map you can just edit the
3423 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> map source
3424 (anyone can contribute) and fetch a fixed map a week later. :)</p>
3425
3426       </div>
3427       <div class="tags">
3428
3429
3430         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>.
3431
3432
3433       </div>
3434     </div>
3435     <div class="padding"></div>
3436
3437     <div class="entry">
3438       <div class="title">
3439         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Electronic__paper_invoices___using_vCard_in_a_QR_code.html">"Electronic" paper invoices - using vCard in a QR code</a>
3440       </div>
3441       <div class="date">
3442         12th February 2013
3443       </div>
3444       <div class="body">
3445         <p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
3446 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
3447 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
3448 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
3449 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
3450 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
3451 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
3452 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
3453 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
3454 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
3455 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
3456 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
3457 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
3458 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
3459 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
3460 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
3461
3462 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
3463 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
3464 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
3465 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
3466 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
3467 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
3468 fields:</p>
3469
3470 <p><pre>
3471 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
3472 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
3473 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
3474 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
3475 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
3476 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
3477 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
3478 </pre></p>
3479
3480 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
3481 answer regarding
3482 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
3483 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
3484 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
3485 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
3486
3487 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
3488
3489 <p><pre>
3490 BEGIN:VCARD
3491 VERSION:2.1
3492 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
3493 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
3494 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
3495 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
3496 REV:20130212T095000Z
3497 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
3498 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
3499 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
3500 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
3501 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
3502 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
3503 END:VCARD
3504 </pre></p>
3505
3506 <p>The resulting QR code created using
3507 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
3508 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
3509 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
3510 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
3511 system.</p>
3512
3513 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
3514
3515 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
3516 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
3517 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
3518 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
3519
3520 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
3521 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
3522
3523       </div>
3524       <div class="tags">
3525
3526
3527         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>.
3528
3529
3530       </div>
3531     </div>
3532     <div class="padding"></div>
3533
3534     <div class="entry">
3535       <div class="title">
3536         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sleep_until_morning___home_automation_for_the_kids.html">Sleep until morning - home automation for the kids</a>
3537       </div>
3538       <div class="date">
3539         10th February 2013
3540       </div>
3541       <div class="body">
3542         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
3543
3544 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
3545 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
3546 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
3547 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
3548 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
3549 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
3550 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
3551 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
3552 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
3553 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
3554 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
3555
3556 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
3557 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
3558 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
3559 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
3560 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
3561 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
3562 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
3563 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
3564 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
3565 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
3566 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
3567 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
3568 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
3569 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
3570 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
3571 ones own
3572 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
3573 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
3574 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
3575 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
3576 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
3577 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
3578 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
3579 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
3580 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
3581 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
3582 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
3583
3584 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
3585 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
3586 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
3587 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
3588 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
3589 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
3590
3591 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
3592 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
3593 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
3594
3595       </div>
3596       <div class="tags">
3597
3598
3599         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3600
3601
3602       </div>
3603     </div>
3604     <div class="padding"></div>
3605
3606     <div class="entry">
3607       <div class="title">
3608         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
3609       </div>
3610       <div class="date">
3611          2nd February 2013
3612       </div>
3613       <div class="body">
3614         <p>My
3615 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
3616 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
3617 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
3618 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
3619 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
3620 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
3621 version too.</p>
3622
3623 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
3624 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
3625 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
3626 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
3627 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
3628 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
3629 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
3630 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
3631
3632 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
3633 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
3634 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
3635 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
3636 it. :)</p>
3637
3638 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3639 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3640 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3641
3642       </div>
3643       <div class="tags">
3644
3645
3646         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>.
3647
3648
3649       </div>
3650     </div>
3651     <div class="padding"></div>
3652
3653     <div class="entry">
3654       <div class="title">
3655         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
3656       </div>
3657       <div class="date">
3658         22nd January 2013
3659       </div>
3660       <div class="body">
3661         <p>Yesterday, I
3662 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
3663 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
3664 pluggable hardware devices, which I
3665 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
3666 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
3667 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
3668 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
3669 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
3670 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
3671 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
3672 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
3673 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
3674 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
3675
3676 <pre>
3677 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
3678 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
3679 </pre>
3680
3681 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
3682 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
3683 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
3684 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
3685
3686 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
3687 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
3688 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
3689 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
3690 word.</p>
3691
3692 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
3693 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
3694 process.</p>
3695
3696 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
3697 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
3698
3699       </div>
3700       <div class="tags">
3701
3702
3703         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
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/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
3713       </div>
3714       <div class="date">
3715         21st January 2013
3716       </div>
3717       <div class="body">
3718         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
3719 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
3720 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
3721 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
3722 it, fetch the
3723 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
3724 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
3725 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
3726 autostart script.</p>
3727
3728 <p>The design is simple:</p>
3729
3730 <ul>
3731
3732 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
3733 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
3734
3735 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
3736 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
3737 initially did.</li>
3738
3739 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
3740 the APT database, a database
3741 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
3742 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
3743
3744 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
3745 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
3746 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
3747 package or packages.</li>
3748
3749 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
3750 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
3751
3752 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
3753 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
3754
3755 </ul>
3756
3757 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
3758 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
3759 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
3760 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
3761
3762 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
3763 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
3764 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
3765 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
3766 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
3767
3768 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
3769 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
3770 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
3771 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
3772 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
3773 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
3774 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
3775 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
3776
3777 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
3778 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
3779 '<tt>svn checkout
3780 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
3781 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
3782 devscripts package.</p>
3783
3784 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
3785 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
3786 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
3787 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
3788 instructions</a> for details.</p>
3789
3790       </div>
3791       <div class="tags">
3792
3793
3794         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3795
3796
3797       </div>
3798     </div>
3799     <div class="padding"></div>
3800
3801     <div class="entry">
3802       <div class="title">
3803         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
3804       </div>
3805       <div class="date">
3806         19th January 2013
3807       </div>
3808       <div class="body">
3809         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
3810 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
3811 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
3812 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
3813 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
3814 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
3815 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
3816 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
3817 not a durable solution.
3818
3819 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
3820 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
3821
3822 <ul>
3823
3824 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
3825   than A4).</li>
3826 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
3827 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
3828 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
3829 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
3830 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
3831 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
3832 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
3833 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
3834 size).</li>
3835 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
3836   X.org packages.</li>
3837 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
3838   the time).
3839
3840 </ul>
3841
3842 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
3843 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
3844 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
3845 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
3846 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
3847 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
3848 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
3849 still be useful.</p>
3850
3851 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
3852 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
3853 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
3854 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
3855 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
3856 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
3857
3858       </div>
3859       <div class="tags">
3860
3861
3862         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>.
3863
3864
3865       </div>
3866     </div>
3867     <div class="padding"></div>
3868
3869     <div class="entry">
3870       <div class="title">
3871         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html">How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</a>
3872       </div>
3873       <div class="date">
3874         18th January 2013
3875       </div>
3876       <div class="body">
3877         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
3878 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
3879 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
3880 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
3881 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
3882 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
3883 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
3884
3885 <pre>
3886 #!/usr/bin/python
3887 import sys
3888 import apt
3889 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3890     cache = apt.Cache()
3891     cache.open(None)
3892     thepkgs = []
3893     for pkg in cache:
3894         version = pkg.candidate
3895         if version is None:
3896             version = pkg.installed
3897         if version is None:
3898             continue
3899         record = version.record
3900         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
3901             continue
3902         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
3903         for t in mime_types:
3904             t = t.rstrip().strip()
3905             if t == mimetype:
3906                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
3907     return thepkgs
3908 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
3909 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
3910     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
3911 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
3912 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
3913     print "  %s" %pkg
3914 </pre>
3915
3916 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
3917
3918 <pre>
3919 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
3920 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
3921   gecko-mediaplayer
3922 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
3923 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
3924   browser-plugin-gnash
3925 %
3926 </pre>
3927
3928 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
3929 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
3930 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
3931 anyone working on adding it?</p>
3932
3933 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
3934 request for icweasel support for this feature is
3935 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
3936 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
3937 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
3938 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
3939
3940       </div>
3941       <div class="tags">
3942
3943
3944         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>.
3945
3946
3947       </div>
3948     </div>
3949     <div class="padding"></div>
3950
3951     <div class="entry">
3952       <div class="title">
3953         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
3954       </div>
3955       <div class="date">
3956         16th January 2013
3957       </div>
3958       <div class="body">
3959         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
3960 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
3961 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
3962 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
3963 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
3964 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
3965 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
3966 downloaded by the browser.</p>
3967
3968 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
3969 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
3970 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
3971 can be found on the
3972 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
3973 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
3974 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
3975 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
3976 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
3977
3978 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
3979
3980 <pre>
3981   count MIME type
3982   ----- -----------------------
3983      32 text/plain
3984      30 audio/mpeg
3985      29 image/png
3986      28 image/jpeg
3987      27 application/ogg
3988      26 audio/x-mp3
3989      25 image/tiff
3990      25 image/gif
3991      22 image/bmp
3992      22 audio/x-wav
3993      20 audio/x-flac
3994      19 audio/x-mpegurl
3995      18 video/x-ms-asf
3996      18 audio/x-musepack
3997      18 audio/x-mpeg
3998      18 application/x-ogg
3999      17 video/mpeg
4000      17 audio/x-scpls
4001      17 audio/ogg
4002      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4003 </pre>
4004
4005 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
4006
4007 <pre>
4008   count MIME type
4009   ----- -----------------------
4010      33 text/plain
4011      32 image/png
4012      32 image/jpeg
4013      29 audio/mpeg
4014      27 image/gif
4015      26 image/tiff
4016      26 application/ogg
4017      25 audio/x-mp3
4018      22 image/bmp
4019      21 audio/x-wav
4020      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4021      19 audio/x-mpeg
4022      18 video/mpeg
4023      18 audio/x-scpls
4024      18 audio/x-flac
4025      18 application/x-ogg
4026      17 video/x-ms-asf
4027      17 text/html
4028      17 audio/x-musepack
4029      16 image/x-xbitmap
4030 </pre>
4031
4032 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
4033
4034 <pre>
4035   count MIME type
4036   ----- -----------------------
4037      31 text/plain
4038      31 image/png
4039      31 image/jpeg
4040      29 audio/mpeg
4041      28 application/ogg
4042      27 image/gif
4043      26 image/tiff
4044      26 audio/x-mp3
4045      23 audio/x-wav
4046      22 image/bmp
4047      21 audio/x-flac
4048      20 audio/x-mpegurl
4049      19 audio/x-mpeg
4050      18 video/x-ms-asf
4051      18 video/mpeg
4052      18 audio/x-scpls
4053      18 application/x-ogg
4054      17 audio/x-musepack
4055      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4056      16 video/x-msvideo
4057 </pre>
4058
4059 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
4060 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
4061 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
4062 issues.</p>
4063
4064 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
4065 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
4066
4067       </div>
4068       <div class="tags">
4069
4070
4071         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>.
4072
4073
4074       </div>
4075     </div>
4076     <div class="padding"></div>
4077
4078     <div class="entry">
4079       <div class="title">
4080         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</a>
4081       </div>
4082       <div class="date">
4083         15th January 2013
4084       </div>
4085       <div class="body">
4086         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
4087 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
4088 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
4089 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
4090 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
4091 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
4092 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
4093 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
4094 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
4095 packages.</p>
4096
4097 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
4098 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
4099 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
4100 modalias.</p>
4101
4102 <p><blockquote>
4103 Package: package-name
4104 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
4105 </blockquote></p>
4106
4107 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
4108 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
4109
4110 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
4111 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
4112
4113 <p><blockquote>
4114 Package: cheese
4115 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
4116 </blockquote></p>
4117
4118 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
4119 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
4120
4121 <p><blockquote>
4122 Package: pcmciautils
4123 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
4124 </blockquote></p>
4125
4126 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
4127 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
4128
4129 <p><blockquote>
4130 Package: colorhug-client
4131 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
4132 </blockquote></p>
4133
4134 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
4135 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
4136 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
4137
4138 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
4139 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
4140 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
4141 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
4142 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
4143 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
4144 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
4145 Raring.</p>
4146
4147 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
4148 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
4149 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
4150 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
4151 try the
4152 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
4153 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
4154 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
4155 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
4156
4157 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
4158 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
4159
4160 <p><blockquote>
4161 % ./hw-support-lookup
4162 <br>yubikey-personalization
4163 <br>%
4164 </blockquote></p>
4165
4166 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
4167 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
4168
4169 <p><blockquote>
4170 % ./hw-support-lookup
4171 <br>pcmciautils
4172 <br>%
4173 </blockquote></p>
4174
4175 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
4176 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
4177 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
4178
4179 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
4180 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
4181 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
4182 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
4183 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
4184 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
4185 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
4186 see if it work.</p>
4187
4188 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4189 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4190 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4191 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4192
4193       </div>
4194       <div class="tags">
4195
4196
4197         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4198
4199
4200       </div>
4201     </div>
4202     <div class="padding"></div>
4203
4204     <div class="entry">
4205       <div class="title">
4206         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware</a>
4207       </div>
4208       <div class="date">
4209         14th January 2013
4210       </div>
4211       <div class="body">
4212         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
4213 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
4214 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
4215 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
4216 in
4217 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4218 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
4219
4220 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
4221
4222 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
4223 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
4224 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
4225 &lt;URL: <a href="http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device">http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device</a> &gt;,
4226 &lt;URL: <a href="http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c</a> &gt; and
4227 &lt;URL: <a href="http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup">http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup</a> &gt;.
4228
4229 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
4230 this shell script:</p>
4231
4232 <pre>
4233 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
4234 </pre>
4235
4236 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
4237 using modinfo:</p>
4238
4239 <pre>
4240 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
4241 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
4242 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
4243 %
4244 </pre>
4245
4246 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
4247
4248 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
4249 Bridge memory controller:</p>
4250
4251 <p><blockquote>
4252 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
4253 </blockquote></p>
4254
4255 <p>This represent these values:</p>
4256
4257 <pre>
4258  v   00008086  (vendor)
4259  d   00002770  (device)
4260  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
4261  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
4262  bc  06        (bus class)
4263  sc  00        (bus subclass)
4264  i   00        (interface)
4265 </pre>
4266
4267 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
4268 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
4269 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
4270 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
4271
4272 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
4273 means.</p>
4274
4275 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
4276
4277 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
4278 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
4279
4280 <p><blockquote>
4281 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
4282 </blockquote></p>
4283
4284 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
4285
4286 <pre>
4287  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
4288  p    0001  (device product)
4289  d    0206  (bcddevice)
4290  dc     09  (device class)
4291  dsc    00  (device subclass)
4292  dp     00  (device protocol)
4293  ic     09  (interface class)
4294  isc    00  (interface subclass)
4295  ip     00  (interface protocol)
4296 </pre>
4297
4298 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
4299 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
4300 these alias entries show up:</p>
4301
4302 <p><blockquote>
4303 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
4304 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
4305 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
4306 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
4307 </blockquote></p>
4308
4309 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
4310 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
4311 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
4312
4313 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
4314
4315 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
4316 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
4317
4318 <p><blockquote>
4319 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4320 </blockquote></p>
4321
4322 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
4323
4324 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
4325
4326 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
4327 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
4328 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
4329
4330 <p><blockquote>
4331 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
4332 </blockquote></p>
4333
4334 <p>The values present are</p>
4335
4336 <pre>
4337  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
4338  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
4339  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
4340  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
4341  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
4342  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
4343  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
4344  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
4345  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
4346  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
4347  ct   10             (chassis type)
4348  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
4349 </pre>
4350
4351 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
4352 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
4353
4354 <pre>
4355   3 Desktop
4356   4 Low Profile Desktop
4357   5 Pizza Box
4358   6 Mini Tower
4359   7 Tower
4360   8 Portable
4361   9 Laptop
4362  10 Notebook
4363  11 Hand Held
4364  12 Docking Station
4365  13 All In One
4366  14 Sub Notebook
4367  15 Space-saving
4368  16 Lunch Box
4369  17 Main Server Chassis
4370  18 Expansion Chassis
4371  19 Sub Chassis
4372  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
4373  21 Peripheral Chassis
4374  22 RAID Chassis
4375  23 Rack Mount Chassis
4376  24 Sealed-case PC
4377  25 Multi-system
4378  26 CompactPCI
4379  27 AdvancedTCA
4380  28 Blade
4381  29 Blade Enclosing
4382 </pre>
4383
4384 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
4385 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
4386 claim it is a desktop.</p>
4387
4388 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
4389
4390 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
4391 test machine:</p>
4392
4393 <p><blockquote>
4394 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
4395 </blockquote></p>
4396
4397 <p>The values present are</p>
4398
4399 <pre>
4400   ty  01  (type)
4401   pr  00  (prototype)
4402   id  00  (id)
4403   ex  00  (extra)
4404 </pre>
4405
4406 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
4407 the valid values are.</p>
4408
4409 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
4410
4411 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
4412 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
4413 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
4414 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
4415 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
4416 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
4417 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
4418
4419 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
4420
4421 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
4422 one can use the following shell script:</p>
4423
4424 <pre>
4425   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
4426     echo "$id" ; \
4427     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
4428   done
4429 </pre>
4430
4431 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
4432 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
4433
4434 <pre>
4435   acpi:ACPI0003:
4436     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
4437   acpi:device:
4438   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
4439   acpi:IBM0068:
4440     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
4441     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
4442     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
4443     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
4444   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
4445     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
4446     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
4447     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
4448   [...]
4449 </pre>
4450
4451 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
4452 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
4453 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
4454 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
4455
4456 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
4457 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
4458 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
4459
4460       </div>
4461       <div class="tags">
4462
4463
4464         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4465
4466
4467       </div>
4468     </div>
4469     <div class="padding"></div>
4470
4471     <div class="entry">
4472       <div class="title">
4473         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</a>
4474       </div>
4475       <div class="date">
4476         10th January 2013
4477       </div>
4478       <div class="body">
4479         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
4480 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
4481 Launcher and updated the Debian package
4482 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
4483 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
4484 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
4485 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
4486 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
4487 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
4488 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
4489 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
4490 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
4491 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
4492 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
4493 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
4494 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
4495 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
4496 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
4497
4498       </div>
4499       <div class="tags">
4500
4501
4502         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4503
4504
4505       </div>
4506     </div>
4507     <div class="padding"></div>
4508
4509     <div class="entry">
4510       <div class="title">
4511         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
4512       </div>
4513       <div class="date">
4514          9th January 2013
4515       </div>
4516       <div class="body">
4517         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
4518 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
4519 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
4520 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
4521 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
4522 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
4523 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
4524 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
4525 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
4526 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
4527 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
4528
4529 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
4530 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
4531 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
4532 simple:
4533
4534 <ul>
4535
4536 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
4537   starting when a user log in.</li>
4538
4539 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
4540   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
4541
4542 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
4543   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
4544   packages.</li>
4545
4546 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
4547   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
4548
4549 </ul>
4550
4551 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
4552 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
4553 discover database to find packages and
4554 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
4555 packages.</p>
4556
4557 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
4558 draft package is now checked into
4559 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
4560 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
4561 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
4562 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
4563 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
4564 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
4565 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
4566 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
4567 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
4568 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
4569 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
4570 because of the freeze).</p>
4571
4572 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
4573 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
4574 inserted):</p>
4575
4576 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
4577
4578 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
4579 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
4580 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
4581
4582 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
4583 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
4584 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
4585 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
4586 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
4587 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
4588 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
4589
4590 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
4591 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
4592 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
4593 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
4594 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
4595 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
4596 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
4597 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
4598 not be installed?</p>
4599
4600 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
4601 please send me an email. :)</p>
4602
4603       </div>
4604       <div class="tags">
4605
4606
4607         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
4608
4609
4610       </div>
4611     </div>
4612     <div class="padding"></div>
4613
4614     <div class="entry">
4615       <div class="title">
4616         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
4617       </div>
4618       <div class="date">
4619          2nd January 2013
4620       </div>
4621       <div class="body">
4622         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
4623 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
4624 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
4625 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
4626 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
4627 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
4628 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
4629 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
4630 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
4631 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
4632
4633 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
4634 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
4635 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
4636
4637       </div>
4638       <div class="tags">
4639
4640
4641         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
4642
4643
4644       </div>
4645     </div>
4646     <div class="padding"></div>
4647
4648     <div class="entry">
4649       <div class="title">
4650         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
4651       </div>
4652       <div class="date">
4653         28th December 2012
4654       </div>
4655       <div class="body">
4656         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
4657 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
4658 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
4659 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
4660 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
4661 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
4662 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
4663 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
4664 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
4665 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
4666 followed by many others. :)</p>
4667
4668 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
4669 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
4670 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
4671 you want to donate to the project.</p>
4672
4673       </div>
4674       <div class="tags">
4675
4676
4677         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4678
4679
4680       </div>
4681     </div>
4682     <div class="padding"></div>
4683
4684     <div class="entry">
4685       <div class="title">
4686         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze</a>
4687       </div>
4688       <div class="date">
4689         25th December 2012
4690       </div>
4691       <div class="body">
4692         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
4693 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
4694
4695 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
4696 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
4697 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
4698 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
4699 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
4700 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
4701 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
4702 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
4703 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
4704 name.</p>
4705
4706 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
4707 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
4708 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
4709
4710 <blockquote><pre>
4711 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
4712 cd bitcoin
4713 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
4714 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
4715 </pre></blockquote>
4716
4717 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
4718 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
4719 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
4720 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
4721 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
4722 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
4723 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
4724 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
4725 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
4726
4727 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4728 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4729 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4730
4731       </div>
4732       <div class="tags">
4733
4734
4735         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>.
4736
4737
4738       </div>
4739     </div>
4740     <div class="padding"></div>
4741
4742     <div class="entry">
4743       <div class="title">
4744         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
4745       </div>
4746       <div class="date">
4747         21st December 2012
4748       </div>
4749       <div class="body">
4750         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
4751 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
4752 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
4753 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
4754 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
4755 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
4756 is now maintained by a
4757 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
4758 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
4759 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
4760 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
4761 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
4762 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
4763 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
4764 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
4765 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
4766 Corallo in a
4767 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
4768 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
4769 Debian package.</p>
4770
4771 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
4772 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
4773 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
4774 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
4775 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
4776 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
4777 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
4778 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
4779 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
4780 new version to unstable.
4781
4782 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
4783 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
4784 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
4785 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
4786 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
4787 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
4788 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
4789 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
4790 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
4791 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
4792 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
4793 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
4794 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
4795 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
4796 have not tested them.</p>
4797
4798 <p>My
4799 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
4800 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
4801 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
4802 years ago, as can be
4803 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
4804 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
4805 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
4806 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
4807 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
4808 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
4809 the same address as last time,
4810 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4811
4812       </div>
4813       <div class="tags">
4814
4815
4816         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>.
4817
4818
4819       </div>
4820     </div>
4821     <div class="padding"></div>
4822
4823     <div class="entry">
4824       <div class="title">
4825         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ledger___double_entry_accounting_using_text_based_storage_format.html">Ledger - double-entry accounting using text based storage format</a>
4826       </div>
4827       <div class="date">
4828         18th December 2012
4829       </div>
4830       <div class="body">
4831         <p>A few days ago I came across
4832 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
4833 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
4834 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
4835 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
4836 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
4837 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
4838 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
4839 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
4840 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
4841
4842 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
4843 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
4844 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
4845 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
4846
4847 <blockquote><pre>
4848 2004-05-27 Book Store
4849       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
4850       Liabilities:Visa
4851 </pre></blockquote>
4852
4853 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
4854 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
4855 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
4856 Spang</a>,
4857 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
4858 Keen</a>,
4859 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
4860 Cantino</a> and
4861 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
4862 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
4863 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
4864 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
4865 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
4866
4867 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
4868 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
4869 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
4870 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
4871 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
4872
4873 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
4874 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
4875 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
4876 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
4877 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
4878 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
4879 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
4880 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
4881 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
4882
4883       </div>
4884       <div class="tags">
4885
4886
4887         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
4888
4889
4890       </div>
4891     </div>
4892     <div class="padding"></div>
4893
4894     <div class="entry">
4895       <div class="title">
4896         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Scripting_the_Cerebrum_bofhd_user_administration_system_using_XML_RPC.html">Scripting the Cerebrum/bofhd user administration system using XML-RPC</a>
4897       </div>
4898       <div class="date">
4899          6th December 2012
4900       </div>
4901       <div class="body">
4902         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
4903 Oslo</a>, we use the
4904 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
4905 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
4906 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
4907 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
4908 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
4909 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
4910 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
4911 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
4912 Python.</p>
4913
4914 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
4915 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
4916 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
4917 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
4918 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
4919 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
4920
4921 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
4922 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
4923 user currently logged in:</p>
4924
4925 <blockquote><pre>
4926 #!/usr/bin/env python
4927 import getpass
4928 import xmlrpclib
4929 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
4930 username = getpass.getuser()
4931 password = getpass.getpass()
4932 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
4933 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
4934 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
4935 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
4936 result = server.logout(sessionid)
4937 print result
4938 </pre></blockquote>
4939
4940 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
4941 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
4942
4943       </div>
4944       <div class="tags">
4945
4946
4947         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
4948
4949
4950       </div>
4951     </div>
4952     <div class="padding"></div>
4953
4954     <div class="entry">
4955       <div class="title">
4956         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_the_value_of_copyright_taxed_.html">Why isn't the value of copyright taxed?</a>
4957       </div>
4958       <div class="date">
4959         17th November 2012
4960       </div>
4961       <div class="body">
4962         <p>While working on a
4963 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
4964 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
4965 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
4966 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
4967 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
4968 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
4969
4970 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
4971 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
4972 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
4973 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
4974 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
4975 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
4976 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
4977 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
4978 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
4979 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
4980 arguments.</p>
4981
4982 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
4983 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
4984 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
4985 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
4986 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
4987 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
4988 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
4989 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
4990
4991 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
4992 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
4993 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
4994 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
4995 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
4996 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
4997 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
4998 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
4999 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
5000 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
5001 correct right holder.</p>
5002
5003 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
5004 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
5005 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
5006 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
5007 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
5008 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
5009 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
5010 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
5011 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
5012 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
5013 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
5014 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
5015 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
5016 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
5017
5018 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
5019 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
5020 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
5021
5022 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
5023 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
5024
5025       </div>
5026       <div class="tags">
5027
5028
5029         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
5030
5031
5032       </div>
5033     </div>
5034     <div class="padding"></div>
5035
5036     <div class="entry">
5037       <div class="title">
5038         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
5039       </div>
5040       <div class="date">
5041         14th November 2012
5042       </div>
5043       <div class="body">
5044         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
5045 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
5046 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
5047 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
5048 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
5049 the people behind the German
5050 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
5051 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
5052 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
5053
5054 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5055
5056 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
5057 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
5058 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
5059
5060 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
5061 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
5062 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
5063 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
5064 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
5065 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
5066
5067 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
5068 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
5069 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
5070 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
5071 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
5072 relationship management and the communication processes in the
5073 project.</p>
5074
5075 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
5076 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
5077 and a yoga teacher.</p>
5078
5079 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
5080 project?</strong></p>
5081
5082 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
5083
5084 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
5085 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
5086 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
5087 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
5088 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
5089 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
5090 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
5091 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
5092 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
5093 parents.</p>
5094
5095 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
5096 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
5097 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
5098 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
5099 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
5100 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
5101 Germany.</p>
5102
5103 <p>For information about our school project you can read
5104 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
5105 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
5106
5107 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5108 Edu?</strong></p>
5109
5110 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
5111 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
5112
5113 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
5114 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
5115 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
5116 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
5117 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
5118 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
5119 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
5120 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
5121 teachers, parents...</p>
5122
5123 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5124 Edu?</strong></p>
5125
5126 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
5127 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
5128
5129 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
5130 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
5131 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
5132 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
5133 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
5134
5135 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
5136 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
5137 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
5138 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
5139 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
5140 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
5141 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
5142
5143 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5144
5145 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
5146 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
5147 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
5148 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
5149
5150 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5151 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5152
5153 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
5154 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
5155 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
5156 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
5157 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
5158
5159 <ul>
5160
5161 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
5162 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
5163 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
5164
5165 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
5166 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
5167 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
5168 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
5169 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
5170 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
5171 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
5172
5173 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
5174 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
5175 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
5176 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
5177
5178 </ul>
5179
5180       </div>
5181       <div class="tags">
5182
5183
5184         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
5185
5186
5187       </div>
5188     </div>
5189     <div class="padding"></div>
5190
5191     <div class="entry">
5192       <div class="title">
5193         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_European_Central_Bank__ECB__take_a_look_at_bitcoin.html">The European Central Bank (ECB) take a look at bitcoin</a>
5194       </div>
5195       <div class="date">
5196          4th November 2012
5197       </div>
5198       <div class="body">
5199         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
5200 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
5201 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
5202 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
5203 see how a member of the bitcoin community
5204 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
5205 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
5206 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
5207 competition.  My thoughts go to the
5208 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
5209 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
5210 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
5211 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
5212 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
5213
5214 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
5215 that the community already seem to have
5216 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
5217 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
5218 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
5219 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
5220 wealth is available.</p>
5221
5222       </div>
5223       <div class="tags">
5224
5225
5226         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
5227
5228
5229       </div>
5230     </div>
5231     <div class="padding"></div>
5232
5233     <div class="entry">
5234       <div class="title">
5235         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/12_years_of_outages___summarised_by_Stuart_Kendrick.html">12 years of outages - summarised by Stuart Kendrick</a>
5236       </div>
5237       <div class="date">
5238         26th October 2012
5239       </div>
5240       <div class="body">
5241         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
5242 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
5243 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
5244 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
5245 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
5246 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
5247 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
5248 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
5249 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
5250 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
5251 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
5252 it every time.</p>
5253
5254 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
5255 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
5256 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
5257 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
5258 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
5259 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
5260 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
5261 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
5262 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
5263 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
5264 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
5265 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
5266
5267 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
5268 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
5269 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
5270 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
5271 article: First the unplanned outage:
5272
5273 <blockquote><pre>
5274 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
5275 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
5276 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
5277 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
5278 Duration:    40 minutes
5279 Scope:       Exchange 2003
5280 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
5281              a cluster failover.
5282
5283 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
5284              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
5285 Technician:  [xxx]
5286 </pre></blockquote>
5287
5288 Next the planned outage:
5289
5290 <blockquote><pre>
5291 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
5292 Severity:    Major (Planned)
5293 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
5294 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
5295 Duration:    10 hours
5296 Scope:       H2 Transport
5297 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
5298              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
5299              4510s.
5300 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
5301              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
5302              connectivity.
5303 Technician:  [xxx]
5304 </pre></blockquote>
5305
5306 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
5307 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
5308 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
5309 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
5310 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
5311 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
5312 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
5313
5314 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
5315 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
5316 university too.  We do register
5317 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
5318 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
5319 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
5320 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
5321 for other sites to consider too?</p>
5322
5323       </div>
5324       <div class="tags">
5325
5326
5327         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>.
5328
5329
5330       </div>
5331     </div>
5332     <div class="padding"></div>
5333
5334     <div class="entry">
5335       <div class="title">
5336         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Amazon_steal_books_from_customer_and_throw_out_her_out_without_any_explanation.html">Amazon steal books from customer and throw out her out without any explanation</a>
5337       </div>
5338       <div class="date">
5339         22nd October 2012
5340       </div>
5341       <div class="body">
5342         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
5343 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
5344 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
5345 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
5346 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
5347 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
5348 background information is available in Norwegian from
5349 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
5350 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
5351 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
5352 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
5353 willing to
5354 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
5355 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
5356 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
5357 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
5358 sounded like
5359 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
5360 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
5361 later.</p>
5362
5363 <p>And thought this action is
5364 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
5365 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
5366 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
5367 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
5368 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
5369 rights.</p>
5370
5371 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
5372 unacceptable terms.  For example
5373 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
5374 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
5375 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
5376 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
5377 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
5378
5379 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
5380 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
5381 restored the account of the user, as reported by
5382 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
5383 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
5384 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
5385 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
5386 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
5387 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
5388 reading two opinions from
5389 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
5390 Phipps</a> and
5391 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
5392 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
5393 details about the original story.</p>
5394
5395       </div>
5396       <div class="tags">
5397
5398
5399         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
5400
5401
5402       </div>
5403     </div>
5404     <div class="padding"></div>
5405
5406     <div class="entry">
5407       <div class="title">
5408         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
5409       </div>
5410       <div class="date">
5411         18th October 2012
5412       </div>
5413       <div class="body">
5414         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
5415 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
5416 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
5417 across a marvellous drawing by
5418 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
5419 visualising some of what is going on.
5420
5421 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
5422 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
5423
5424 <blockquote>
5425 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
5426 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
5427 </blockquote>
5428
5429 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
5430 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
5431 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
5432 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
5433 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
5434 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
5435
5436       </div>
5437       <div class="tags">
5438
5439
5440         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
5441
5442
5443       </div>
5444     </div>
5445     <div class="padding"></div>
5446
5447     <div class="entry">
5448       <div class="title">
5449         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
5450       </div>
5451       <div class="date">
5452         12th October 2012
5453       </div>
5454       <div class="body">
5455         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
5456 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
5457 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
5458 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
5459 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
5460 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
5461 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
5462 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
5463 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
5464 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
5465 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
5466 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
5467 matter".</p>
5468
5469 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
5470 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
5471 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
5472 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
5473 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
5474 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
5475 to argue its side.</p>
5476
5477 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
5478 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
5479 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
5480 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
5481
5482 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
5483 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
5484 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
5485
5486       </div>
5487       <div class="tags">
5488
5489
5490         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis</a>.
5491
5492
5493       </div>
5494     </div>
5495     <div class="padding"></div>
5496
5497     <div class="entry">
5498       <div class="title">
5499         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_is_your_local_library_collecting_the__wrong__computer_books_.html">Why is your local library collecting the "wrong" computer books?</a>
5500       </div>
5501       <div class="date">
5502          3rd October 2012
5503       </div>
5504       <div class="body">
5505         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
5506 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
5507 the computer science book collection available in his local
5508 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
5509 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
5510 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
5511 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
5512 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
5513 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
5514 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
5515 recently published books.</p>
5516
5517 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
5518 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
5519 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
5520 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
5521 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
5522 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
5523 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
5524 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
5525 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
5526 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
5527 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
5528 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
5529 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
5530 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
5531 for the library that evening.</p>
5532
5533 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
5534 going to know that for example
5535 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
5536 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
5537 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
5538 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
5539 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
5540 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
5541 book right away.</p>
5542
5543       </div>
5544       <div class="tags">
5545
5546
5547         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5548
5549
5550       </div>
5551     </div>
5552     <div class="padding"></div>
5553
5554     <div class="entry">
5555       <div class="title">
5556         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Seventy_percent_done_with_Norwegian_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html">Seventy percent done with Norwegian docbook version of Free Culture</a>
5557       </div>
5558       <div class="date">
5559         23rd September 2012
5560       </div>
5561       <div class="body">
5562         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
5563 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
5564 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
5565 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
5566 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
5567 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
5568
5569 When I started, I
5570 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
5571 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
5572 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
5573 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
5574 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
5575 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
5576 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
5577
5578 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
5579
5580 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
5581 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
5582 the project files currently available from
5583 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
5584
5585 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
5586 the updated
5587 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
5588 and
5589 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
5590 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
5591 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
5592 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
5593
5594       </div>
5595       <div class="tags">
5596
5597
5598         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
5599
5600
5601       </div>
5602     </div>
5603     <div class="padding"></div>
5604
5605     <div class="entry">
5606       <div class="title">
5607         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
5608       </div>
5609       <div class="date">
5610         17th September 2012
5611       </div>
5612       <div class="body">
5613         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
5614 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
5615 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
5616 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
5617 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
5618 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
5619 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
5620
5621 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5622
5623 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
5624 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
5625 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
5626 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
5627 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
5628 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
5629 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
5630 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
5631 training is anyway very important</p>
5632
5633 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
5634 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
5635 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
5636 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
5637 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
5638
5639 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
5640 project?</strong></p>
5641
5642 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
5643 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
5644 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
5645 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
5646 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
5647 hole.</p>
5648
5649 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5650 Edu?</strong></p>
5651
5652 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
5653 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
5654 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
5655 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
5656 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
5657 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
5658 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
5659 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
5660 hassle.</p>
5661
5662 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
5663 Edu?</strong></p>
5664
5665 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
5666 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
5667 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
5668 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
5669 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
5670 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
5671 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
5672 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
5673
5674 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5675
5676 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
5677 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
5678 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
5679 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
5680 has the same...</p>
5681
5682 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
5683 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
5684 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
5685 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
5686
5687 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5688 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5689
5690 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
5691 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
5692 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
5693
5694 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
5695 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
5696 don't.</p>
5697
5698 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
5699 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
5700 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
5701 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
5702 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
5703 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
5704 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
5705
5706       </div>
5707       <div class="tags">
5708
5709
5710         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
5711
5712
5713       </div>
5714     </div>
5715     <div class="padding"></div>
5716
5717     <div class="entry">
5718       <div class="title">
5719         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
5720       </div>
5721       <div class="date">
5722         15th September 2012
5723       </div>
5724       <div class="body">
5725         <p>After the
5726 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
5727 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
5728 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
5729 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
5730 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
5731 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
5732 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
5733 was
5734 <a href="http://ietf.10.n7.nabble.com/New-Non-WG-Mailing-List-video-codec-Video-codec-BoF-discussion-list-td119548.html">created 2012-08-20</a>.  It is intended to discuss the topic and if a
5735 formal working group should be formed.</p>
5736
5737 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
5738 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
5739 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
5740 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
5741 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
5742 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
5743 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
5744 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
5745
5746 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
5747 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
5748 IETF.</p>
5749
5750       </div>
5751       <div class="tags">
5752
5753
5754         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
5755
5756
5757       </div>
5758     </div>
5759     <div class="padding"></div>
5760
5761     <div class="entry">
5762       <div class="title">
5763         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
5764       </div>
5765       <div class="date">
5766         12th September 2012
5767       </div>
5768       <div class="body">
5769         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
5770 publication of of
5771 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
5772 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
5773 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
5774 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
5775 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
5776 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
5777 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
5778 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
5779 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
5780 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
5781
5782 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
5783 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
5784 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
5785 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
5786
5787 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
5788 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
5789
5790       </div>
5791       <div class="tags">
5792
5793
5794         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
5795
5796
5797       </div>
5798     </div>
5799     <div class="padding"></div>
5800
5801     <div class="entry">
5802       <div class="title">
5803         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</a>
5804       </div>
5805       <div class="date">
5806          7th September 2012
5807       </div>
5808       <div class="body">
5809         <p>As I
5810 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
5811 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
5812 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
5813 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
5814 repository for the project</a>.</p>
5815
5816 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
5817 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
5818 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
5819 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
5820
5821 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
5822 PostScript formats at
5823 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
5824 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
5825
5826       </div>
5827       <div class="tags">
5828
5829
5830         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>.
5831
5832
5833       </div>
5834     </div>
5835     <div class="padding"></div>
5836
5837     <div class="entry">
5838       <div class="title">
5839         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_forced_Microsoft_to_open_Office__and_don_t_forget_Officeshots_.html">Free software forced Microsoft to open Office (and don't forget Officeshots)</a>
5840       </div>
5841       <div class="date">
5842         23rd August 2012
5843       </div>
5844       <div class="body">
5845         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
5846 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
5847 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
5848 revisit the great site
5849 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
5850 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
5851 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
5852
5853       </div>
5854       <div class="tags">
5855
5856
5857         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>.
5858
5859
5860       </div>
5861     </div>
5862     <div class="padding"></div>
5863
5864     <div class="entry">
5865       <div class="title">
5866         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_way_there_with_translated_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html">Half way there with translated docbook version of Free Culture</a>
5867       </div>
5868       <div class="date">
5869         17th August 2012
5870       </div>
5871       <div class="body">
5872         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
5873 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
5874 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
5875 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
5876 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
5877 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
5878 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
5879 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
5880 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
5881 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
5882 summer I
5883 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
5884 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
5885 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
5886
5887 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
5888 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
5889 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
5890 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
5891 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
5892 progress:</p>
5893
5894 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
5895
5896 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
5897 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
5898 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
5899 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
5900 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
5901 english version of the docbook source.</p>
5902
5903 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
5904 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
5905 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
5906 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
5907 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
5908 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
5909 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
5910 project files currently available from <a
5911 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
5912
5913 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
5914 the updated
5915 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
5916 and
5917 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
5918 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
5919 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
5920 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
5921
5922       </div>
5923       <div class="tags">
5924
5925
5926         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
5927
5928
5929       </div>
5930     </div>
5931     <div class="padding"></div>
5932
5933     <div class="entry">
5934       <div class="title">
5935         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Notes_on_language_codes_for_Norwegian_docbook_processing___.html">Notes on language codes for Norwegian docbook processing...</a>
5936       </div>
5937       <div class="date">
5938         10th August 2012
5939       </div>
5940       <div class="body">
5941         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
5942 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
5943 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
5944 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
5945 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
5946 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
5947 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
5948 case for the language
5949 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
5950 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
5951
5952 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
5953 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
5954 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
5955 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
5956 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
5957
5958 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
5959 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
5960 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
5961 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
5962 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
5963 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
5964 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
5965 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
5966 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
5967 alias for 'nb'.</p>
5968
5969 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
5970 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
5971 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
5972 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
5973 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
5974 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
5975 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
5976 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
5977 at the same time. :(</p>
5978
5979 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
5980 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
5981 processors. :(</p>
5982
5983 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
5984
5985       </div>
5986       <div class="tags">
5987
5988
5989         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
5990
5991
5992       </div>
5993     </div>
5994     <div class="padding"></div>
5995
5996     <div class="entry">
5997       <div class="title">
5998         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
5999       </div>
6000       <div class="date">
6001         31st July 2012
6002       </div>
6003       <div class="body">
6004         <p>I tried to send this text to the
6005 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
6006 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
6007 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
6008 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
6009 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
6010 out.</p>
6011
6012 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
6013 learning curve at the moment.</p>
6014
6015 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
6016 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
6017 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
6018 available from
6019 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
6020 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
6021 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
6022 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
6023 Squeeze.</p>
6024
6025 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
6026 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
6027 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
6028 problems.</p>
6029
6030 <ul>
6031
6032 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
6033    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
6034    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
6035    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
6036    index references spanning several pages (See
6037    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
6038    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
6039    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
6040
6041 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
6042    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
6043    #683163</a>).</li>
6044
6045 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
6046    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
6047    footnote and text body, see
6048    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
6049    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
6050    refs listed are not right).</li>
6051
6052 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
6053
6054 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
6055    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
6056
6057 </ul>
6058
6059 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
6060 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
6061 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
6062
6063 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
6064
6065       </div>
6066       <div class="tags">
6067
6068
6069         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
6070
6071
6072       </div>
6073     </div>
6074     <div class="padding"></div>
6075
6076     <div class="entry">
6077       <div class="title">
6078         <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>
6079       </div>
6080       <div class="date">
6081         21st July 2012
6082       </div>
6083       <div class="body">
6084         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
6085 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
6086 norwegian version</a> of the book
6087 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
6088 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
6089 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
6090 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
6091 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
6092
6093 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
6094 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
6095 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
6096 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
6097 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
6098 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
6099 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
6100 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
6101 print. :)</p>
6102
6103 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
6104 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
6105 language.</p>
6106
6107       </div>
6108       <div class="tags">
6109
6110
6111         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
6112
6113
6114       </div>
6115     </div>
6116     <div class="padding"></div>
6117
6118     <div class="entry">
6119       <div class="title">
6120         <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>
6121       </div>
6122       <div class="date">
6123         16th July 2012
6124       </div>
6125       <div class="body">
6126         <p>I am currently working on a
6127 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
6128 to translate</a> the book
6129 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
6130 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
6131 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
6132 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
6133 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
6134 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
6135 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
6136
6137 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
6138 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
6139 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
6140 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
6141 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
6142 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
6143 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
6144 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
6145 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
6146
6147       </div>
6148       <div class="tags">
6149
6150
6151         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
6152
6153
6154       </div>
6155     </div>
6156     <div class="padding"></div>
6157
6158     <div class="entry">
6159       <div class="title">
6160         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
6161       </div>
6162       <div class="date">
6163          9th July 2012
6164       </div>
6165       <div class="body">
6166         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
6167 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
6168 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
6169 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
6170 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
6171 to adjust and scale the just released
6172 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
6173 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
6174 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
6175
6176 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6177
6178 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
6179 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
6180 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
6181 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
6182 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
6183 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
6184 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
6185 perspective when working with IT.</p>
6186
6187 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
6188 project?</strong></p>
6189
6190 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
6191 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
6192 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
6193 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
6194 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
6195 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
6196
6197 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6198 Edu?</strong></p>
6199
6200 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
6201 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
6202 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
6203 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
6204 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
6205 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
6206 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
6207 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
6208 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
6209 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
6210 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
6211 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
6212 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
6213 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
6214 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
6215 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
6216 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
6217 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
6218 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
6219 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
6220 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
6221 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
6222 quicker to update.
6223
6224 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6225 Edu?</strong></p>
6226
6227 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
6228 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
6229 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
6230 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
6231 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
6232 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
6233
6234 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
6235 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
6236 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
6237 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
6238 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
6239 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
6240 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
6241 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
6242 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
6243 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
6244 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
6245 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
6246 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
6247 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
6248 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
6249
6250 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
6251 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
6252 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
6253 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
6254 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
6255 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
6256 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
6257 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
6258
6259 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
6260 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
6261 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
6262 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
6263 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
6264 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
6265 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
6266 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
6267 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
6268 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
6269 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
6270 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
6271 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
6272 sound file.</p>
6273
6274 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
6275 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
6276 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
6277 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
6278 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
6279 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
6280 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
6281 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
6282 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
6283
6284 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6285
6286 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
6287 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
6288 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
6289 )</p>
6290
6291 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6292 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6293
6294 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
6295 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
6296 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
6297 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
6298 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
6299 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
6300 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
6301 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
6302 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
6303 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
6304 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
6305 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
6306 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
6307 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
6308 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
6309
6310 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
6311 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
6312 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
6313 management with Airtime</a>,
6314 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
6315 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
6316 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
6317 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
6318 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
6319
6320       </div>
6321       <div class="tags">
6322
6323
6324         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6325
6326
6327       </div>
6328     </div>
6329     <div class="padding"></div>
6330
6331     <div class="entry">
6332       <div class="title">
6333         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
6334       </div>
6335       <div class="date">
6336          8th July 2012
6337       </div>
6338       <div class="body">
6339         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
6340 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
6341 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
6342 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
6343 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
6344 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
6345 Steinberg in his blog post
6346 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
6347 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
6348 spending of your tax money.</p>
6349
6350 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
6351 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
6352 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
6353 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
6354 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
6355 purchases.</p>
6356
6357       </div>
6358       <div class="tags">
6359
6360
6361         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6362
6363
6364       </div>
6365     </div>
6366     <div class="padding"></div>
6367
6368     <div class="entry">
6369       <div class="title">
6370         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
6371       </div>
6372       <div class="date">
6373          7th July 2012
6374       </div>
6375       <div class="body">
6376         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
6377 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
6378 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
6379 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
6380 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
6381 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
6382 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
6383 receive.  The software is
6384
6385 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
6386 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
6387 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
6388 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
6389 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
6390 Windows</a>.</p>
6391
6392 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
6393 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
6394
6395 <p><ul>
6396
6397   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
6398     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
6399
6400   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
6401     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
6402     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
6403     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
6404     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
6405     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
6406     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
6407     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
6408     </li>
6409
6410   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
6411     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
6412
6413   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
6414     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
6415
6416   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
6417     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
6418
6419   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
6420
6421   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
6422     formats </li>
6423
6424   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
6425     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
6426     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
6427     (as separate sets)</li>
6428
6429   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
6430     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
6431     percentage)</li>
6432
6433   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
6434     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
6435     memory):
6436     <ul>
6437       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
6438       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
6439       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
6440       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
6441       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
6442       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
6443       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
6444       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
6445       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
6446       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
6447           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
6448           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
6449           activity)</li>
6450       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
6451       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
6452     </ul></li>
6453
6454   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
6455     <ul>
6456       <li>Break periods</li>
6457       <li>For teacher(s):
6458         <ul>
6459           <li>Not available periods</li>
6460           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
6461           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
6462           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
6463           <li>Min hours daily</li>
6464           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
6465
6466           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
6467             days per week</li>
6468         </ul></li>
6469       <li>For students (sets):
6470         <ul>
6471           <li>Not available periods</li>
6472           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
6473           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
6474           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
6475           <li>Min hours daily</li>
6476           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
6477
6478           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
6479             days per week</li>
6480         </ul></li>
6481       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
6482         <ul>
6483           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
6484           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
6485           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
6486           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
6487           <li>End(s) students day</li>
6488           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
6489           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
6490             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
6491           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
6492           <li>Not overlapping</li>
6493           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
6494           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
6495         </ul></li>
6496     </ul></li>
6497
6498   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
6499     <ul>
6500       <li>Room not available periods</li>
6501       <li>For teacher(s):
6502         <ul>
6503           <li>Home room(s)</li>
6504           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
6505           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
6506         </ul>
6507       </li>
6508
6509       <li>For students (sets):
6510         <ul>
6511           <li>Home room(s)</li>
6512           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
6513           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
6514         </ul>
6515       </li>
6516       <li>Preferred room(s):
6517         <ul>
6518           <li>For a subject</li>
6519           <li>For an activity tag</li>
6520           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
6521           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
6522         </ul>
6523       </li>
6524
6525       <li>For a set of activities:
6526         <ul>
6527           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
6528         </ul>
6529       </li>
6530     </ul>
6531   </li>
6532 </ul></p>
6533
6534 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
6535 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
6536 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
6537 manually, check it out.
6538
6539 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
6540 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
6541 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
6542 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
6543 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
6544 section</a>.</p>
6545
6546       </div>
6547       <div class="tags">
6548
6549
6550         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6551
6552
6553       </div>
6554     </div>
6555     <div class="padding"></div>
6556
6557     <div class="entry">
6558       <div class="title">
6559         <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>
6560       </div>
6561       <div class="date">
6562          3rd July 2012
6563       </div>
6564       <div class="body">
6565         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
6566 project (Norwegian version of
6567 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
6568 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
6569 a problem with the municipalities using
6570 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
6571 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
6572 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
6573 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
6574 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
6575 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
6576 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
6577 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
6578 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
6579 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
6580 the From: header.</p>
6581
6582 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
6583 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
6584 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
6585 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
6586 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
6587 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
6588 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
6589 behaviour.</p>
6590
6591 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
6592 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
6593 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
6594 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
6595 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
6596 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
6597 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
6598
6599       </div>
6600       <div class="tags">
6601
6602
6603         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>.
6604
6605
6606       </div>
6607     </div>
6608     <div class="padding"></div>
6609
6610     <div class="entry">
6611       <div class="title">
6612         <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>
6613       </div>
6614       <div class="date">
6615         26th June 2012
6616       </div>
6617       <div class="body">
6618         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
6619 another interview with the people behind
6620 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
6621 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
6622 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
6623 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
6624 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
6625 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
6626 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
6627
6628 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6629
6630 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
6631 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
6632 ICT in schools</p>
6633
6634 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
6635 project?</strong></p>
6636
6637 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
6638 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
6639 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
6640 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
6641
6642 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6643 Edu?</strong></p>
6644
6645 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
6646 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
6647 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
6648 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
6649
6650 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6651 Edu?</strong></p>
6652
6653 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
6654 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
6655 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
6656 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
6657 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
6658 technologies in school.</p>
6659
6660 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6661
6662 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
6663 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
6664 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
6665
6666 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6667 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6668
6669 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
6670 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
6671 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
6672 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
6673
6674 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
6675 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
6676 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
6677
6678 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
6679 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
6680 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
6681 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
6682 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
6683 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
6684 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
6685 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
6686 working there.</p>
6687
6688       </div>
6689       <div class="tags">
6690
6691
6692         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6693
6694
6695       </div>
6696     </div>
6697     <div class="padding"></div>
6698
6699     <div class="entry">
6700       <div class="title">
6701         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
6702       </div>
6703       <div class="date">
6704         24th June 2012
6705       </div>
6706       <div class="body">
6707         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
6708 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
6709 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
6710 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
6711 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
6712 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
6713 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
6714 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
6715 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
6716 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
6717 missing in my book.</p>
6718
6719 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
6720 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
6721 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
6722 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
6723 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
6724 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
6725 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
6726
6727       </div>
6728       <div class="tags">
6729
6730
6731         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>.
6732
6733
6734       </div>
6735     </div>
6736     <div class="padding"></div>
6737
6738     <div class="entry">
6739       <div class="title">
6740         <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>
6741       </div>
6742       <div class="date">
6743         11th June 2012
6744       </div>
6745       <div class="body">
6746         <p>During my work on
6747 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
6748 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
6749 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
6750 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
6751 explanation.</p>
6752
6753 <p><ul>
6754
6755 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
6756 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
6757 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
6758 system depend on tasksel tasks in
6759 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
6760 installation.</li>
6761
6762 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
6763 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
6764 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
6765 at least try to enable it for these services:
6766 <ul>
6767
6768   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
6769     quotas.</li>
6770   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
6771   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
6772   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
6773   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
6774   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
6775
6776 </ul></li>
6777
6778 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
6779 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
6780 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
6781 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
6782
6783 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
6784 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
6785 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
6786
6787 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
6788 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
6789 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
6790 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
6791 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
6792 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
6793
6794 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
6795 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
6796 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
6797 in Wheezy.
6798
6799 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
6800 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
6801 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
6802
6803 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
6804 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
6805 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
6806 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
6807
6808 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
6809 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
6810 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
6811 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
6812
6813 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
6814 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
6815 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
6816
6817 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
6818 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
6819 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
6820
6821 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
6822 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
6823 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
6824 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
6825 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
6826
6827 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
6828 <ul>
6829
6830 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
6831 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
6832 <li>and probably more?</li>
6833 </ul></li>
6834
6835 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
6836 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
6837 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
6838 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
6839 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
6840 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
6841 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
6842 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
6843
6844
6845 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
6846 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
6847 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
6848 use.</li>
6849
6850 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
6851 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
6852 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
6853 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
6854 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
6855
6856 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
6857 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
6858 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
6859 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
6860 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
6861 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
6862
6863 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
6864 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
6865 There are at least three implementations,
6866 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
6867 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
6868 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
6869 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
6870 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
6871 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
6872 given room.</li>
6873
6874 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
6875 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
6876 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
6877 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
6878 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
6879 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
6880 investigated.</li>
6881
6882 </ul></p>
6883
6884 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
6885 version.</p>
6886
6887       </div>
6888       <div class="tags">
6889
6890
6891         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6892
6893
6894       </div>
6895     </div>
6896     <div class="padding"></div>
6897
6898     <div class="entry">
6899       <div class="title">
6900         <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>
6901       </div>
6902       <div class="date">
6903          9th June 2012
6904       </div>
6905       <div class="body">
6906         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
6907 <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
6908 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
6909 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
6910 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
6911 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
6912 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
6913 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
6914 be willing to pay for.</p>
6915
6916 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
6917 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
6918 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
6919 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
6920 Orwell</a>.</p>
6921
6922       </div>
6923       <div class="tags">
6924
6925
6926         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>.
6927
6928
6929       </div>
6930     </div>
6931     <div class="padding"></div>
6932
6933     <div class="entry">
6934       <div class="title">
6935         <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>
6936       </div>
6937       <div class="date">
6938          6th June 2012
6939       </div>
6940       <div class="body">
6941         <p>A few days ago
6942 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
6943 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
6944 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
6945 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
6946 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
6947 code for HP, Dell and IBM
6948 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
6949 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
6950 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
6951 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
6952 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
6953
6954 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
6955 output:
6956
6957 <blockquote><pre>
6958 % 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>
6959 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": ""})
6960 %
6961 </pre></blockquote>
6962
6963 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
6964 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
6965 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
6966
6967       </div>
6968       <div class="tags">
6969
6970
6971         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>.
6972
6973
6974       </div>
6975     </div>
6976     <div class="padding"></div>
6977
6978     <div class="entry">
6979       <div class="title">
6980         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
6981       </div>
6982       <div class="date">
6983          2nd June 2012
6984       </div>
6985       <div class="body">
6986         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
6987 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
6988 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
6989 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
6990 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
6991 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
6992
6993 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6994
6995 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
6996 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
6997 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
6998 by Angela).</p>
6999
7000 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
7001 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
7002 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
7003 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
7004 becoming an osteopath.</p>
7005
7006 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
7007 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
7008 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
7009 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
7010 skills with communication skills.</p>
7011
7012 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
7013 project?</strong></p>
7014
7015 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
7016 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
7017 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
7018 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
7019 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
7020
7021 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
7022 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
7023 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
7024 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
7025 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
7026 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
7027 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
7028 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
7029 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
7030
7031 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
7032 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
7033 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
7034
7035 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
7036
7037 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
7038 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
7039 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
7040 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
7041 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
7042 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
7043 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
7044 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
7045 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
7046 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
7047 point.</p>
7048
7049 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
7050 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
7051 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
7052 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
7053 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
7054 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
7055
7056 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
7057 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
7058 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
7059 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
7060 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
7061 spare time.</p>
7062
7063 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
7064 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
7065 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
7066 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
7067 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
7068
7069 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
7070 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
7071 avoidance do exist.</p>
7072
7073 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
7074 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
7075 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
7076 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
7077 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
7078 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
7079 and probably a gain for all.</p>
7080
7081 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7082 Edu?</strong></p>
7083
7084 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
7085 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
7086 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
7087 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
7088 project communication, honest communication within the group of
7089 developers, etc.</p>
7090
7091 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7092 Edu?</strong></p>
7093
7094 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
7095
7096 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
7097 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
7098 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
7099 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
7100 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
7101 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
7102 contribute).</p>
7103
7104 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
7105 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
7106 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
7107 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
7108 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
7109 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
7110 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
7111 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
7112 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
7113 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
7114
7115 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7116
7117 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
7118
7119 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
7120 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
7121 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
7122
7123 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
7124 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
7125 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
7126 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
7127
7128 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
7129 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
7130 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
7131 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
7132 whiteboard.</p>
7133
7134 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
7135
7136 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7137 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7138
7139 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
7140 enrol people.</p>
7141
7142       </div>
7143       <div class="tags">
7144
7145
7146         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
7147
7148
7149       </div>
7150     </div>
7151     <div class="padding"></div>
7152
7153     <div class="entry">
7154       <div class="title">
7155         <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>
7156       </div>
7157       <div class="date">
7158          1st June 2012
7159       </div>
7160       <div class="body">
7161         <p>A few years ago I wrote
7162 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
7163 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
7164 I have learned from colleges here at the
7165 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
7166 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
7167 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
7168 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
7169 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
7170
7171 <p><pre>
7172 use strict;
7173 use warnings;
7174 use SOAP::Lite;
7175 use Data::Dumper;
7176 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
7177 my $App = 'test';
7178 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
7179 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
7180 my $s = SOAP::Lite
7181     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
7182     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
7183     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
7184     ;
7185 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
7186     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
7187     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
7188     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
7189 );
7190 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
7191 </pre></p>
7192
7193 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
7194
7195 <p><pre>
7196 $VAR1 = {
7197           'Asset' => {
7198                      'Entitlements' => {
7199                                        'EntitlementData' => [
7200                                                             {
7201                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
7202                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
7203                                                               'Provider' => '',
7204                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
7205                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
7206                                                             },
7207                                                             {
7208                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
7209                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
7210                                                               'Provider' => '',
7211                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
7212                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
7213                                                             },
7214                                                             {
7215                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
7216                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
7217                                                               'Provider' => '',
7218                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
7219                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
7220                                                             }
7221                                                           ]
7222                                      },
7223                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
7224                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
7225                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
7226                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
7227                                           'Buid' => '2323',
7228                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
7229                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
7230                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
7231                                         }
7232                    }
7233         };
7234 </pre></p>
7235
7236 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
7237 service outside the
7238 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
7239 documentation</a>, and according to
7240 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
7241 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
7242 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
7243
7244 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
7245 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
7246
7247       </div>
7248       <div class="tags">
7249
7250
7251         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>.
7252
7253
7254       </div>
7255     </div>
7256     <div class="padding"></div>
7257
7258     <div class="entry">
7259       <div class="title">
7260         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
7261       </div>
7262       <div class="date">
7263         31st May 2012
7264       </div>
7265       <div class="body">
7266         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
7267 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
7268 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
7269 running Debian Squeeze, where
7270 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
7271 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
7272 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
7273 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
7274 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
7275 another day.</p>
7276
7277 <p>After calibration, I get a
7278 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
7279 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
7280 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
7281 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
7282 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
7283 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
7284 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
7285 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
7286 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
7287 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
7288 and a simple</p>
7289
7290 <p><pre>
7291 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
7292 </pre></p>
7293
7294 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
7295 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
7296 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
7297 enough for now.</p>
7298
7299       </div>
7300       <div class="tags">
7301
7302
7303         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7304
7305
7306       </div>
7307     </div>
7308     <div class="padding"></div>
7309
7310     <div class="entry">
7311       <div class="title">
7312         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
7313       </div>
7314       <div class="date">
7315         27th May 2012
7316       </div>
7317       <div class="body">
7318         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
7319 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
7320 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
7321 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
7322 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
7323 since then, helping to make sure the
7324 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
7325 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
7326
7327 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7328
7329 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
7330 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
7331 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
7332 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
7333 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
7334 our computer network.</p>
7335
7336 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
7337 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
7338 (4 months).</p>
7339
7340 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
7341 project?</strong></p>
7342
7343 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
7344 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
7345 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
7346 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
7347 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
7348 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
7349 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
7350 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
7351 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
7352 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
7353 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
7354 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
7355 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
7356 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
7357
7358 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7359 Edu?</strong></p>
7360
7361 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
7362 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
7363 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
7364 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
7365 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
7366 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
7367 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
7368 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
7369
7370 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7371 Edu?</strong></p>
7372
7373 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
7374 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
7375 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
7376 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
7377 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
7378 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
7379 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
7380 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
7381 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
7382 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
7383 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
7384 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
7385
7386 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7387
7388 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
7389 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
7390 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
7391
7392 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7393 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7394
7395 <p><ol>
7396
7397 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
7398 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
7399 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
7400 developing.</li>
7401
7402 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
7403 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
7404 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
7405 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
7406 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
7407
7408 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
7409 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
7410 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
7411
7412 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
7413 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
7414 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
7415 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
7416
7417 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
7418 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
7419 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
7420
7421 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
7422
7423 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
7424 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
7425 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
7426 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
7427
7428 </ol></p>
7429
7430       </div>
7431       <div class="tags">
7432
7433
7434         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
7435
7436
7437       </div>
7438     </div>
7439     <div class="padding"></div>
7440
7441     <div class="entry">
7442       <div class="title">
7443         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
7444       </div>
7445       <div class="date">
7446         26th May 2012
7447       </div>
7448       <div class="body">
7449         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
7450 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
7451 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
7452 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
7453 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
7454
7455 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
7456 <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>
7457 comment:</p>
7458
7459 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
7460 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
7461 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
7462 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
7463 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
7464 </blockquote></p>
7465
7466 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
7467 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
7468 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
7469 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
7470 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
7471 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
7472 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
7473 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
7474 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
7475 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
7476 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
7477 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
7478 of wasted effort.</p>
7479
7480 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
7481 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
7482 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
7483
7484 <p>See
7485 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
7486 and
7487 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
7488 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
7489 </blockquote></p>
7490
7491       </div>
7492       <div class="tags">
7493
7494
7495         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>.
7496
7497
7498       </div>
7499     </div>
7500     <div class="padding"></div>
7501
7502     <div class="entry">
7503       <div class="title">
7504         <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>
7505       </div>
7506       <div class="date">
7507         18th May 2012
7508       </div>
7509       <div class="body">
7510         <p>In january, I
7511 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
7512 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
7513 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
7514 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
7515 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
7516 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
7517 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
7518 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
7519 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
7520 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
7521
7522 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
7523 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
7524 drivers. :)</p>
7525
7526       </div>
7527       <div class="tags">
7528
7529
7530         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7531
7532
7533       </div>
7534     </div>
7535     <div class="padding"></div>
7536
7537     <div class="entry">
7538       <div class="title">
7539         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
7540       </div>
7541       <div class="date">
7542         13th May 2012
7543       </div>
7544       <div class="body">
7545         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
7546 publish another interview with the people behind
7547 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
7548 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
7549 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
7550 details get right before release.
7551
7552 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7553
7554 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
7555 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
7556 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
7557 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
7558 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
7559 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
7560 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
7561 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
7562
7563 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
7564 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
7565 home since 2006.</p>
7566
7567 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
7568 project?</strong></p>
7569
7570 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
7571 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
7572 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
7573 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
7574 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
7575 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
7576
7577 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
7578 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
7579 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
7580 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
7581 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
7582 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
7583 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
7584 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
7585 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
7586 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
7587 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
7588 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
7589 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
7590 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
7591 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
7592 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
7593
7594 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7595 Edu?</strong></p>
7596
7597 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
7598 for me as today.</p>
7599
7600 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
7601
7602 <p><ul>
7603
7604 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
7605 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
7606
7607 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
7608 cost.</li>
7609
7610 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
7611 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
7612 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
7613 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
7614 server</li>
7615
7616 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
7617 school.</li>
7618
7619 </ul></p>
7620
7621 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
7622 came up in this way:</p>
7623
7624 <p><ul>
7625
7626 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
7627 now.</li>
7628
7629 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
7630 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
7631 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
7632
7633 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
7634 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
7635 interfaces used in the past.</li>
7636
7637 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
7638 different needs.</li>
7639
7640 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
7641
7642 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
7643 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
7644 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
7645
7646 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
7647 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
7648
7649 </ul></p>
7650
7651 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7652 Edu?</strong></p>
7653
7654 <p><ul>
7655
7656 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
7657 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
7658 whole municipality areas.</li>
7659
7660 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
7661 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
7662 politicians.</li>
7663
7664 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
7665
7666 </ul></p>
7667
7668 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7669
7670 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
7671 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
7672 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
7673 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
7674 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
7675 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
7676
7677 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
7678 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
7679 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
7680 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
7681 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
7682
7683 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7684 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7685
7686 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
7687 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
7688 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
7689
7690       </div>
7691       <div class="tags">
7692
7693
7694         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
7695
7696
7697       </div>
7698     </div>
7699     <div class="padding"></div>
7700
7701     <div class="entry">
7702       <div class="title">
7703         <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>
7704       </div>
7705       <div class="date">
7706         30th April 2012
7707       </div>
7708       <div class="body">
7709         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
7710 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
7711
7712 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
7713 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
7714 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
7715 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
7716 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
7717 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
7718 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
7719 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
7720 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
7721 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
7722 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
7723 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
7724 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
7725 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
7726 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
7727 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
7728
7729 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
7730 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
7731 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
7732 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
7733 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
7734 finally found a Danish supplier
7735 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
7736 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
7737 days ago.</p>
7738
7739 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
7740 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
7741 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
7742 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
7743 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
7744 toys.</p>
7745
7746       </div>
7747       <div class="tags">
7748
7749
7750         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7751
7752
7753       </div>
7754     </div>
7755     <div class="padding"></div>
7756
7757     <div class="entry">
7758       <div class="title">
7759         <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>
7760       </div>
7761       <div class="date">
7762         26th April 2012
7763       </div>
7764       <div class="body">
7765         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
7766 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
7767 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
7768 that the video editor application included with
7769 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
7770 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
7771 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
7772
7773 <p><blockquote>
7774 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
7775 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
7776 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
7777 </blockquote></p>
7778
7779 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
7780
7781 <p><blockquote>
7782 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
7783 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
7784 </blockquote></p>
7785
7786 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
7787 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
7788 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
7789 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
7790 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
7791 video.  AMR is
7792 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
7793 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
7794 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
7795 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
7796 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
7797 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
7798 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
7799
7800 <p>I know why I prefer
7801 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
7802 standards</a> also for video.</p>
7803
7804       </div>
7805       <div class="tags">
7806
7807
7808         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>.
7809
7810
7811       </div>
7812     </div>
7813     <div class="padding"></div>
7814
7815     <div class="entry">
7816       <div class="title">
7817         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
7818       </div>
7819       <div class="date">
7820         19th April 2012
7821       </div>
7822       <div class="body">
7823         <p>Here in Norway, the
7824 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
7825 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
7826 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
7827 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
7828 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
7829 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
7830 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
7831 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
7832 on the same level.</p>
7833
7834 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
7835 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
7836 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
7837 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
7838 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
7839 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
7840 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
7841 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
7842 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
7843 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
7844 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
7845 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
7846 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
7847 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
7848 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
7849 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
7850 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
7851 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
7852
7853 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
7854 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
7855 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
7856 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
7857 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
7858 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
7859 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
7860 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
7861
7862 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
7863 from Simon Phipps
7864 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
7865 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
7866
7867 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
7868 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
7869 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
7870 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
7871 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
7872 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
7873 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
7874 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
7875 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
7876
7877       </div>
7878       <div class="tags">
7879
7880
7881         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>.
7882
7883
7884       </div>
7885     </div>
7886     <div class="padding"></div>
7887
7888     <div class="entry">
7889       <div class="title">
7890         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
7891       </div>
7892       <div class="date">
7893         15th April 2012
7894       </div>
7895       <div class="body">
7896         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
7897 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
7898 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
7899 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
7900 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
7901 up in the recently released
7902 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
7903 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
7904
7905 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7906
7907 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
7908 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
7909 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
7910 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
7911 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
7912 information technology and science/technology.</p>
7913
7914 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
7915 project?</strong></p>
7916
7917 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
7918 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
7919 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
7920 contributing.</p>
7921
7922 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7923 Edu?</strong></p>
7924
7925 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
7926 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
7927 Debian Project!</p>
7928
7929 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7930 Edu?</strong></p>
7931
7932 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
7933 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
7934 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
7935 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
7936 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
7937 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
7938 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
7939
7940 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
7941 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
7942
7943 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7944
7945 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
7946 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
7947 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
7948 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
7949
7950 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7951 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7952
7953 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
7954 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
7955 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
7956 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
7957 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
7958 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
7959 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
7960
7961 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
7962 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
7963 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
7964 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
7965 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
7966 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
7967 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
7968 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
7969
7970       </div>
7971       <div class="tags">
7972
7973
7974         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
7975
7976
7977       </div>
7978     </div>
7979     <div class="padding"></div>
7980
7981     <div class="entry">
7982       <div class="title">
7983         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
7984       </div>
7985       <div class="date">
7986          8th April 2012
7987       </div>
7988       <div class="body">
7989         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
7990 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
7991 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
7992 contributor to the
7993 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
7994 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
7995
7996 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7997
7998 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
7999 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
8000
8001 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8002 project?</strong></p>
8003
8004 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
8005 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
8006 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
8007 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
8008 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
8009 "localisation".</p>
8010
8011 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8012 Edu?</strong></p>
8013
8014 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8015 Edu?</strong></p>
8016
8017 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
8018 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
8019 education system.</p>
8020
8021 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
8022 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
8023 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
8024 money on the latest hardware.</p>
8025
8026 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8027
8028 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
8029 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
8030 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
8031
8032 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8033 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8034
8035 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
8036 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
8037 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
8038
8039       </div>
8040       <div class="tags">
8041
8042
8043         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
8044
8045
8046       </div>
8047     </div>
8048     <div class="padding"></div>
8049
8050     <div class="entry">
8051       <div class="title">
8052         <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>
8053       </div>
8054       <div class="date">
8055          6th April 2012
8056       </div>
8057       <div class="body">
8058         <p>Recently I have spent time with
8059 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
8060 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
8061 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
8062 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
8063 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
8064 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
8065 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
8066 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
8067
8068 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
8069 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
8070 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
8071 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
8072 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
8073 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
8074 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
8075 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
8076
8077 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
8078 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
8079 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
8080 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
8081 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
8082 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
8083 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
8084 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
8085
8086 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
8087 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
8088 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
8089 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
8090 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
8091 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
8092 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
8093 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
8094 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
8095 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
8096
8097 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
8098 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
8099 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
8100 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
8101
8102 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
8103 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
8104
8105       </div>
8106       <div class="tags">
8107
8108
8109         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8110
8111
8112       </div>
8113     </div>
8114     <div class="padding"></div>
8115
8116     <div class="entry">
8117       <div class="title">
8118         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
8119       </div>
8120       <div class="date">
8121          5th April 2012
8122       </div>
8123       <div class="body">
8124         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
8125 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
8126 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
8127 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
8128 for schools.  Check out his article
8129 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
8130 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
8131
8132       </div>
8133       <div class="tags">
8134
8135
8136         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8137
8138
8139       </div>
8140     </div>
8141     <div class="padding"></div>
8142
8143     <div class="entry">
8144       <div class="title">
8145         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
8146       </div>
8147       <div class="date">
8148          1st April 2012
8149       </div>
8150       <div class="body">
8151         <p>Germany is a core area for the
8152 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
8153 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
8154 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
8155
8156 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8157
8158 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
8159 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
8160 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
8161 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
8162 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
8163 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
8164 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
8165 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
8166
8167 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
8168 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
8169 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
8170 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
8171 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
8172 the end of April this year.</p>
8173
8174 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8175 project?</strong></p>
8176
8177 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
8178 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
8179 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
8180 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
8181 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
8182 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
8183 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
8184 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
8185 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
8186 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
8187 Skolelinux.</p>
8188
8189 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
8190 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
8191 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
8192 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
8193 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
8194 the admin teachers.</p>
8195
8196 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8197 Edu?</strong></p>
8198
8199 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
8200 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
8201 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
8202
8203 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
8204 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
8205 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
8206 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
8207 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
8208
8209 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8210 Edu?</strong></p>
8211
8212 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
8213
8214 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8215
8216 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
8217 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
8218 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
8219 LibreOffice.</p>
8220
8221 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8222 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8223
8224 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
8225 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
8226 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
8227
8228       </div>
8229       <div class="tags">
8230
8231
8232         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
8233
8234
8235       </div>
8236     </div>
8237     <div class="padding"></div>
8238
8239     <div class="entry">
8240       <div class="title">
8241         <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>
8242       </div>
8243       <div class="date">
8244         25th March 2012
8245       </div>
8246       <div class="body">
8247         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
8248
8249 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
8250 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
8251 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
8252 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
8253 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
8254 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
8255 and download as a
8256 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
8257 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
8258
8259 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
8260   <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"' />
8261     <p>Download video as
8262       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
8263 </video></p>
8264
8265       </div>
8266       <div class="tags">
8267
8268
8269         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8270
8271
8272       </div>
8273     </div>
8274     <div class="padding"></div>
8275
8276     <div class="entry">
8277       <div class="title">
8278         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
8279       </div>
8280       <div class="date">
8281         19th March 2012
8282       </div>
8283       <div class="body">
8284         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
8285 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
8286 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
8287 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
8288 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
8289
8290 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8291
8292 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
8293 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
8294 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
8295 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
8296 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
8297 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
8298 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
8299 installations.</p>
8300
8301 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8302 project?</strong></p>
8303
8304 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
8305 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
8306 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
8307 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
8308 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
8309 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
8310 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
8311 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
8312 these things we decided to try it.</p>
8313
8314 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8315 Edu?</strong></p>
8316
8317 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
8318 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
8319 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
8320 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
8321 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
8322 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
8323 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
8324 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
8325
8326 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8327 Edu?</strong></p>
8328
8329 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
8330 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
8331 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
8332 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
8333 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
8334
8335 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8336
8337 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
8338 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
8339 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
8340 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
8341 that counts...)</p>
8342
8343 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8344 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8345
8346 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
8347 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
8348 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
8349 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
8350 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
8351 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
8352 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
8353 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
8354 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
8355 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
8356 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
8357
8358 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
8359 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
8360 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
8361
8362       </div>
8363       <div class="tags">
8364
8365
8366         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
8367
8368
8369       </div>
8370     </div>
8371     <div class="padding"></div>
8372
8373     <div class="entry">
8374       <div class="title">
8375         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
8376       </div>
8377       <div class="date">
8378         16th March 2012
8379       </div>
8380       <div class="body">
8381         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
8382 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
8383 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
8384 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
8385
8386 <ol>
8387
8388 <li>The documentation is written in a
8389 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
8390 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
8391 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
8392 docbook XML.</li>
8393
8394 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
8395 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
8396 with the translated text.</li>
8397
8398 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
8399 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
8400 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
8401 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
8402 images.</li>
8403
8404 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
8405 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
8406
8407 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
8408 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
8409
8410 </ol>
8411
8412 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
8413 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
8414 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
8415 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
8416 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
8417
8418 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
8419 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
8420 package</a>.</p>
8421
8422       </div>
8423       <div class="tags">
8424
8425
8426         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8427
8428
8429       </div>
8430     </div>
8431     <div class="padding"></div>
8432
8433     <div class="entry">
8434       <div class="title">
8435         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
8436       </div>
8437       <div class="date">
8438         11th March 2012
8439       </div>
8440       <div class="body">
8441         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
8442 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
8443 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
8444 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
8445 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
8446 you have not done so already.</p>
8447
8448 <p>I plan to present the new version at
8449 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
8450 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
8451 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
8452
8453       </div>
8454       <div class="tags">
8455
8456
8457         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8458
8459
8460       </div>
8461     </div>
8462     <div class="padding"></div>
8463
8464     <div class="entry">
8465       <div class="title">
8466         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
8467       </div>
8468       <div class="date">
8469          9th March 2012
8470       </div>
8471       <div class="body">
8472         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
8473 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
8474 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
8475 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
8476 more international audience.</p>
8477
8478 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
8479 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
8480 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
8481 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
8482 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
8483 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
8484 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
8485
8486
8487 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8488
8489 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
8490 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
8491 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
8492 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
8493 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
8494 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
8495 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
8496 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
8497 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
8498 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
8499 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
8500
8501 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8502 project?</strong></p>
8503
8504 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
8505 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
8506 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
8507 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
8508 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
8509 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
8510 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
8511 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
8512 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
8513 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
8514 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
8515 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
8516 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
8517
8518 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8519 Edu?</strong></p>
8520
8521 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
8522 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
8523 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
8524 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
8525 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
8526 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
8527 Japan.</p>
8528
8529 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8530 Edu?</strong></p>
8531
8532 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
8533 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
8534 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
8535 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
8536 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
8537 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
8538 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
8539 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
8540 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
8541 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
8542 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
8543 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
8544 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
8545 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
8546 help.</p>
8547
8548 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8549
8550 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
8551 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
8552 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
8553 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
8554 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
8555 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
8556 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
8557 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
8558 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
8559 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
8560 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
8561
8562 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8563 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8564
8565 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
8566 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
8567 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
8568 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
8569 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
8570 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
8571 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
8572 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
8573 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
8574 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
8575 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
8576 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
8577
8578       </div>
8579       <div class="tags">
8580
8581
8582         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
8583
8584
8585       </div>
8586     </div>
8587     <div class="padding"></div>
8588
8589     <div class="entry">
8590       <div class="title">
8591         <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>
8592       </div>
8593       <div class="date">
8594          7th March 2012
8595       </div>
8596       <div class="body">
8597         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
8598
8599 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
8600 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
8601 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
8602 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
8603 download as a
8604 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
8605 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
8606
8607 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
8608   <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"' />
8609     <p>Download video as
8610       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
8611 </video></p>
8612
8613       </div>
8614       <div class="tags">
8615
8616
8617         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8618
8619
8620       </div>
8621     </div>
8622     <div class="padding"></div>
8623
8624     <div class="entry">
8625       <div class="title">
8626         <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>
8627       </div>
8628       <div class="date">
8629          4th March 2012
8630       </div>
8631       <div class="body">
8632         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
8633 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
8634 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
8635 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
8636 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
8637 need a software solution for your school.</p>
8638
8639       </div>
8640       <div class="tags">
8641
8642
8643         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8644
8645
8646       </div>
8647     </div>
8648     <div class="padding"></div>
8649
8650     <div class="entry">
8651       <div class="title">
8652         <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>
8653       </div>
8654       <div class="date">
8655          3rd March 2012
8656       </div>
8657       <div class="body">
8658         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
8659 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
8660 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
8661 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
8662 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
8663 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
8664 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
8665 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
8666 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
8667 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
8668 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
8669 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
8670 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
8671 year...</p>
8672
8673 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
8674 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
8675 name,
8676 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
8677 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
8678 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
8679 mean). I've been following
8680 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
8681 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
8682 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
8683 Check it out. :)</p>
8684
8685       </div>
8686       <div class="tags">
8687
8688
8689         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
8690
8691
8692       </div>
8693     </div>
8694     <div class="padding"></div>
8695
8696     <div class="entry">
8697       <div class="title">
8698         <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>
8699       </div>
8700       <div class="date">
8701         27th February 2012
8702       </div>
8703       <div class="body">
8704         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
8705 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
8706 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
8707 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
8708 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
8709 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
8710 need a software solution for your school.</p>
8711
8712       </div>
8713       <div class="tags">
8714
8715
8716         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8717
8718
8719       </div>
8720     </div>
8721     <div class="padding"></div>
8722
8723     <div class="entry">
8724       <div class="title">
8725         <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>
8726       </div>
8727       <div class="date">
8728         19th February 2012
8729       </div>
8730       <div class="body">
8731         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
8732 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
8733 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
8734 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
8735 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
8736 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
8737 solution for your school.</p>
8738
8739       </div>
8740       <div class="tags">
8741
8742
8743         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8744
8745
8746       </div>
8747     </div>
8748     <div class="padding"></div>
8749
8750     <div class="entry">
8751       <div class="title">
8752         <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>
8753       </div>
8754       <div class="date">
8755         14th February 2012
8756       </div>
8757       <div class="body">
8758         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
8759 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
8760 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
8761 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
8762 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
8763 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
8764 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
8765 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
8766 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
8767
8768 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
8769 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
8770 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
8771 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
8772 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
8773
8774 <blockquote><pre>
8775 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
8776 do
8777     printf "Failed disk $d: "
8778     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
8779 done
8780 </blockquote></pre>
8781
8782 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
8783 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
8784
8785 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
8786
8787 <blockquote><pre>
8788 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
8789 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
8790 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
8791 </blockquote></pre>
8792
8793 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
8794 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
8795 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
8796 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
8797 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
8798 mounted inside my box.</p>
8799
8800 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
8801 Software RAID in the
8802 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
8803 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
8804 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
8805 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
8806 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
8807 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
8808
8809       </div>
8810       <div class="tags">
8811
8812
8813         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>.
8814
8815
8816       </div>
8817     </div>
8818     <div class="padding"></div>
8819
8820     <div class="entry">
8821       <div class="title">
8822         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
8823       </div>
8824       <div class="date">
8825         13th February 2012
8826       </div>
8827       <div class="body">
8828         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
8829 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
8830 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
8831 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
8832 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
8833 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
8834 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
8835 change the global proxy setting by editing
8836 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
8837 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
8838
8839 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
8840 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
8841 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
8842
8843 <blockquote><pre>
8844 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
8845 {
8846    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
8847        isPlainHostName(host) ||
8848        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
8849       return "DIRECT";
8850    else
8851       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
8852 }
8853 </pre></blockquote>
8854
8855 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
8856
8857 <blockquote><pre>
8858 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
8859 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
8860 </pre></blockquote>
8861
8862 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
8863 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
8864 would be used for
8865 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
8866 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
8867 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
8868 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
8869 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
8870 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
8871 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
8872 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
8873 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
8874 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
8875
8876 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
8877 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
8878 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
8879 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
8880 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
8881 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
8882
8883 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
8884 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
8885 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
8886 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
8887 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
8888 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
8889 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
8890 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
8891 the network setup changes.</p>
8892
8893 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
8894 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
8895 draft</a> and a
8896 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
8897 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
8898
8899       </div>
8900       <div class="tags">
8901
8902
8903         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8904
8905
8906       </div>
8907     </div>
8908     <div class="padding"></div>
8909
8910     <div class="entry">
8911       <div class="title">
8912         <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>
8913       </div>
8914       <div class="date">
8915          5th February 2012
8916       </div>
8917       <div class="body">
8918         <p>Since the Lenny version of
8919 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
8920 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
8921 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
8922 in the morning.  This is done using the
8923 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
8924
8925 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
8926 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
8927 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
8928 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
8929 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
8930 the
8931 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
8932 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
8933 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
8934 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
8935 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
8936
8937 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
8938 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
8939 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
8940 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
8941 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
8942 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
8943 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
8944
8945 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
8946 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
8947 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
8948 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
8949 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
8950
8951       </div>
8952       <div class="tags">
8953
8954
8955         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8956
8957
8958       </div>
8959     </div>
8960     <div class="padding"></div>
8961
8962     <div class="entry">
8963       <div class="title">
8964         <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>
8965       </div>
8966       <div class="date">
8967          4th February 2012
8968       </div>
8969       <div class="body">
8970         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
8971 publish the third beta version of
8972 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
8973 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
8974 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
8975 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
8976 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
8977 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
8978 on the project announcement list.</p>
8979
8980 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
8981 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
8982
8983 <ul>
8984
8985 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
8986   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
8987   the installation.</li>
8988
8989 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
8990   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
8991
8992 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
8993   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
8994   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
8995
8996 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
8997   for the local system administrator is created during installation
8998   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
8999   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
9000   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
9001   up to date on the system.</li>
9002
9003 </ul>
9004
9005 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
9006 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
9007 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
9008 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
9009
9010 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
9011 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
9012 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
9013 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
9014 will see you there?</p>
9015
9016       </div>
9017       <div class="tags">
9018
9019
9020         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9021
9022
9023       </div>
9024     </div>
9025     <div class="padding"></div>
9026
9027     <div class="entry">
9028       <div class="title">
9029         <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>
9030       </div>
9031       <div class="date">
9032         27th January 2012
9033       </div>
9034       <div class="body">
9035         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
9036 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
9037 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
9038 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
9039 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
9040 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
9041 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
9042
9043 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
9044 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
9045 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
9046 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
9047 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
9048 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
9049 not taken care of by this.</p>
9050
9051 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
9052 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
9053 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
9054 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
9055 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
9056 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
9057 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
9058 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
9059 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
9060 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
9061 firmware packages.</p>
9062
9063 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
9064 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
9065 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
9066 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
9067 initrd with extra firmware, the
9068 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
9069 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
9070 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
9071
9072 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
9073 network cards working.  For this,
9074 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
9075 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
9076 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
9077
9078 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
9079 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
9080 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
9081
9082 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
9083 try.</p>
9084
9085       </div>
9086       <div class="tags">
9087
9088
9089         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9090
9091
9092       </div>
9093     </div>
9094     <div class="padding"></div>
9095
9096     <div class="entry">
9097       <div class="title">
9098         <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>
9099       </div>
9100       <div class="date">
9101         25th January 2012
9102       </div>
9103       <div class="body">
9104         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
9105 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
9106 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
9107 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
9108 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
9109
9110 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
9111 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
9112 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
9113 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
9114 this is done, log on to the central server and run
9115 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
9116 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
9117 will look similar to this:</p>
9118
9119 <p><blockquote><pre>
9120 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
9121 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
9122 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.
9123
9124 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
9125
9126 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9127 enter password: *******
9128 %
9129 </pre></blockquote></p>
9130
9131 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
9132 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
9133 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
9134 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
9135 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
9136 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
9137 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
9138 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
9139 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
9140 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
9141 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
9142 automatically.</p>
9143
9144 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
9145 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
9146
9147 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
9148 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
9149 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
9150
9151       </div>
9152       <div class="tags">
9153
9154
9155         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9156
9157
9158       </div>
9159     </div>
9160     <div class="padding"></div>
9161
9162     <div class="entry">
9163       <div class="title">
9164         <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>
9165       </div>
9166       <div class="date">
9167         10th January 2012
9168       </div>
9169       <div class="body">
9170         <p>In the Squeeze version of
9171 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
9172 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
9173 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
9174 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
9175 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
9176 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
9177 first time.</p>
9178
9179 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
9180 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
9181 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
9182 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
9183
9184 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
9185 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
9186 new setting.</p>
9187
9188 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
9189 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
9190 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
9191
9192       </div>
9193       <div class="tags">
9194
9195
9196         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9197
9198
9199       </div>
9200     </div>
9201     <div class="padding"></div>
9202
9203     <div class="entry">
9204       <div class="title">
9205         <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>
9206       </div>
9207       <div class="date">
9208          7th January 2012
9209       </div>
9210       <div class="body">
9211         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
9212 the second beta version of
9213 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
9214 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
9215 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
9216 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
9217 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
9218 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
9219 on the project announcement list.</p>
9220
9221       </div>
9222       <div class="tags">
9223
9224
9225         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9226
9227
9228       </div>
9229     </div>
9230     <div class="padding"></div>
9231
9232     <div class="entry">
9233       <div class="title">
9234         <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>
9235       </div>
9236       <div class="date">
9237          3rd January 2012
9238       </div>
9239       <div class="body">
9240         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
9241 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
9242 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
9243 interesting.</p>
9244
9245 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
9246 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
9247 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
9248 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
9249 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
9250 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
9251 wrap up its tasks.</p>
9252
9253 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
9254 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
9255 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
9256 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
9257 because I was typing.</P>
9258
9259 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
9260 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
9261 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
9262 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
9263 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
9264 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
9265 generate entropy.</p>
9266
9267 <p>The fix is in
9268 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
9269 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
9270 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
9271 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
9272
9273       </div>
9274       <div class="tags">
9275
9276
9277         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9278
9279
9280       </div>
9281     </div>
9282     <div class="padding"></div>
9283
9284     <div class="entry">
9285       <div class="title">
9286         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
9287       </div>
9288       <div class="date">
9289         21st November 2011
9290       </div>
9291       <div class="body">
9292         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
9293 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
9294 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
9295 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
9296 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
9297 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
9298 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
9299 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
9300 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
9301 the tools to do so.</p>
9302
9303 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
9304 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
9305 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
9306 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
9307
9308 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
9309 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
9310 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
9311 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
9312 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
9313 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
9314 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
9315 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
9316
9317 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
9318 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
9319 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
9320
9321 <p><pre>
9322 #!/usr/bin/perl
9323 use strict;
9324 use warnings;
9325 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
9326 BEGIN {
9327     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
9328     my %rhelmodules = (
9329         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
9330         );
9331     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
9332         eval "use $module;";
9333         if ($@) {
9334             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
9335             system("yum install -y $pkg");
9336             eval "use $module;";
9337         }
9338     }
9339 }
9340 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
9341
9342 upgrade_dell();
9343
9344 exit 0;
9345
9346 sub run_firmware_script {
9347     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
9348     unless ($script) {
9349         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
9350         exit 1
9351     }
9352     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
9353
9354     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
9355         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
9356     } else {
9357         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
9358     }
9359 }
9360
9361 sub run_firmware_scripts {
9362     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
9363     # Run firmware packages
9364     for my $dir (@dirs) {
9365         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
9366         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
9367         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
9368             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
9369             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
9370         }
9371         closedir $dh;
9372     }
9373 }
9374
9375 sub download {
9376     my $url = shift;
9377     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
9378     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
9379 }
9380
9381 sub upgrade_dell {
9382     my @dirs;
9383     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
9384     chomp $product;
9385
9386     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
9387
9388         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
9389         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
9390
9391         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
9392             CLEANUP => 1
9393             );
9394         chdir($tmpdir);
9395         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
9396         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
9397         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
9398         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
9399         my $fwopts = "-q";
9400         if (@paths) {
9401             for my $url (@paths) {
9402                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
9403             }
9404             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
9405         } else {
9406             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
9407             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
9408         }
9409         chdir('/');
9410     } else {
9411         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
9412         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
9413     }
9414 }
9415
9416 sub fetch_dell_fw {
9417     my $path = shift;
9418     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
9419     download($url);
9420 }
9421
9422 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
9423 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
9424 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
9425 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
9426     my $filename = shift;
9427
9428     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
9429     chomp $product;
9430     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
9431
9432     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
9433
9434     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
9435     my @paths;
9436     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
9437         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
9438         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
9439         my $oscode;
9440         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
9441             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
9442         } else {
9443             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
9444         }
9445         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
9446         {
9447             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
9448         }
9449     }
9450     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
9451         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
9452
9453         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
9454         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
9455
9456         my $cpath = $component->{path};
9457         for my $path (@paths) {
9458             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
9459                 push(@paths, $cpath);
9460             }
9461         }
9462     }
9463     return @paths;
9464 }
9465 </pre>
9466
9467 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
9468 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
9469 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
9470 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
9471 outdated.</p>
9472
9473       </div>
9474       <div class="tags">
9475
9476
9477         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>.
9478
9479
9480       </div>
9481     </div>
9482     <div class="padding"></div>
9483
9484     <div class="entry">
9485       <div class="title">
9486         <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>
9487       </div>
9488       <div class="date">
9489          7th October 2011
9490       </div>
9491       <div class="body">
9492         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
9493 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
9494 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
9495 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
9496 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
9497 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
9498 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
9499 models.</p>
9500
9501 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
9502 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
9503 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
9504 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
9505
9506 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
9507 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
9508 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
9509 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
9510 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
9511 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
9512 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
9513 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
9514 distributed.</p>
9515
9516 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
9517
9518 <ul>
9519
9520 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
9521   other relevant equipment.</li>
9522
9523 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
9524
9525 </ul>
9526
9527 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
9528 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
9529 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
9530 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
9531 books available.</p>
9532
9533 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
9534 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
9535 libraries. :)</p>
9536
9537       </div>
9538       <div class="tags">
9539
9540
9541         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>.
9542
9543
9544       </div>
9545     </div>
9546     <div class="padding"></div>
9547
9548     <div class="entry">
9549       <div class="title">
9550         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
9551       </div>
9552       <div class="date">
9553         17th September 2011
9554       </div>
9555       <div class="body">
9556         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
9557 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
9558 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
9559 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
9560 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
9561 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
9562 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
9563 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
9564
9565 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
9566
9567 <blockquote><pre>
9568 #!/bin/sh
9569 # apt-get install lsdvd
9570 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
9571 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
9572 </pre></blockquote>
9573
9574 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
9575 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
9576 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
9577 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
9578
9579 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
9580 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
9581 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
9582 back as an ISO.
9583
9584 <blockquote><pre>
9585 #!/bin/sh
9586 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
9587 set -e
9588 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
9589 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
9590 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
9591 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
9592 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
9593 </pre></blockquote>
9594
9595 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
9596
9597 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
9598 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
9599 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
9600 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
9601 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
9602
9603 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
9604 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
9605 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
9606 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
9607 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
9608 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
9609
9610       </div>
9611       <div class="tags">
9612
9613
9614         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>.
9615
9616
9617       </div>
9618     </div>
9619     <div class="padding"></div>
9620
9621     <div class="entry">
9622       <div class="title">
9623         <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>
9624       </div>
9625       <div class="date">
9626          4th August 2011
9627       </div>
9628       <div class="body">
9629         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
9630 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
9631 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
9632 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
9633 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
9634 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
9635 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
9636 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
9637 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
9638
9639 <p><blockquote>
9640 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
9641 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
9642 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
9643 </blockquote></p>
9644
9645 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
9646 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
9647 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
9648 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
9649 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
9650 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
9651 hard to explain.</p>
9652
9653 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
9654 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
9655 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
9656 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
9657 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
9658 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
9659 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
9660 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
9661 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
9662 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
9663 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
9664 mode).</p>
9665
9666 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
9667 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
9668 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
9669 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
9670 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
9671 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
9672 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
9673 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
9674 after visiting single user mode.</p>
9675
9676 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
9677 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
9678 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
9679 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
9680 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
9681 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
9682 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
9683 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
9684
9685 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
9686 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
9687 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
9688
9689       </div>
9690       <div class="tags">
9691
9692
9693         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>.
9694
9695
9696       </div>
9697     </div>
9698     <div class="padding"></div>
9699
9700     <div class="entry">
9701       <div class="title">
9702         <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>
9703       </div>
9704       <div class="date">
9705         30th July 2011
9706       </div>
9707       <div class="body">
9708         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
9709 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
9710 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
9711 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
9712 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
9713 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
9714 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
9715 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
9716 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
9717 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
9718 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
9719 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
9720 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
9721
9722 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
9723 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
9724 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
9725 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
9726 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
9727 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
9728 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
9729 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
9730 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
9731
9732 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
9733 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
9734 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
9735 is presented.</p>
9736
9737 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
9738 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
9739 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
9740 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
9741 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
9742 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
9743 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
9744 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
9745 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
9746 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
9747 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
9748 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
9749 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
9750 find time to push this forward.</p>
9751
9752       </div>
9753       <div class="tags">
9754
9755
9756         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>.
9757
9758
9759       </div>
9760     </div>
9761     <div class="padding"></div>
9762
9763     <div class="entry">
9764       <div class="title">
9765         <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>
9766       </div>
9767       <div class="date">
9768         29th July 2011
9769       </div>
9770       <div class="body">
9771         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
9772 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
9773 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
9774 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
9775 issues.</p>
9776
9777 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
9778 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
9779 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
9780
9781 <ol>
9782
9783 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
9784 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
9785 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
9786 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
9787 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
9788 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
9789 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
9790 Debian.</li>
9791
9792 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
9793 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
9794 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
9795 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
9796 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
9797 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
9798 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
9799 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
9800 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
9801 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
9802 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
9803 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
9804 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
9805
9806 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
9807 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
9808 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
9809 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
9810 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
9811 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
9812 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
9813 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
9814 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
9815 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
9816
9817 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
9818 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
9819 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
9820 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
9821 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
9822 latter behaviour.</li>
9823
9824 </ol>
9825
9826 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
9827 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
9828 it do not matter much.</p>
9829
9830 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
9831 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
9832 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
9833
9834       </div>
9835       <div class="tags">
9836
9837
9838         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>.
9839
9840
9841       </div>
9842     </div>
9843     <div class="padding"></div>
9844
9845     <div class="entry">
9846       <div class="title">
9847         <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>
9848       </div>
9849       <div class="date">
9850         26th July 2011
9851       </div>
9852       <div class="body">
9853         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
9854 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
9855 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
9856 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
9857 security support for a few years.</p>
9858
9859 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
9860 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
9861 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
9862 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
9863 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
9864 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
9865 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
9866 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
9867 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
9868 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
9869 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
9870 easier in the future.</p>
9871
9872 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
9873 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
9874 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
9875 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
9876 do not have time for.</p>
9877
9878       </div>
9879       <div class="tags">
9880
9881
9882         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>.
9883
9884
9885       </div>
9886     </div>
9887     <div class="padding"></div>
9888
9889     <div class="entry">
9890       <div class="title">
9891         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
9892       </div>
9893       <div class="date">
9894         20th June 2011
9895       </div>
9896       <div class="body">
9897         <p>Reading
9898 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
9899 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
9900 parts of the
9901 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
9902 and
9903 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
9904 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
9905 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
9906 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
9907
9908       </div>
9909       <div class="tags">
9910
9911
9912         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>.
9913
9914
9915       </div>
9916     </div>
9917     <div class="padding"></div>
9918
9919     <div class="entry">
9920       <div class="title">
9921         <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>
9922       </div>
9923       <div class="date">
9924         30th April 2011
9925       </div>
9926       <div class="body">
9927         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
9928 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
9929 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
9930 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
9931 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
9932 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
9933 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
9934 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
9935 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
9936 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
9937
9938 <p>Where is it?  Visit
9939 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
9940 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
9941 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
9942 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
9943
9944       </div>
9945       <div class="tags">
9946
9947
9948         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>.
9949
9950
9951       </div>
9952     </div>
9953     <div class="padding"></div>
9954
9955     <div class="entry">
9956       <div class="title">
9957         <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>
9958       </div>
9959       <div class="date">
9960         29th April 2011
9961       </div>
9962       <div class="body">
9963         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
9964 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
9965 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
9966 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
9967 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
9968 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
9969 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
9970 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
9971 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
9972 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
9973 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
9974 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
9975 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
9976
9977 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
9978 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
9979 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
9980 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
9981 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
9982 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
9983 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
9984 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
9985 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
9986 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
9987 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
9988 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
9989 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
9990
9991 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
9992 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
9993 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
9994 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
9995 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
9996 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
9997 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
9998 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
9999 it.</p>
10000
10001 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
10002 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
10003 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
10004 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
10005 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
10006 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
10007 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
10008
10009 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
10010 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
10011 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
10012 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
10013 and range= options.</p>
10014
10015 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
10016 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
10017 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
10018 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
10019 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
10020 to best handle this.  I've noticed
10021 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
10022 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
10023 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
10024 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
10025
10026 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
10027 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
10028 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
10029 discussions instead of only
10030 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
10031 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
10032 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
10033 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
10034 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
10035 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
10036
10037       </div>
10038       <div class="tags">
10039
10040
10041         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>.
10042
10043
10044       </div>
10045     </div>
10046     <div class="padding"></div>
10047
10048     <div class="entry">
10049       <div class="title">
10050         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
10051       </div>
10052       <div class="date">
10053          6th April 2011
10054       </div>
10055       <div class="body">
10056         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
10057 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
10058 A few days ago the project
10059 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
10060 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
10061 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
10062 into Gnash.</p>
10063
10064       </div>
10065       <div class="tags">
10066
10067
10068         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>.
10069
10070
10071       </div>
10072     </div>
10073     <div class="padding"></div>
10074
10075     <div class="entry">
10076       <div class="title">
10077         <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>
10078       </div>
10079       <div class="date">
10080          3rd April 2011
10081       </div>
10082       <div class="body">
10083         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
10084 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
10085 update in English.</p>
10086
10087 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
10088 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
10089 of the British service
10090 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
10091 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
10092 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
10093 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
10094 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
10095 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
10096 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
10097 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
10098 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
10099 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
10100 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
10101 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
10102 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
10103
10104 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
10105 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
10106 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
10107 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
10108 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
10109 public infrastructure.</p>
10110
10111 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
10112 such service?</p>
10113
10114       </div>
10115       <div class="tags">
10116
10117
10118         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>.
10119
10120
10121       </div>
10122     </div>
10123     <div class="padding"></div>
10124
10125     <div class="entry">
10126       <div class="title">
10127         <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>
10128       </div>
10129       <div class="date">
10130         28th January 2011
10131       </div>
10132       <div class="body">
10133         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
10134 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
10135 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
10136 available on the Internet, and check our locally
10137 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
10138 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
10139 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
10140 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
10141 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
10142 out which security holes were present in our free software
10143 collection.</p>
10144
10145 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
10146 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
10147 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
10148 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
10149 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
10150 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
10151 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
10152 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
10153 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
10154 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
10155 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
10156 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
10157 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
10158 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
10159 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
10160 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
10161
10162 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
10163 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
10164 check out, one could look up
10165 <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
10166 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
10167 The most recent one is
10168 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
10169 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
10170 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
10171
10172 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
10173 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
10174 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
10175 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
10176 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
10177 security issues out.</p>
10178
10179 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
10180 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
10181 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
10182 RHEL is providing
10183 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
10184 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
10185 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
10186
10187 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
10188 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
10189 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
10190 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
10191 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
10192 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
10193 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
10194 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
10195 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
10196 established soon.</p>
10197
10198 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
10199 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
10200 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
10201 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
10202 for their packages.</p>
10203
10204       </div>
10205       <div class="tags">
10206
10207
10208         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>.
10209
10210
10211       </div>
10212     </div>
10213     <div class="padding"></div>
10214
10215     <div class="entry">
10216       <div class="title">
10217         <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>
10218       </div>
10219       <div class="date">
10220         23rd January 2011
10221       </div>
10222       <div class="body">
10223         <p>In the
10224 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
10225 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
10226 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
10227 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
10228 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
10229 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
10230 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
10231 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
10232 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
10233 one of my machines like this:</p>
10234
10235 <pre>
10236 loaded modules:
10237 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
10238 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
10239 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
10240 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
10241 10de:03ec pata_amd
10242 10de:03f6 sata_nv
10243 1022:1103 k8temp
10244 109e:036e bttv
10245 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
10246 11ab:4364 sky2
10247 </pre>
10248
10249 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
10250 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
10251
10252 <pre>
10253 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
10254     echo loaded pci modules:
10255     (
10256         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
10257         for address in * ; do
10258             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
10259                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
10260                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
10261                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
10262                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
10263                     echo "$id $module"
10264                 fi
10265             fi
10266         done
10267     )
10268     echo
10269 fi
10270 </pre>
10271
10272 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
10273 mappings:</p>
10274
10275 <pre>
10276 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
10277     echo loaded usb modules:
10278     (
10279         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
10280         for address in * ; do
10281             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
10282                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
10283                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
10284                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
10285                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
10286                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
10287                         echo "$id $module"
10288                     fi
10289                 fi
10290             fi
10291         done
10292     )
10293     echo
10294 fi
10295 </pre>
10296
10297 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
10298 well.</p>
10299
10300       </div>
10301       <div class="tags">
10302
10303
10304         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>.
10305
10306
10307       </div>
10308     </div>
10309     <div class="padding"></div>
10310
10311     <div class="entry">
10312       <div class="title">
10313         <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>
10314       </div>
10315       <div class="date">
10316         16th January 2011
10317       </div>
10318       <div class="body">
10319         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
10320 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
10321 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
10322 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
10323 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
10324 the Wikipedia article on
10325 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
10326 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
10327 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
10328 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
10329 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
10330 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
10331 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
10332 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
10333 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
10334 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
10335 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
10336 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
10337
10338 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
10339 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
10340 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
10341 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
10342 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
10343 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
10344 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
10345 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
10346 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
10347 from last week</a>.</p>
10348
10349 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
10350 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
10351 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
10352 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
10353 was without royalties and license terms, check out
10354 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
10355 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
10356
10357 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
10358 available from
10359 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
10360 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
10361 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
10362
10363 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
10364 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
10365 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
10366 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
10367
10368       </div>
10369       <div class="tags">
10370
10371
10372         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>.
10373
10374
10375       </div>
10376     </div>
10377     <div class="padding"></div>
10378
10379     <div class="entry">
10380       <div class="title">
10381         <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>
10382       </div>
10383       <div class="date">
10384         12th January 2011
10385       </div>
10386       <div class="body">
10387         <p>Today I discovered
10388 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
10389 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
10390 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
10391 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
10392 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
10393 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
10394 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
10395 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
10396 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
10397 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
10398 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
10399 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
10400 on the Google announcement is available from
10401 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
10402 A good read. :)</p>
10403
10404 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
10405 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
10406 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
10407 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
10408 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
10409 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
10410 browsers support H.264, and others support
10411 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
10412 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
10413 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
10414 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
10415 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
10416 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
10417 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
10418 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
10419
10420 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
10421 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
10422 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
10423 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
10424 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
10425 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
10426 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
10427
10428 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
10429 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
10430 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
10431 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
10432 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
10433 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
10434 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
10435
10436 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
10437 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
10438 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
10439 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
10440 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
10441 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
10442 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
10443
10444 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
10445 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
10446 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
10447 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
10448 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
10449 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
10450 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
10451 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
10452 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
10453 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
10454 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
10455 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
10456 I guess time will tell.</p>
10457
10458 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
10459 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
10460 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
10461
10462       </div>
10463       <div class="tags">
10464
10465
10466         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>.
10467
10468
10469       </div>
10470     </div>
10471     <div class="padding"></div>
10472
10473     <div class="entry">
10474       <div class="title">
10475         <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>
10476       </div>
10477       <div class="date">
10478         30th December 2010
10479       </div>
10480       <div class="body">
10481         <p>After trying to
10482 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
10483 Ogg Theora</a> to
10484 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
10485 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
10486 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
10487 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
10488 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
10489 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
10490 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
10491
10492 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
10493 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
10494 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
10495 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
10496 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
10497 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
10498 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
10499
10500 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
10501 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
10502
10503       </div>
10504       <div class="tags">
10505
10506
10507         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>.
10508
10509
10510       </div>
10511     </div>
10512     <div class="padding"></div>
10513
10514     <div class="entry">
10515       <div class="title">
10516         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
10517       </div>
10518       <div class="date">
10519         27th December 2010
10520       </div>
10521       <div class="body">
10522         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
10523 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
10524 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
10525 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
10526 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
10527 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
10528 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
10529 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
10530
10531 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
10532 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
10533 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
10534 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
10535 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
10536 page</a>.</p>
10537
10538 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
10539 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
10540 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
10541 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
10542 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
10543 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
10544 specification on equal terms.</p>
10545
10546 <blockquote>
10547
10548 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
10549 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
10550 open standard:</p>
10551
10552 <ul>
10553
10554 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
10555 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
10556 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
10557 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
10558
10559 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
10560 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
10561 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
10562 nominal fee.</li>
10563
10564 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
10565 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
10566 free basis.</li>
10567
10568 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
10569
10570 </ul>
10571 </blockquote>
10572
10573 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
10574 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
10575 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
10576 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
10577 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
10578 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
10579 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
10580
10581 <blockquote>
10582
10583 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
10584
10585 <ol>
10586
10587 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
10588 tilgængelig.</li>
10589
10590 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
10591 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
10592
10593 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
10594 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
10595
10596 </ol>
10597
10598 </blockquote>
10599
10600 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
10601 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
10602
10603 <blockquote>
10604
10605 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
10606
10607 <ol>
10608
10609 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
10610 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
10611
10612 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
10613 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
10614 Standard themselves;</li>
10615
10616 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
10617 any party or in any business model;</li>
10618
10619 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
10620 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
10621 parties;</li>
10622
10623 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
10624 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
10625 parties.</li>
10626
10627 </ol>
10628
10629 </blockquote>
10630
10631 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
10632 its
10633 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
10634 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
10635
10636 <blockquote>
10637 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
10638
10639 <ul>
10640
10641 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
10642   democratic:
10643
10644          <ul>
10645
10646          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
10647             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
10648             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
10649             and managed.</li>
10650
10651          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
10652             method, can be changed through input from all
10653             participants.</li>
10654
10655          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
10656             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
10657
10658          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
10659             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
10660
10661          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
10662             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
10663             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
10664
10665          </ul>
10666
10667 </li>
10668
10669 </ul>
10670
10671 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
10672 <ul>
10673
10674 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
10675   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
10676   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
10677   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
10678   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
10679
10680 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
10681   a technical or economic barriers</li>
10682
10683 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
10684   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
10685   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
10686   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
10687   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
10688   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
10689   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
10690   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
10691   intended to function.</li>
10692
10693 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
10694   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
10695   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
10696
10697 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
10698   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
10699   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
10700   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
10701   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
10702   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
10703   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
10704   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
10705
10706       <ul>
10707
10708       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
10709         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
10710         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
10711
10712       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
10713         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
10714         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
10715         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
10716
10717       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
10718         licensor</li>
10719
10720       </ul>
10721 </li>
10722
10723 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
10724   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
10725   or restricted licensing terms</li>
10726
10727 </ul>
10728
10729 </blockquote>
10730
10731 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
10732 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
10733 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
10734 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
10735 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
10736 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
10737 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
10738 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
10739 Standards.</p>
10740
10741       </div>
10742       <div class="tags">
10743
10744
10745         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>.
10746
10747
10748       </div>
10749     </div>
10750     <div class="padding"></div>
10751
10752     <div class="entry">
10753       <div class="title">
10754         <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>
10755       </div>
10756       <div class="date">
10757         25th December 2010
10758       </div>
10759       <div class="body">
10760         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
10761 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
10762
10763 <blockquote>
10764
10765 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
10766 as follows:</p>
10767
10768 <ol>
10769
10770 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
10771 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
10772 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
10773
10774 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
10775 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
10776 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
10777 parties.</li>
10778
10779 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
10780 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
10781 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
10782
10783 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
10784 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
10785
10786 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
10787
10788 </ol>
10789
10790 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
10791 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
10792 products based on the standard.</p>
10793 </blockquote>
10794
10795 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
10796 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
10797 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
10798 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
10799 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
10800 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
10801 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
10802 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
10803
10804 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
10805
10806 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
10807 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
10808 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
10809 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
10810 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
10811 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
10812 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
10813 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
10814 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
10815 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
10816 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
10817 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
10818 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
10819 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
10820
10821 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
10822
10823 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
10824 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
10825 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
10826 documentation indicating this.</p>
10827
10828 <p>According to
10829 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
10830 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
10831 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
10832 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
10833 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
10834 report is correct.</p>
10835
10836 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
10837
10838 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
10839 container format</a> and both the
10840 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
10841 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
10842 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
10843
10844 <blockquote>
10845
10846 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
10847 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
10848 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
10849 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
10850 specification compliance.
10851
10852 </blockquote>
10853
10854 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
10855 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
10856 this is the term:<p>
10857
10858 <blockquote>
10859
10860 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
10861 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
10862 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
10863 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
10864 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
10865 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
10866 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
10867 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
10868 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
10869 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
10870 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
10871 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
10872
10873 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
10874 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
10875 </blockquote>
10876
10877 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
10878 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
10879 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
10880 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
10881 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
10882
10883 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
10884
10885 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
10886 Theora format.
10887 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
10888 and
10889 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
10890 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
10891 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
10892 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
10893 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
10894 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
10895 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
10896 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
10897
10898 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
10899
10900 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
10901
10902 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
10903
10904 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
10905 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
10906 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
10907 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
10908 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
10909 this.</p>
10910
10911 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
10912 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
10913
10914       </div>
10915       <div class="tags">
10916
10917
10918         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>.
10919
10920
10921       </div>
10922     </div>
10923     <div class="padding"></div>
10924
10925     <div class="entry">
10926       <div class="title">
10927         <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>
10928       </div>
10929       <div class="date">
10930         25th December 2010
10931       </div>
10932       <div class="body">
10933         <p>A few days ago
10934 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
10935 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
10936 2.0 of
10937 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
10938 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
10939 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
10940 Nothing very surprising there, given
10941 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
10942 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
10943 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
10944 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
10945 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
10946 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
10947 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
10948 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
10949 standard definition from its content.</p>
10950
10951 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
10952 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
10953 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
10954 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
10955 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
10956 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
10957 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
10958 background information about that story is available in
10959 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
10960 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
10961
10962 <blockquote>
10963 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
10964 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
10965 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
10966
10967 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
10968
10969 <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>
10970
10971 <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>
10972
10973 <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>
10974
10975 <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>
10976
10977 <p>
10978 <ul>
10979 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
10980 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
10981 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
10982 </ul>
10983 </p>
10984
10985 <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>
10986
10987 <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>
10988
10989 <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>
10990
10991 <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>
10992
10993 <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>
10994
10995
10996 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
10997 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
10998 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
10999 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
11000 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
11001 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
11002
11003 </p>
11004
11005 <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>
11006
11007 <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>
11008
11009 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
11010
11011 <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>
11012
11013 <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>
11014
11015 <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>
11016
11017 <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>
11018
11019 <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>
11020
11021 <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>
11022
11023 <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>
11024
11025 <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>
11026
11027 <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>
11028
11029 <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>
11030
11031 <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>
11032
11033 <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>
11034
11035 <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>
11036
11037 <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>
11038
11039 <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>
11040
11041 <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>
11042
11043 <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>
11044
11045 <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>
11046
11047 <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>
11048
11049 <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>
11050
11051 <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>
11052
11053 <p>On security:</p>
11054
11055 <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>
11056
11057 <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>
11058
11059 <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>
11060
11061 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
11062
11063 <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>
11064
11065 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
11066
11067 <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>
11068
11069 <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>
11070
11071 <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>
11072
11073 <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>
11074
11075 <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>
11076
11077 <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>
11078
11079 <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>
11080
11081 <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>
11082
11083 <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>
11084
11085 <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>
11086
11087 <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>
11088
11089 <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>
11090
11091 <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>
11092
11093 <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>
11094
11095 <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>
11096
11097 <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>
11098
11099 <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>
11100
11101 <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>
11102
11103 <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>
11104
11105 <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>
11106
11107 <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>
11108
11109 <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>
11110
11111 <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>
11112
11113 <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>
11114
11115 <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>
11116
11117 <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>
11118
11119 <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>
11120
11121 <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>
11122
11123 <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>
11124
11125 <p>Cordially,<br>
11126 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
11127 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
11128 </blockquote>
11129
11130       </div>
11131       <div class="tags">
11132
11133
11134         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>.
11135
11136
11137       </div>
11138     </div>
11139     <div class="padding"></div>
11140
11141     <div class="entry">
11142       <div class="title">
11143         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
11144       </div>
11145       <div class="date">
11146         25th December 2010
11147       </div>
11148       <div class="body">
11149         <p>Half a year ago I
11150 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
11151 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
11152 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
11153 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
11154
11155 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
11156 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
11157 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
11158 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
11159 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
11160 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
11161 got such a great test tool available.</p>
11162
11163       </div>
11164       <div class="tags">
11165
11166
11167         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>.
11168
11169
11170       </div>
11171     </div>
11172     <div class="padding"></div>
11173
11174     <div class="entry">
11175       <div class="title">
11176         <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>
11177       </div>
11178       <div class="date">
11179         22nd December 2010
11180       </div>
11181       <div class="body">
11182         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
11183 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
11184 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
11185 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
11186 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
11187 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
11188 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
11189 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
11190 university.</p>
11191
11192 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
11193 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
11194 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
11195 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
11196 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
11197 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
11198 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
11199 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
11200
11201 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
11202 I perform on a new model.</p>
11203
11204 <ul>
11205
11206 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
11207 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
11208 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
11209
11210 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
11211 installation, X.org is working.</li>
11212
11213 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
11214 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
11215 reported by the program.</li>
11216
11217 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
11218 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
11219 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
11220 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
11221 normally test this by playing
11222 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
11223 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
11224
11225 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
11226 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
11227
11228 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
11229 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
11230
11231 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
11232 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
11233
11234 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
11235 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
11236 few.</li>
11237
11238 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
11239 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
11240 notice this.</li>
11241
11242 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
11243 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
11244 resume.</li>
11245
11246 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
11247 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
11248 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
11249 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
11250 not.</li>
11251
11252 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
11253 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
11254 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
11255 existence.</li>
11256
11257 </ul>
11258
11259 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
11260 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
11261 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
11262 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
11263 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
11264 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
11265 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
11266 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
11267
11268       </div>
11269       <div class="tags">
11270
11271
11272         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>.
11273
11274
11275       </div>
11276     </div>
11277     <div class="padding"></div>
11278
11279     <div class="entry">
11280       <div class="title">
11281         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
11282       </div>
11283       <div class="date">
11284         11th December 2010
11285       </div>
11286       <div class="body">
11287         <p>As I continue to explore
11288 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
11289 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
11290 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
11291
11292 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
11293 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
11294 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
11295 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
11296 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
11297 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
11298 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
11299 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
11300 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
11301 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
11302 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
11303 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
11304 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
11305 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
11306 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
11307 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
11308 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
11309 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
11310 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
11311 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
11312
11313 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
11314 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
11315 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
11316 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
11317 If the Skolelinux foundation
11318 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
11319 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
11320 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
11321 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
11322 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
11323 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
11324 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
11325 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
11326
11327 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
11328 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
11329 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
11330 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
11331 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
11332 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
11333 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
11334 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
11335 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
11336 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
11337 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
11338 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
11339 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
11340 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
11341 currencies.</p>
11342
11343 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
11344 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
11345 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
11346 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
11347 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
11348 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
11349 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
11350 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
11351 BitCoins.  Check out
11352 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
11353 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
11354 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
11355 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
11356 yet.</p>
11357
11358 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
11359 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
11360 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
11361 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
11362 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
11363
11364       </div>
11365       <div class="tags">
11366
11367
11368         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>.
11369
11370
11371       </div>
11372     </div>
11373     <div class="padding"></div>
11374
11375     <div class="entry">
11376       <div class="title">
11377         <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>
11378       </div>
11379       <div class="date">
11380         10th December 2010
11381       </div>
11382       <div class="body">
11383         <p>With this weeks lawless
11384 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
11385 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
11386 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
11387 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
11388 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
11389 A blog post from
11390 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
11391 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
11392 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
11393 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
11394 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
11395 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
11396 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
11397
11398 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
11399 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
11400 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
11401 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
11402 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
11403 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
11404 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
11405 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
11406 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
11407 Debian</a> soon.</p>
11408
11409 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
11410 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
11411 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
11412 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
11413 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
11414 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
11415 you can even get
11416 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
11417 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
11418 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
11419 on the current exchange rates.</p>
11420
11421 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
11422 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
11423 donations to the address
11424 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
11425
11426       </div>
11427       <div class="tags">
11428
11429
11430         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>.
11431
11432
11433       </div>
11434     </div>
11435     <div class="padding"></div>
11436
11437     <div class="entry">
11438       <div class="title">
11439         <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>
11440       </div>
11441       <div class="date">
11442          9th December 2010
11443       </div>
11444       <div class="body">
11445         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
11446 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
11447 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
11448 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
11449 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
11450 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
11451 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
11452 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
11453 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
11454 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
11455 operational.</p>
11456
11457 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
11458 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
11459 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
11460 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
11461 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
11462 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
11463 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
11464
11465       </div>
11466       <div class="tags">
11467
11468
11469         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>.
11470
11471
11472       </div>
11473     </div>
11474     <div class="padding"></div>
11475
11476     <div class="entry">
11477       <div class="title">
11478         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_development_gathering_and_General_Assembly_for_FRiSK.html">Debian Edu development gathering and General Assembly for FRiSK</a>
11479       </div>
11480       <div class="date">
11481         29th November 2010
11482       </div>
11483       <div class="body">
11484         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
11485 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
11486 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
11487 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
11488 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
11489 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
11490
11491 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
11492 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
11493 will hold its
11494 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
11495 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
11496 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
11497 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
11498 vote this year.</p>
11499
11500       </div>
11501       <div class="tags">
11502
11503
11504         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
11505
11506
11507       </div>
11508     </div>
11509     <div class="padding"></div>
11510
11511     <div class="entry">
11512       <div class="title">
11513         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
11514       </div>
11515       <div class="date">
11516         27th November 2010
11517       </div>
11518       <div class="body">
11519         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
11520 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
11521 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
11522 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
11523 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
11524 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
11525 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
11526 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
11527
11528 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
11529 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
11530 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
11531 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
11532 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
11533 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
11534 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
11535 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
11536 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
11537 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
11538 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
11539
11540 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
11541 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
11542 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
11543 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
11544 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
11545 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
11546 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
11547 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
11548 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
11549 what is going on.</p>
11550
11551       </div>
11552       <div class="tags">
11553
11554
11555         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>.
11556
11557
11558       </div>
11559     </div>
11560     <div class="padding"></div>
11561
11562     <div class="entry">
11563       <div class="title">
11564         <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>
11565       </div>
11566       <div class="date">
11567         22nd November 2010
11568       </div>
11569       <div class="body">
11570         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
11571 upgrade testing of the
11572 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
11573 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
11574 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
11575 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
11576
11577 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
11578
11579 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
11580
11581 <blockquote><p>
11582   apache2.2-bin
11583   aptdaemon
11584   baobab
11585   binfmt-support
11586   browser-plugin-gnash
11587   cheese-common
11588   cli-common
11589   cups-pk-helper
11590   dmz-cursor-theme
11591   empathy
11592   empathy-common
11593   freedesktop-sound-theme
11594   freeglut3
11595   gconf-defaults-service
11596   gdm-themes
11597   gedit-plugins
11598   geoclue
11599   geoclue-hostip
11600   geoclue-localnet
11601   geoclue-manual
11602   geoclue-yahoo
11603   gnash
11604   gnash-common
11605   gnome
11606   gnome-backgrounds
11607   gnome-cards-data
11608   gnome-codec-install
11609   gnome-core
11610   gnome-desktop-environment
11611   gnome-disk-utility
11612   gnome-screenshot
11613   gnome-search-tool
11614   gnome-session-canberra
11615   gnome-system-log
11616   gnome-themes-extras
11617   gnome-themes-more
11618   gnome-user-share
11619   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
11620   gstreamer0.10-tools
11621   gtk2-engines
11622   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
11623   gtk2-engines-smooth
11624   hamster-applet
11625   libapache2-mod-dnssd
11626   libapr1
11627   libaprutil1
11628   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
11629   libaprutil1-ldap
11630   libart2.0-cil
11631   libboost-date-time1.42.0
11632   libboost-python1.42.0
11633   libboost-thread1.42.0
11634   libchamplain-0.4-0
11635   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
11636   libcheese-gtk18
11637   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
11638   libcryptui0
11639   libdiscid0
11640   libelf1
11641   libepc-1.0-2
11642   libepc-common
11643   libepc-ui-1.0-2
11644   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
11645   libfreerdp0
11646   libgconf2.0-cil
11647   libgdata-common
11648   libgdata7
11649   libgdu-gtk0
11650   libgee2
11651   libgeoclue0
11652   libgexiv2-0
11653   libgif4
11654   libglade2.0-cil
11655   libglib2.0-cil
11656   libgmime2.4-cil
11657   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
11658   libgnome2.24-cil
11659   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
11660   libgpod-common
11661   libgpod4
11662   libgtk2.0-cil
11663   libgtkglext1
11664   libgtksourceview2.0-common
11665   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
11666   libmono-addins0.2-cil
11667   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
11668   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
11669   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
11670   libmono-posix2.0-cil
11671   libmono-security2.0-cil
11672   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
11673   libmono-system2.0-cil
11674   libmtp8
11675   libmusicbrainz3-6
11676   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
11677   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
11678   libopal3.6.8
11679   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
11680   libpt2.6.7
11681   libpython2.6
11682   librpm1
11683   librpmio1
11684   libsdl1.2debian
11685   libsrtp0
11686   libssh-4
11687   libtelepathy-farsight0
11688   libtelepathy-glib0
11689   libtidy-0.99-0
11690   media-player-info
11691   mesa-utils
11692   mono-2.0-gac
11693   mono-gac
11694   mono-runtime
11695   nautilus-sendto
11696   nautilus-sendto-empathy
11697   p7zip-full
11698   pkg-config
11699   python-aptdaemon
11700   python-aptdaemon-gtk
11701   python-axiom
11702   python-beautifulsoup
11703   python-bugbuddy
11704   python-clientform
11705   python-coherence
11706   python-configobj
11707   python-crypto
11708   python-cupshelpers
11709   python-elementtree
11710   python-epsilon
11711   python-evolution
11712   python-feedparser
11713   python-gdata
11714   python-gdbm
11715   python-gst0.10
11716   python-gtkglext1
11717   python-gtksourceview2
11718   python-httplib2
11719   python-louie
11720   python-mako
11721   python-markupsafe
11722   python-mechanize
11723   python-nevow
11724   python-notify
11725   python-opengl
11726   python-openssl
11727   python-pam
11728   python-pkg-resources
11729   python-pyasn1
11730   python-pysqlite2
11731   python-rdflib
11732   python-serial
11733   python-tagpy
11734   python-twisted-bin
11735   python-twisted-conch
11736   python-twisted-core
11737   python-twisted-web
11738   python-utidylib
11739   python-webkit
11740   python-xdg
11741   python-zope.interface
11742   remmina
11743   remmina-plugin-data
11744   remmina-plugin-rdp
11745   remmina-plugin-vnc
11746   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
11747   rhythmbox-plugins
11748   rpm-common
11749   rpm2cpio
11750   seahorse-plugins
11751   shotwell
11752   software-center
11753   system-config-printer-udev
11754   telepathy-gabble
11755   telepathy-mission-control-5
11756   telepathy-salut
11757   tomboy
11758   totem
11759   totem-coherence
11760   totem-mozilla
11761   totem-plugins
11762   transmission-common
11763   xdg-user-dirs
11764   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
11765   xserver-xephyr
11766 </p></blockquote>
11767
11768 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
11769
11770 <blockquote><p>
11771   cheese
11772   ekiga
11773   eog
11774   epiphany-extensions
11775   evolution-exchange
11776   fast-user-switch-applet
11777   file-roller
11778   gcalctool
11779   gconf-editor
11780   gdm
11781   gedit
11782   gedit-common
11783   gnome-games
11784   gnome-games-data
11785   gnome-nettool
11786   gnome-system-tools
11787   gnome-themes
11788   gnuchess
11789   gucharmap
11790   guile-1.8-libs
11791   libavahi-ui0
11792   libdmx1
11793   libgalago3
11794   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
11795   libgtksourceview2.0-0
11796   liblircclient0
11797   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
11798   libspeexdsp1
11799   libsvga1
11800   rhythmbox
11801   seahorse
11802   sound-juicer
11803   system-config-printer
11804   totem-common
11805   transmission-gtk
11806   vinagre
11807   vino
11808 </p></blockquote>
11809
11810 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
11811
11812 <blockquote><p>
11813   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
11814 </p></blockquote>
11815
11816 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
11817
11818 <blockquote><p>
11819 [nothing]
11820 </p></blockquote>
11821
11822 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
11823
11824 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
11825
11826 <blockquote><p>
11827   ksmserver
11828 </p></blockquote>
11829
11830 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
11831
11832 <blockquote><p>
11833   kwin
11834   network-manager-kde
11835 </p></blockquote>
11836
11837 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
11838
11839 <blockquote><p>
11840   arts
11841   dolphin
11842   freespacenotifier
11843   google-gadgets-gst
11844   google-gadgets-xul
11845   kappfinder
11846   kcalc
11847   kcharselect
11848   kde-core
11849   kde-plasma-desktop
11850   kde-standard
11851   kde-window-manager
11852   kdeartwork
11853   kdeartwork-emoticons
11854   kdeartwork-style
11855   kdeartwork-theme-icon
11856   kdebase
11857   kdebase-apps
11858   kdebase-workspace
11859   kdebase-workspace-bin
11860   kdebase-workspace-data
11861   kdeeject
11862   kdelibs
11863   kdeplasma-addons
11864   kdeutils
11865   kdewallpapers
11866   kdf
11867   kfloppy
11868   kgpg
11869   khelpcenter4
11870   kinfocenter
11871   konq-plugins-l10n
11872   konqueror-nsplugins
11873   kscreensaver
11874   kscreensaver-xsavers
11875   ktimer
11876   kwrite
11877   libgle3
11878   libkde4-ruby1.8
11879   libkonq5
11880   libkonq5-templates
11881   libnetpbm10
11882   libplasma-ruby
11883   libplasma-ruby1.8
11884   libqt4-ruby1.8
11885   marble-data
11886   marble-plugins
11887   netpbm
11888   nuvola-icon-theme
11889   plasma-dataengines-workspace
11890   plasma-desktop
11891   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
11892   plasma-runners-addons
11893   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
11894   plasma-scriptengine-python
11895   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
11896   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
11897   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
11898   plasma-scriptengines
11899   plasma-wallpapers-addons
11900   plasma-widget-folderview
11901   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
11902   ruby
11903   sweeper
11904   update-notifier-kde
11905   xscreensaver-data-extra
11906   xscreensaver-gl
11907   xscreensaver-gl-extra
11908   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
11909 </p></blockquote>
11910
11911 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
11912
11913 <blockquote><p>
11914   ark
11915   google-gadgets-common
11916   google-gadgets-qt
11917   htdig
11918   kate
11919   kdebase-bin
11920   kdebase-data
11921   kdepasswd
11922   kfind
11923   klipper
11924   konq-plugins
11925   konqueror
11926   ksysguard
11927   ksysguardd
11928   libarchive1
11929   libcln6
11930   libeet1
11931   libeina-svn-06
11932   libggadget-1.0-0b
11933   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
11934   libgps19
11935   libkdecorations4
11936   libkephal4
11937   libkonq4
11938   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
11939   libkscreensaver5
11940   libksgrd4
11941   libksignalplotter4
11942   libkunitconversion4
11943   libkwineffects1a
11944   libmarblewidget4
11945   libntrack-qt4-1
11946   libntrack0
11947   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
11948   libplasmaclock4a
11949   libplasmagenericshell4
11950   libprocesscore4a
11951   libprocessui4a
11952   libqalculate5
11953   libqedje0a
11954   libqtruby4shared2
11955   libqzion0a
11956   libruby1.8
11957   libscim8c2a
11958   libsmokekdecore4-3
11959   libsmokekdeui4-3
11960   libsmokekfile3
11961   libsmokekhtml3
11962   libsmokekio3
11963   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
11964   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
11965   libsmokekparts3
11966   libsmokektexteditor3
11967   libsmokekutils3
11968   libsmokenepomuk3
11969   libsmokephonon3
11970   libsmokeplasma3
11971   libsmokeqtcore4-3
11972   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
11973   libsmokeqtgui4-3
11974   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
11975   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
11976   libsmokeqtscript4-3
11977   libsmokeqtsql4-3
11978   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
11979   libsmokeqttest4-3
11980   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
11981   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
11982   libsmokeqtxml4-3
11983   libsmokesolid3
11984   libsmokesoprano3
11985   libtaskmanager4a
11986   libtidy-0.99-0
11987   libweather-ion4a
11988   libxklavier16
11989   libxxf86misc1
11990   okteta
11991   oxygencursors
11992   plasma-dataengines-addons
11993   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
11994   plasma-widget-lancelot
11995   plasma-widgets-addons
11996   plasma-widgets-workspace
11997   polkit-kde-1
11998   ruby1.8
11999   systemsettings
12000   update-notifier-common
12001 </p></blockquote>
12002
12003 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
12004 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
12005 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
12006 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
12007
12008       </div>
12009       <div class="tags">
12010
12011
12012         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>.
12013
12014
12015       </div>
12016     </div>
12017     <div class="padding"></div>
12018
12019     <div class="entry">
12020       <div class="title">
12021         <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>
12022       </div>
12023       <div class="date">
12024         22nd November 2010
12025       </div>
12026       <div class="body">
12027         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
12028 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
12029 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
12030 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
12031 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
12032 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
12033 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
12034 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
12035 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
12036
12037 <p>I found
12038 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
12039 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
12040 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
12041 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
12042 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
12043 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
12044
12045 <pre>
12046 #!/bin/sh
12047
12048 # Based on
12049 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
12050
12051 set -e
12052 set -x
12053
12054 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
12055     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
12056     exit 1
12057 else
12058     host="$1"
12059 fi
12060
12061 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
12062     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
12063     exit 1
12064 fi
12065
12066 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
12067 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
12068 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
12069 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
12070
12071 img=$host.img
12072 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
12073 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
12074
12075 parted $img mklabel msdos
12076 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
12077 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
12078 parted $img set 1 boot on
12079
12080 modprobe dm-mod
12081 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
12082 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
12083
12084 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
12085 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
12086 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
12087
12088 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
12089 losetup -d /dev/loop0
12090 </pre>
12091
12092 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
12093 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
12094
12095 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
12096 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
12097 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
12098 seem to work just fine.</p>
12099
12100       </div>
12101       <div class="tags">
12102
12103
12104         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>.
12105
12106
12107       </div>
12108     </div>
12109     <div class="padding"></div>
12110
12111     <div class="entry">
12112       <div class="title">
12113         <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>
12114       </div>
12115       <div class="date">
12116         20th November 2010
12117       </div>
12118       <div class="body">
12119         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
12120 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
12121 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
12122 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
12123
12124 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
12125 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
12126 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
12127
12128 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
12129
12130 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12131
12132 <blockquote><p>
12133   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
12134   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
12135   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
12136   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
12137   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
12138   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
12139   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
12140   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
12141   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
12142   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
12143   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
12144   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
12145   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
12146   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
12147   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
12148   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
12149   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
12150   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
12151   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
12152   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
12153   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
12154   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
12155   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
12156   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
12157   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
12158   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
12159   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
12160   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
12161   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
12162   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
12163   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
12164   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
12165   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
12166   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
12167   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
12168   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
12169   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
12170   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
12171   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
12172   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
12173   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
12174   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
12175   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
12176   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
12177   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
12178   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
12179   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
12180   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
12181   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
12182   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
12183   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
12184   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
12185   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
12186   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
12187   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
12188   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
12189   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
12190   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
12191   zip
12192 </p></blockquote>
12193
12194 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
12195
12196 <blockquote><p>
12197   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
12198   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
12199   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
12200   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
12201   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
12202   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
12203   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
12204   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
12205   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
12206   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
12207   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
12208   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
12209   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
12210   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
12211   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
12212   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
12213   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
12214   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
12215   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
12216   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
12217   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
12218   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
12219   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
12220   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
12221   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
12222   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
12223   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
12224   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
12225   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
12226 </p></blockquote>
12227
12228 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12229
12230 <blockquote><p>
12231   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
12232 </p></blockquote>
12233
12234 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12235
12236 <blockquote><p>
12237 [nothing]
12238 </p></blockquote>
12239
12240 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
12241
12242 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12243
12244 <blockquote><p>
12245   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
12246   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
12247   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
12248   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
12249   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
12250   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
12251   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
12252   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
12253   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
12254   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
12255   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
12256   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
12257   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
12258   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
12259   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
12260   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
12261   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
12262   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
12263   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
12264   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
12265   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
12266   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
12267   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
12268   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
12269   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
12270   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
12271   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
12272   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
12273   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
12274   ttf-sazanami-gothic
12275 </p></blockquote>
12276
12277 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12278
12279 <blockquote><p>
12280   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
12281   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
12282   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
12283   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
12284   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
12285   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
12286   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
12287   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
12288   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
12289   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
12290   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
12291   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
12292   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
12293   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
12294   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
12295   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
12296   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
12297   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
12298   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
12299   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
12300   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
12301   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
12302   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
12303   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
12304   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
12305   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
12306   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
12307   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
12308   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
12309   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
12310   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
12311   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
12312   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
12313 </p></blockquote>
12314
12315 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12316
12317 <blockquote><p>
12318   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
12319   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
12320   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
12321   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
12322   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
12323   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
12324   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
12325 </p></blockquote>
12326
12327 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12328
12329 <blockquote><p>
12330   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
12331 </p></blockquote>
12332
12333       </div>
12334       <div class="tags">
12335
12336
12337         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>.
12338
12339
12340       </div>
12341     </div>
12342     <div class="padding"></div>
12343
12344     <div class="entry">
12345       <div class="title">
12346         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
12347       </div>
12348       <div class="date">
12349         20th November 2010
12350       </div>
12351       <div class="body">
12352         <p>Answering
12353 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
12354 call from the Gnash project</a> for
12355 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
12356 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
12357 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
12358 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
12359 releases out more often.</p>
12360
12361 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
12362 I have considered setting up a <a
12363 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
12364 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
12365 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
12366 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
12367 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
12368 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
12369 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
12370 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
12371 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
12372 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
12373 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
12374 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
12375
12376       </div>
12377       <div class="tags">
12378
12379
12380         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>.
12381
12382
12383       </div>
12384     </div>
12385     <div class="padding"></div>
12386
12387     <div class="entry">
12388       <div class="title">
12389         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
12390       </div>
12391       <div class="date">
12392          9th November 2010
12393       </div>
12394       <div class="body">
12395         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
12396
12397 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
12398 3D linked in from
12399 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
12400 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
12401
12402       </div>
12403       <div class="tags">
12404
12405
12406         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>.
12407
12408
12409       </div>
12410     </div>
12411     <div class="padding"></div>
12412
12413     <div class="entry">
12414       <div class="title">
12415         <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>
12416       </div>
12417       <div class="date">
12418          7th November 2010
12419       </div>
12420       <div class="body">
12421         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
12422 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
12423 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
12424 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
12425 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
12426 working using this DVD.</p>
12427
12428 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
12429 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
12430 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
12431 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
12432 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
12433 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
12434 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
12435
12436 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
12437 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
12438 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
12439 Debian archive.</p>
12440
12441 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
12442 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
12443 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
12444 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
12445 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
12446 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
12447 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
12448 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
12449 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
12450 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
12451 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
12452 free X driver should work.</p>
12453
12454 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
12455 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
12456 DVD more useful again.</p>
12457
12458       </div>
12459       <div class="tags">
12460
12461
12462         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12463
12464
12465       </div>
12466     </div>
12467     <div class="padding"></div>
12468
12469     <div class="entry">
12470       <div class="title">
12471         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
12472       </div>
12473       <div class="date">
12474         24th October 2010
12475       </div>
12476       <div class="body">
12477         <p>Some updates.</p>
12478
12479 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
12480 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
12481 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
12482 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
12483 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
12484 :)</p>
12485
12486 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
12487 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
12488 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
12489 It is called
12490 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
12491 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
12492 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
12493 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
12494 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
12495 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
12496
12497 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
12498 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
12499 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
12500 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
12501 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
12502 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
12503 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
12504 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
12505 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
12506 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
12507
12508       </div>
12509       <div class="tags">
12510
12511
12512         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>.
12513
12514
12515       </div>
12516     </div>
12517     <div class="padding"></div>
12518
12519     <div class="entry">
12520       <div class="title">
12521         <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>
12522       </div>
12523       <div class="date">
12524         19th October 2010
12525       </div>
12526       <div class="body">
12527         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
12528 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
12529 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
12530 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
12531 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
12532 AVM2 flash files.</p>
12533
12534 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
12535 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
12536 following text:</P>
12537
12538 <p><blockquote>
12539
12540   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
12541   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
12542
12543   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
12544
12545   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
12546
12547   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
12548   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
12549   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
12550   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
12551   days. The project web page is available from
12552   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
12553   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
12554   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
12555
12556   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
12557   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
12558   to get this to happen.</p>
12559
12560   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
12561   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
12562
12563 </blockquote></p>
12564
12565 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
12566 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
12567 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
12568 :)</p>
12569
12570       </div>
12571       <div class="tags">
12572
12573
12574         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>.
12575
12576
12577       </div>
12578     </div>
12579     <div class="padding"></div>
12580
12581     <div class="entry">
12582       <div class="title">
12583         <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>
12584       </div>
12585       <div class="date">
12586          9th October 2010
12587       </div>
12588       <div class="body">
12589         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
12590 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
12591 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
12592 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
12593 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
12594 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
12595 robots.</p>
12596
12597 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
12598 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
12599 a few less important features too.</p>
12600
12601 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
12602 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
12603 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
12604 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
12605
12606 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
12607 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
12608 source or binary package:</p>
12609
12610 <p><ul>
12611 <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>
12612 <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>
12613 <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>
12614 </ul></p>
12615
12616 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
12617 please let me know.</p>
12618
12619       </div>
12620       <div class="tags">
12621
12622
12623         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>.
12624
12625
12626       </div>
12627     </div>
12628     <div class="padding"></div>
12629
12630     <div class="entry">
12631       <div class="title">
12632         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
12633       </div>
12634       <div class="date">
12635          3rd October 2010
12636       </div>
12637       <div class="body">
12638         <p><ul>
12639
12640 <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
12641 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
12642
12643 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
12644 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
12645 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
12646
12647 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
12648 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
12649 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
12650 simple setup.
12651
12652 </ul></p>
12653
12654       </div>
12655       <div class="tags">
12656
12657
12658         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>.
12659
12660
12661       </div>
12662     </div>
12663     <div class="padding"></div>
12664
12665     <div class="entry">
12666       <div class="title">
12667         <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>
12668       </div>
12669       <div class="date">
12670          9th September 2010
12671       </div>
12672       <div class="body">
12673         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
12674 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
12675 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
12676 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
12677 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
12678 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
12679 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
12680 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
12681 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
12682
12683 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
12684 written:</p>
12685
12686 <blockquote>
12687 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
12688 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
12689 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
12690 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
12691 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
12692
12693 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
12694 standard.</p>
12695 </blockquote>
12696
12697 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
12698 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
12699 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
12700 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
12701
12702 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
12703 read
12704 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
12705 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
12706 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
12707 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
12708 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
12709 the issue.  The solution is to support the
12710 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
12711 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
12712 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
12713
12714       </div>
12715       <div class="tags">
12716
12717
12718         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>.
12719
12720
12721       </div>
12722     </div>
12723     <div class="padding"></div>
12724
12725     <div class="entry">
12726       <div class="title">
12727         <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>
12728       </div>
12729       <div class="date">
12730          4th September 2010
12731       </div>
12732       <div class="body">
12733         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
12734 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
12735 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
12736 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
12737 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
12738 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
12739 installed.</p>
12740
12741 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
12742 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
12743 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
12744 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
12745 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
12746 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
12747 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
12748 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
12749 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
12750
12751 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
12752 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
12753 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
12754 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
12755 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
12756 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
12757 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
12758 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
12759 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
12760 pages they want to visit.</p>
12761
12762 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
12763 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
12764 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
12765 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
12766 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
12767 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
12768 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
12769 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
12770 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
12771 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
12772 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
12773
12774       </div>
12775       <div class="tags">
12776
12777
12778         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>.
12779
12780
12781       </div>
12782     </div>
12783     <div class="padding"></div>
12784
12785     <div class="entry">
12786       <div class="title">
12787         <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>
12788       </div>
12789       <div class="date">
12790          1st September 2010
12791       </div>
12792       <div class="body">
12793         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
12794 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
12795 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
12796 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
12797 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
12798 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
12799 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
12800 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
12801 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
12802 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
12803 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
12804 drive around.</p>
12805
12806 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
12807 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
12808
12809 <p><pre>
12810 use Spykee;
12811 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
12812 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
12813 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
12814 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
12815 $spykee->left();
12816 sleep 2;
12817 $spykee->right();
12818 sleep 2;
12819 $spykee->forward();
12820 sleep 2;
12821 $spykee->back();
12822 sleep 2;
12823 $spykee->stop();
12824 </pre></p>
12825
12826 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
12827 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
12828 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
12829 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
12830 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
12831 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
12832 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
12833 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
12834 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
12835 going. :).</p>
12836
12837 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
12838 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
12839 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
12840 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
12841
12842       </div>
12843       <div class="tags">
12844
12845
12846         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>.
12847
12848
12849       </div>
12850     </div>
12851     <div class="padding"></div>
12852
12853     <div class="entry">
12854       <div class="title">
12855         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
12856       </div>
12857       <div class="date">
12858         30th August 2010
12859       </div>
12860       <div class="body">
12861         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
12862 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
12863 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
12864 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
12865 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
12866 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
12867 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
12868
12869 <pre>
12870 % ln foo bar
12871 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
12872 %
12873 </pre>
12874
12875 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
12876 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
12877 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
12878 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
12879 nevertheless. :)</p>
12880
12881 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
12882 git from
12883 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
12884
12885       </div>
12886       <div class="tags">
12887
12888
12889         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12890
12891
12892       </div>
12893     </div>
12894     <div class="padding"></div>
12895
12896     <div class="entry">
12897       <div class="title">
12898         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
12899       </div>
12900       <div class="date">
12901         26th August 2010
12902       </div>
12903       <div class="body">
12904         <p>My file system sematics program
12905 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
12906 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
12907 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
12908 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
12909 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
12910 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
12911 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
12912 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
12913 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
12914 script:</p>
12915
12916 <pre>
12917 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
12918   mode_t retval = 0;
12919   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
12920   if (-1 != fd) {
12921     unlink(name);
12922     struct stat statbuf;
12923     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
12924       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
12925     }
12926     close(fd);
12927   }
12928   return retval;
12929 }
12930
12931 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
12932 int test_umask(void) {
12933   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
12934
12935   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
12936   mode_t newmode;
12937   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
12938     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
12939            newmode);
12940   }
12941   umask(007);
12942   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
12943     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
12944            newmode);
12945   }
12946
12947   umask (orig_umask);
12948   return 0;
12949 }
12950
12951 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
12952   [...]
12953   test_umask();
12954   return 0;
12955 }
12956 </pre>
12957
12958 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
12959
12960 <pre>
12961 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
12962 info: testing symlink creation
12963 info: testing subdirectory creation
12964 info: testing fcntl locking
12965   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
12966   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
12967   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
12968   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
12969   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
12970   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
12971 info: testing umask effect on file creation
12972 </pre>
12973
12974 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
12975 result:</p>
12976
12977 <pre>
12978 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
12979 info: testing symlink creation
12980 info: testing subdirectory creation
12981 info: testing fcntl locking
12982   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
12983   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
12984   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
12985   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
12986   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
12987   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
12988 info: testing umask effect on file creation
12989   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
12990   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
12991 </pre>
12992
12993 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
12994 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
12995 directory.</p>
12996
12997 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
12998 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
12999
13000 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
13001 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
13002 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
13003
13004       </div>
13005       <div class="tags">
13006
13007
13008         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13009
13010
13011       </div>
13012     </div>
13013     <div class="padding"></div>
13014
13015     <div class="entry">
13016       <div class="title">
13017         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
13018       </div>
13019       <div class="date">
13020         15th August 2010
13021       </div>
13022       <div class="body">
13023         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
13024 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
13025 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
13026 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
13027 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
13028 long time.</p>
13029
13030       </div>
13031       <div class="tags">
13032
13033
13034         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>.
13035
13036
13037       </div>
13038     </div>
13039     <div class="padding"></div>
13040
13041     <div class="entry">
13042       <div class="title">
13043         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
13044       </div>
13045       <div class="date">
13046          9th August 2010
13047       </div>
13048       <div class="body">
13049         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
13050 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
13051 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
13052 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
13053 generated configuration.</p>
13054
13055 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
13056 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
13057 without any manual configuration.</p>
13058
13059 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
13060 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
13061 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
13062 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
13063 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
13064 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
13065 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
13066 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
13067 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
13068 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
13069 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
13070 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
13071 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
13072 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
13073 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
13074 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
13075 use.</p>
13076
13077 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
13078 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
13079 working properly out of the box:</p>
13080
13081 <ul>
13082 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
13083 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
13084 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
13085 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
13086 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
13087 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
13088 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
13089 </ul>
13090
13091 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
13092
13093 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
13094 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
13095 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
13096 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
13097 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
13098
13099 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
13100 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
13101 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
13102 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
13103 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
13104 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
13105 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
13106 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
13107
13108 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
13109 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
13110 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
13111 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
13112 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
13113 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
13114 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
13115 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
13116 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
13117 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
13118 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
13119 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
13120 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
13121 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
13122 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
13123 current DNS domain is used.</p>
13124
13125 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
13126 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
13127 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
13128 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
13129 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
13130 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
13131 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
13132 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
13133 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
13134 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
13135 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
13136 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
13137 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
13138
13139 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
13140 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
13141 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
13142 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
13143 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
13144 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
13145 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
13146 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
13147 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
13148 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
13149 do for now. :)</p>
13150
13151 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
13152 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
13153 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
13154 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
13155 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
13156 yet.</p>
13157
13158 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
13159 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13160
13161 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
13162 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
13163 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
13164 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
13165
13166       </div>
13167       <div class="tags">
13168
13169
13170         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13171
13172
13173       </div>
13174     </div>
13175     <div class="padding"></div>
13176
13177     <div class="entry">
13178       <div class="title">
13179         <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>
13180       </div>
13181       <div class="date">
13182          8th August 2010
13183       </div>
13184       <div class="body">
13185         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
13186 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
13187 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
13188 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
13189 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
13190 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
13191 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
13192
13193 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
13194 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
13195 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
13196 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
13197 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
13198 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
13199 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
13200
13201 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
13202 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
13203 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
13204 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
13205 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
13206
13207 <pre>
13208 /*
13209  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
13210  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
13211  * directory.
13212  * License: GPL v2 or later
13213  *
13214  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
13215  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
13216 */
13217
13218 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
13219 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
13220 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
13221
13222 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
13223
13224 #include &lt;errno.h>
13225 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
13226 #include &lt;stdio.h>
13227 #include &lt;string.h>
13228 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
13229 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
13230 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
13231 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
13232 #include &lt;unistd.h>
13233
13234 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
13235 /*
13236  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
13237  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
13238  * below.
13239  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
13240  */
13241 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
13242 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
13243   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
13244 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
13245   char *zErrMsg;
13246   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
13247   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
13248   unlink(name);
13249   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
13250   if( rc ){
13251     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
13252     sqlite3_close(db);
13253     return -1;
13254   }
13255
13256   /* create tables */
13257   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
13258   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
13259     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
13260     sqlite3_close(db);
13261     return -1;
13262   }
13263   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
13264   sqlite3_close(db);
13265   return 0;
13266 }
13267 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
13268
13269 /*
13270  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
13271  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
13272  * done in the sqlite3 library.
13273  * See also
13274  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
13275  * POSIX specification
13276  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
13277  */
13278 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
13279   struct flock fl;
13280   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
13281   unlink(name);
13282   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
13283   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
13284
13285   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
13286   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
13287   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
13288   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
13289   fl.l_len    = 1;
13290   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
13291   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
13292
13293   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
13294   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
13295   fl.l_len    = 510;
13296   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
13297   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
13298
13299   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
13300   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
13301   fl.l_len    = 1;
13302   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
13303   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
13304
13305   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
13306   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
13307   fl.l_len    = 1;
13308   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
13309   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
13310
13311   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
13312   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
13313   fl.l_len    = 510;
13314   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
13315
13316   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
13317   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
13318   fl.l_len    = 2;
13319   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
13320   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
13321
13322   close(fd);
13323   return 0;
13324 }
13325
13326 /*
13327  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
13328  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
13329  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
13330  * slowing down file operations.
13331  */
13332 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
13333 #define LEVELS 5
13334   char *path = strdup("test");
13335   char *dirs[LEVELS];
13336   int level;
13337   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
13338   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
13339     char *newpath = NULL;
13340     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
13341       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
13342              path, strerror(errno));
13343       break;
13344     }
13345     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
13346     free(path);
13347     path = newpath;
13348   }
13349   return 0;
13350 }
13351
13352 /*
13353  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
13354  * KDE.
13355  */
13356 int test_symlinks(void) {
13357   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
13358   unlink("symlink");
13359   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
13360     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
13361   return 0;
13362 }
13363
13364 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
13365   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
13366   test_symlinks();
13367   test_subdirectory_creation();
13368 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
13369   test_sqlite_open();
13370 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
13371   test_gcompris_locking();
13372   return 0;
13373 }
13374 </pre>
13375
13376 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
13377 this:</p>
13378
13379 <pre>
13380 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
13381 info: testing symlink creation
13382 info: testing subdirectory creation
13383 info: sqlite worked
13384 info: testing fcntl locking
13385   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
13386   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
13387   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
13388   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
13389   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
13390   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
13391 </pre>
13392
13393 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
13394 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
13395 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
13396 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
13397 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
13398 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
13399 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
13400 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
13401
13402 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
13403 it. :)</p>
13404
13405 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
13406 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
13407 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
13408
13409       </div>
13410       <div class="tags">
13411
13412
13413         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13414
13415
13416       </div>
13417     </div>
13418     <div class="padding"></div>
13419
13420     <div class="entry">
13421       <div class="title">
13422         <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>
13423       </div>
13424       <div class="date">
13425          7th August 2010
13426       </div>
13427       <div class="body">
13428         <p>A few days ago, I
13429 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
13430 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
13431 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
13432 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
13433 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
13434 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
13435 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
13436 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
13437 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
13438
13439 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
13440 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
13441 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
13442 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
13443 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
13444 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
13445 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
13446 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
13447 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
13448 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
13449 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
13450 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
13451 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
13452 gave it a IP address.</p>
13453
13454 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
13455 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
13456 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
13457 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
13458 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
13459 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
13460 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
13461 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
13462
13463 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
13464 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
13465 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
13466 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
13467 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
13468 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
13469
13470 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
13471 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
13472 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
13473 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
13474 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
13475 with UID and GID values.</p>
13476
13477 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
13478 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13479
13480       </div>
13481       <div class="tags">
13482
13483
13484         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13485
13486
13487       </div>
13488     </div>
13489     <div class="padding"></div>
13490
13491     <div class="entry">
13492       <div class="title">
13493         <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>
13494       </div>
13495       <div class="date">
13496          3rd August 2010
13497       </div>
13498       <div class="body">
13499         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
13500 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
13501 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
13502 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
13503 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
13504 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
13505 servers.</p>
13506
13507 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
13508 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
13509 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
13510 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
13511 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
13512 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
13513 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
13514 .uio.no.</p>
13515
13516 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
13517 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
13518 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
13519 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
13520 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
13521 university servers.</p>
13522
13523 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
13524 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
13525 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
13526 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
13527 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
13528 uses.</p>
13529
13530       </div>
13531       <div class="tags">
13532
13533
13534         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13535
13536
13537       </div>
13538     </div>
13539     <div class="padding"></div>
13540
13541     <div class="entry">
13542       <div class="title">
13543         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
13544       </div>
13545       <div class="date">
13546         27th July 2010
13547       </div>
13548       <div class="body">
13549         <p>I discovered this while doing
13550 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
13551 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
13552 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
13553 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
13554 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
13555
13556 <p>An example is from todays
13557 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
13558 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
13559 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
13560 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
13561 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
13562 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
13563 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
13564
13565 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
13566
13567 <blockquote><pre>
13568 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
13569  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
13570   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
13571 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
13572  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
13573 </pre></blockquote>
13574
13575 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
13576 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
13577 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
13578 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
13579 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
13580 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
13581 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
13582 of dependency loops.</p>
13583
13584 <p>Thanks to
13585 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
13586 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
13587 dependencies
13588 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
13589 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
13590
13591 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
13592 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
13593 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
13594 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
13595 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
13596 it.</p>
13597
13598       </div>
13599       <div class="tags">
13600
13601
13602         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>.
13603
13604
13605       </div>
13606     </div>
13607     <div class="padding"></div>
13608
13609     <div class="entry">
13610       <div class="title">
13611         <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>
13612       </div>
13613       <div class="date">
13614         27th July 2010
13615       </div>
13616       <div class="body">
13617         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
13618 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
13619 completed.</p>
13620
13621 <blockquote>
13622 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
13623 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
13624 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
13625 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
13626 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
13627 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
13628 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
13629 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
13630
13631 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
13632 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
13633 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
13634
13635 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
13636 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
13637 much.</p>
13638
13639 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
13640
13641 <ul>
13642 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
13643 <ul>
13644   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
13645          combination with some new artwork
13646   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
13647   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
13648   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
13649   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
13650   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
13651   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
13652   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
13653   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
13654   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
13655 </ul></li>
13656 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
13657     Enabled for:
13658 <ul>
13659   <li>PAM
13660   <li>LDAP
13661   <li>IMAP
13662   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
13663 </ul>
13664 </li>
13665 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
13666 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
13667     fetched from LDAP.</li>
13668 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
13669 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
13670 </ul>
13671 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
13672
13673 <ul>
13674 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
13675     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
13676     for testing.</li>
13677 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
13678     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
13679     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
13680 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
13681 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
13682 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
13683 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
13684     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
13685 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
13686     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
13687     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
13688 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
13689     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
13690     and help out with translations.</li>
13691 </ul>
13692
13693 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
13694
13695 <ul>
13696 <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>
13697 <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>
13698 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
13699 </ul>
13700 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
13701
13702 <ul>
13703 <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>
13704 <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>
13705 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
13706 </ul>
13707
13708 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
13709 get closer to the final release.</p>
13710
13711 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
13712
13713 <ul>
13714 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
13715 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
13716 </ul>
13717
13718 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
13719 <ul>
13720 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
13721 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
13722 </ul>
13723 <p>How to report bugs:
13724 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
13725
13726 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
13727 </blockquote>
13728
13729       </div>
13730       <div class="tags">
13731
13732
13733         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13734
13735
13736       </div>
13737     </div>
13738     <div class="padding"></div>
13739
13740     <div class="entry">
13741       <div class="title">
13742         <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>
13743       </div>
13744       <div class="date">
13745         25th July 2010
13746       </div>
13747       <div class="body">
13748         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
13749 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
13750 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
13751 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
13752 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
13753
13754 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
13755 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
13756 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
13757 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
13758 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
13759 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
13760 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
13761
13762 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
13763 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
13764 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
13765 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
13766 up. :)</p>
13767
13768 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
13769 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
13770 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
13771
13772 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
13773 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
13774 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
13775 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
13776 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
13777 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
13778 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
13779 release another day.</p>
13780
13781 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
13782 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
13783
13784       </div>
13785       <div class="tags">
13786
13787
13788         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13789
13790
13791       </div>
13792     </div>
13793     <div class="padding"></div>
13794
13795     <div class="entry">
13796       <div class="title">
13797         <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>
13798       </div>
13799       <div class="date">
13800         18th July 2010
13801       </div>
13802       <div class="body">
13803         <p>Thanks to
13804 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
13805 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
13806 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
13807 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
13808 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
13809 only available from the development server, until more experience is
13810 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
13811
13812 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
13813 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
13814 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
13815 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
13816 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
13817 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
13818 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
13819
13820       </div>
13821       <div class="tags">
13822
13823
13824         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>.
13825
13826
13827       </div>
13828     </div>
13829     <div class="padding"></div>
13830
13831     <div class="entry">
13832       <div class="title">
13833         <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>
13834       </div>
13835       <div class="date">
13836         17th July 2010
13837       </div>
13838       <div class="body">
13839         <p>This is a
13840 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
13841 on my
13842 <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
13843 work</a> on
13844 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
13845 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
13846
13847 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
13848 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
13849 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
13850 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
13851
13852 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
13853 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
13854 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
13855
13856 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
13857
13858 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
13859 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
13860 the web.
13861
13862 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
13863 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
13864 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
13865 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
13866 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
13867 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
13868
13869 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
13870 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
13871 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
13872 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
13873 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
13874 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
13875 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
13876 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
13877 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
13878 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
13879 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
13880 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
13881 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
13882 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
13883 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
13884 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
13885
13886 <blockquote><pre>
13887 ldapsearch -h ldap \
13888   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
13889   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
13890   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
13891   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
13892   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
13893   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
13894
13895 ldapsearch -h ldap \
13896   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
13897   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
13898   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
13899   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
13900   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
13901 </pre></blockquote>
13902
13903 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
13904 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
13905 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
13906 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13907 also exist.</p>
13908
13909 <blockquote><pre>
13910 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13911 objectclass: top
13912 objectclass: dnsdomain
13913 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13914 dc: tjener
13915 arecord: 10.0.2.2
13916 associateddomain: tjener.intern
13917
13918 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
13919 objectclass: top
13920 objectclass: dnsdomain2
13921 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
13922 dc: 2
13923 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
13924 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
13925 </pre></blockquote>
13926
13927 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
13928 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
13929 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
13930 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
13931 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
13932 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
13933 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
13934 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
13935 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
13936 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
13937 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
13938 instead.</p>
13939
13940 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
13941 like this:</p>
13942
13943 <blockquote><pre>
13944 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
13945   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
13946   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
13947   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
13948   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
13949   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
13950
13951 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
13952   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
13953 </pre></blockquote>
13954
13955 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
13956 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
13957 reverse lookups.</p>
13958
13959 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
13960 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
13961 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
13962 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
13963
13964 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
13965 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
13966 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
13967
13968 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
13969 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
13970 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
13971 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
13972 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
13973
13974 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
13975 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
13976 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
13977 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
13978 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
13979
13980 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
13981 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
13982 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
13983 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
13984 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
13985 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
13986
13987 <blockquote><pre>
13988 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
13989     SUP top
13990     AUXILIARY
13991     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
13992           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
13993           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
13994           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
13995           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
13996     ))
13997 </pre></blockquote>
13998
13999 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
14000 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
14001 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
14002 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
14003 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
14004 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
14005
14006 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
14007
14008 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
14009 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
14010 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
14011 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
14012 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
14013
14014 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
14015 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
14016 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
14017 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
14018
14019 <blockquote><pre>
14020 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
14021 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
14022 </pre></blockquote>
14023
14024 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
14025 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
14026 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
14027 search result is this entry:</p>
14028
14029 <blockquote><pre>
14030 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14031 cn: dhcp
14032 objectClass: top
14033 objectClass: dhcpServer
14034 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14035 </pre></blockquote>
14036
14037 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
14038 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
14039 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
14040 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
14041 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
14042 The search result is this entry:</p>
14043
14044 <blockquote><pre>
14045 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14046 cn: DHCP Config
14047 objectClass: top
14048 objectClass: dhcpService
14049 objectClass: dhcpOptions
14050 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14051 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
14052 dhcpStatements: authoritative
14053 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
14054 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
14055 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
14056 </pre></blockquote>
14057
14058 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
14059 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
14060 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
14061 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
14062 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
14063 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
14064 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
14065 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
14066 related computer objects.</p>
14067
14068 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
14069 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
14070 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
14071 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
14072 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
14073 like:</p>
14074
14075 <blockquote><pre>
14076 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14077 cn: hostname
14078 objectClass: top
14079 objectClass: dhcpHost
14080 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
14081 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
14082 </pre></blockquote>
14083
14084 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
14085 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
14086 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
14087 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
14088 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
14089 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
14090 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
14091 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
14092 structural object class.
14093
14094 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
14095
14096 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
14097 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
14098 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
14099 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
14100 in the configuration.</p>
14101
14102 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
14103 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
14104 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
14105 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
14106 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
14107 structure.</p>
14108
14109 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
14110 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
14111
14112 <blockquote><pre>
14113 ou=services
14114   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
14115     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
14116     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
14117       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
14118         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
14119     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
14120       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
14121         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
14122     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
14123       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
14124 </pre></blockquote>
14125
14126 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
14127 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
14128 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
14129 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
14130
14131 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
14132 like this:</p>
14133
14134 <blockquote><pre>
14135 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14136 dc: hostname
14137 objectClass: top
14138 objectClass: dhcpHost
14139 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
14140 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
14141 associateddomain: hostname.intern
14142 arecord: 10.11.12.13
14143 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
14144 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
14145 </pre></blockquote>
14146
14147 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
14148 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
14149 auxiliary object class.</p>
14150
14151       </div>
14152       <div class="tags">
14153
14154
14155         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>.
14156
14157
14158       </div>
14159     </div>
14160     <div class="padding"></div>
14161
14162     <div class="entry">
14163       <div class="title">
14164         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
14165       </div>
14166       <div class="date">
14167         14th July 2010
14168       </div>
14169       <div class="body">
14170         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
14171 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
14172 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
14173 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
14174 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
14175
14176 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
14177 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
14178
14179 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
14180 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
14181 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
14182 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
14183 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
14184 to a slave DNS server.</p>
14185
14186 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
14187 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
14188 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
14189 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
14190 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
14191 seem to work.</p>
14192
14193 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
14194 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
14195 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
14196 this:</p>
14197
14198 <blockquote><pre>
14199   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14200   cn: hostname
14201   objectClass: dhcphost
14202   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
14203   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
14204   associateddomain: hostname.intern
14205   arecord: 10.11.12.13
14206   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
14207   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
14208   ldapconfigsound: Y
14209 </pre></blockquote>
14210
14211 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
14212 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
14213 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
14214 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
14215
14216 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
14217 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
14218 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
14219 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
14220 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
14221 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
14222 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
14223 might be a good place to put it.</p>
14224
14225 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
14226 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14227
14228       </div>
14229       <div class="tags">
14230
14231
14232         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>.
14233
14234
14235       </div>
14236     </div>
14237     <div class="padding"></div>
14238
14239     <div class="entry">
14240       <div class="title">
14241         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
14242       </div>
14243       <div class="date">
14244         11th July 2010
14245       </div>
14246       <div class="body">
14247         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
14248 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
14249 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
14250 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
14251
14252 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
14253 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
14254 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
14255 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
14256 LTSP clients.</p>
14257
14258 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
14259 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
14260 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
14261
14262 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
14263 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
14264 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
14265
14266 <blockquote><pre>
14267 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
14268 #
14269 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
14270 #
14271 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
14272 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
14273 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
14274 #
14275 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
14276 # existence of attribute names.
14277 #
14278 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
14279 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
14280 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
14281 #
14282 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
14283 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
14284 #
14285 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
14286 #     SUP top
14287 #     AUXILIARY
14288 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
14289
14290 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
14291 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
14292     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
14293     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
14294         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
14295         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
14296             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
14297             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
14298             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
14299             # bass value on to clients
14300             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
14301         done
14302     done
14303 fi
14304 </pre></blockquote>
14305
14306 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
14307 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
14308 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
14309 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
14310 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
14311
14312 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
14313 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14314
14315 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
14316 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
14317 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
14318 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
14319 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
14320 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
14321
14322       </div>
14323       <div class="tags">
14324
14325
14326         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>.
14327
14328
14329       </div>
14330     </div>
14331     <div class="padding"></div>
14332
14333     <div class="entry">
14334       <div class="title">
14335         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
14336       </div>
14337       <div class="date">
14338          9th July 2010
14339       </div>
14340       <div class="body">
14341         <p>Since
14342 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
14343 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
14344 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
14345 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
14346 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
14347 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
14348 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
14349 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
14350 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
14351 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
14352 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
14353 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
14354 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
14355
14356       </div>
14357       <div class="tags">
14358
14359
14360         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>.
14361
14362
14363       </div>
14364     </div>
14365     <div class="padding"></div>
14366
14367     <div class="entry">
14368       <div class="title">
14369         <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>
14370       </div>
14371       <div class="date">
14372          3rd July 2010
14373       </div>
14374       <div class="body">
14375         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
14376 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
14377 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
14378 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
14379 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
14380 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
14381 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
14382 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
14383
14384 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
14385 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
14386 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
14387 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
14388 publish the difference.</p>
14389
14390 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
14391
14392 <blockquote><p>
14393   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
14394   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
14395   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
14396   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
14397   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
14398   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
14399   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
14400   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
14401 </p></blockquote>
14402
14403 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
14404
14405 <blockquote><p>
14406   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
14407   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
14408   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
14409   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
14410   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
14411   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
14412   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
14413   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
14414   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
14415   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
14416   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
14417   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
14418   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
14419   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
14420   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
14421   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
14422   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
14423   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
14424   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
14425   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
14426 </p></blockquote>
14427
14428 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
14429
14430 <blockquote><p>
14431   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
14432   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
14433   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
14434   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
14435   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
14436   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
14437   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
14438   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
14439   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
14440   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
14441   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
14442   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
14443   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
14444   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
14445   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
14446   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
14447   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
14448   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
14449   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
14450   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
14451   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
14452 </p></blockquote>
14453
14454 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
14455
14456 <blockquote><p>
14457   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
14458   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
14459   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
14460 </p></blockquote>
14461
14462 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
14463 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
14464 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
14465 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
14466 the difference somewhat.
14467
14468       </div>
14469       <div class="tags">
14470
14471
14472         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>.
14473
14474
14475       </div>
14476     </div>
14477     <div class="padding"></div>
14478
14479     <div class="entry">
14480       <div class="title">
14481         <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>
14482       </div>
14483       <div class="date">
14484          1st July 2010
14485       </div>
14486       <div class="body">
14487         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
14488 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
14489 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
14490 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
14491 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
14492 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
14493 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
14494 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
14495 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
14496
14497 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
14498
14499 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
14500 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
14501 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
14502 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
14503 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
14504 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
14505 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
14506 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
14507 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
14508 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
14509 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
14510 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
14511 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
14512 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
14513 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
14514
14515 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
14516
14517 <blockquote><pre>
14518 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
14519 </pre></blockquote>
14520
14521 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
14522 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
14523 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
14524 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
14525 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
14526 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
14527 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
14528 on how to get this working.</p>
14529
14530 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
14531 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
14532 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
14533 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
14534 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
14535 instructions I found in the
14536 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
14537 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
14538
14539 <blockquote><pre>
14540         debug-level             0
14541         reload-count            unlimited
14542         paranoia                no
14543
14544         enable-cache            passwd          yes
14545         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
14546         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
14547         suggested-size          passwd          211
14548         check-files             passwd          yes
14549         persistent              passwd          yes
14550         shared                  passwd          yes
14551         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
14552         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
14553
14554         enable-cache            group           yes
14555         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
14556         negative-time-to-live   group           20
14557         suggested-size          group           211
14558         check-files             group           yes
14559         persistent              group           yes
14560         shared                  group           yes
14561         max-db-size             group           33554432
14562         auto-propagate          group           yes
14563
14564         enable-cache            hosts           no
14565         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
14566         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
14567         suggested-size          hosts           211
14568         check-files             hosts           yes
14569         persistent              hosts           yes
14570         shared                  hosts           yes
14571         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
14572
14573         enable-cache            services        yes
14574         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
14575         negative-time-to-live   services        20
14576         suggested-size          services        211
14577         check-files             services        yes
14578         persistent              services        yes
14579         shared                  services        yes
14580         max-db-size             services        33554432
14581 </pre></blockquote>
14582
14583 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
14584 automatically like the one provided in
14585 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
14586 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
14587 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
14588 look like this:</p>
14589
14590 <blockquote><pre>
14591 passwd:         files ldap
14592 group:          files ldap
14593 shadow:         files ldap
14594 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
14595 networks:       files
14596 protocols:      files
14597 services:       files
14598 ethers:         files
14599 rpc:            files
14600 netgroup:       files ldap
14601 </pre></blockquote>
14602
14603 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
14604 shadow and netgroup.</p>
14605
14606 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
14607 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
14608 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
14609 attributes cached.
14610
14611 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
14612   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
14613
14614 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
14615 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
14616 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
14617 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
14618 discovered sssd.</p>
14619
14620 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
14621
14622 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
14623 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
14624 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
14625 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
14626 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
14627 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
14628 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
14629 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
14630 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
14631 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
14632 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
14633 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
14634 version 1.2 is now in testing.
14635
14636 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
14637 roaming setup I want</p>
14638
14639 <blockquote><pre>
14640 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
14641 </pre></blockquote>
14642
14643 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
14644 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
14645
14646 <blockquote><pre>
14647 [sssd]
14648 config_file_version = 2
14649 reconnection_retries = 3
14650 sbus_timeout = 30
14651 services = nss, pam
14652 domains = INTERN
14653
14654 [nss]
14655 filter_groups = root
14656 filter_users = root
14657 reconnection_retries = 3
14658
14659 [pam]
14660 reconnection_retries = 3
14661
14662 [domain/INTERN]
14663 enumerate = false
14664 cache_credentials = true
14665
14666 id_provider = ldap
14667 auth_provider = ldap
14668 chpass_provider = ldap
14669
14670 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
14671 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14672 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
14673 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
14674 </pre></blockquote>
14675
14676 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
14677 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
14678
14679 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
14680 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
14681 modify it manually.</p>
14682
14683 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
14684 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14685
14686       </div>
14687       <div class="tags">
14688
14689
14690         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
14691
14692
14693       </div>
14694     </div>
14695     <div class="padding"></div>
14696
14697     <div class="entry">
14698       <div class="title">
14699         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
14700       </div>
14701       <div class="date">
14702         28th June 2010
14703       </div>
14704       <div class="body">
14705         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
14706 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
14707 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
14708 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
14709 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
14710 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
14711 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
14712 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
14713 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
14714 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
14715
14716 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
14717 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
14718 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
14719 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
14720 released.</p>
14721
14722 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
14723 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
14724 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
14725 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
14726
14727 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
14728 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14729
14730 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
14731 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
14732 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
14733 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
14734 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
14735
14736       </div>
14737       <div class="tags">
14738
14739
14740         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>.
14741
14742
14743       </div>
14744     </div>
14745     <div class="padding"></div>
14746
14747     <div class="entry">
14748       <div class="title">
14749         <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>
14750       </div>
14751       <div class="date">
14752         24th June 2010
14753       </div>
14754       <div class="body">
14755         <p>A while back, I
14756 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
14757 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
14758 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
14759 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
14760
14761 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
14762 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
14763 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
14764 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
14765
14766 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
14767 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
14768 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
14769 Debian Edu.</p>
14770
14771 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
14772 the
14773 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
14774 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
14775 available today from IETF.</p>
14776
14777 <pre>
14778 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
14779 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
14780 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
14781  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
14782         NAME 'dhcpHost'
14783         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
14784 -       SUP top
14785 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
14786         MUST cn
14787         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
14788         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
14789 </pre>
14790
14791 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
14792 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
14793 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
14794
14795 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
14796 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14797
14798       </div>
14799       <div class="tags">
14800
14801
14802         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>.
14803
14804
14805       </div>
14806     </div>
14807     <div class="padding"></div>
14808
14809     <div class="entry">
14810       <div class="title">
14811         <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>
14812       </div>
14813       <div class="date">
14814         16th June 2010
14815       </div>
14816       <div class="body">
14817         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
14818 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
14819 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
14820 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
14821 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
14822 this:
14823
14824 <blockquote><pre>
14825 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
14826 tasksel --new-install
14827 </pre></blockquote>
14828
14829 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
14830 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
14831 any output what so ever.
14832
14833 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
14834 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
14835 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
14836 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
14837 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
14838 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
14839 code like this:
14840
14841 <blockquote><pre>
14842 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
14843 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
14844 $cmd
14845 </pre></blockquote>
14846
14847 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
14848 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
14849 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
14850 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
14851 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
14852 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
14853 installation.</p>
14854
14855 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
14856 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
14857 like this.</p>
14858
14859       </div>
14860       <div class="tags">
14861
14862
14863         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>.
14864
14865
14866       </div>
14867     </div>
14868     <div class="padding"></div>
14869
14870     <div class="entry">
14871       <div class="title">
14872         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
14873       </div>
14874       <div class="date">
14875         13th June 2010
14876       </div>
14877       <div class="body">
14878         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
14879 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
14880 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
14881 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
14882 pages.</p>
14883
14884 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
14885 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
14886 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
14887 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
14888 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
14889 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
14890 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
14891 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
14892 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
14893 see how the project is doing.</p>
14894
14895 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
14896 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
14897 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
14898 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
14899 Windows.  This is great.</p>
14900
14901       </div>
14902       <div class="tags">
14903
14904
14905         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>.
14906
14907
14908       </div>
14909     </div>
14910     <div class="padding"></div>
14911
14912     <div class="entry">
14913       <div class="title">
14914         <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>
14915       </div>
14916       <div class="date">
14917         13th June 2010
14918       </div>
14919       <div class="body">
14920         <p>My
14921 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
14922 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
14923 finally made the upgrade logs available from
14924 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
14925 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
14926 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
14927 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
14928
14929 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
14930 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
14931 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
14932 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
14933 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
14934 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
14935 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
14936 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
14937
14938 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
14939 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
14940 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
14941 too surprising.</p>
14942
14943 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
14944 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
14945 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
14946 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
14947 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
14948 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
14949 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
14950 continue.</p>
14951
14952 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
14953 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
14954   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
14955   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
14956   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
14957   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
14958   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
14959   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
14960   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
14961   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
14962   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
14963   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
14964   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
14965   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
14966   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
14967   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
14968   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
14969   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
14970   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
14971   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
14972   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
14973   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
14974   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
14975   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
14976   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
14977   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
14978   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
14979   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
14980   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
14981   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
14982
14983 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
14984
14985 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
14986   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
14987   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
14988   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
14989   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
14990   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
14991   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
14992   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
14993   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
14994   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
14995   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
14996   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
14997   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
14998   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
14999   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
15000   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
15001   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
15002   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
15003   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
15004   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
15005   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
15006   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
15007   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
15008   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
15009   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
15010   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
15011   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
15012   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
15013   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
15014   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
15015   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
15016   zip</p>
15017
15018 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
15019
15020 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
15021   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
15022   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
15023   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
15024   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
15025   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
15026   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
15027   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
15028   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
15029   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
15030   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
15031   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
15032   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
15033   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
15034   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
15035   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
15036   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
15037   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
15038   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
15039   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
15040   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
15041   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
15042   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
15043   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
15044   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
15045   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
15046   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
15047   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
15048
15049 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
15050 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
15051   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
15052   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
15053   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
15054   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
15055   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
15056   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
15057   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
15058   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
15059   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
15060   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
15061   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
15062   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
15063   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
15064   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
15065   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
15066   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
15067   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
15068   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
15069   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
15070   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
15071   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
15072   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
15073   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
15074   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
15075   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
15076   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
15077   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
15078   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
15079   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
15080   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
15081   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
15082   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
15083   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
15084   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
15085   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
15086   xulrunner-1.9</p>
15087
15088
15089       </div>
15090       <div class="tags">
15091
15092
15093         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>.
15094
15095
15096       </div>
15097     </div>
15098     <div class="padding"></div>
15099
15100     <div class="entry">
15101       <div class="title">
15102         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
15103       </div>
15104       <div class="date">
15105         11th June 2010
15106       </div>
15107       <div class="body">
15108         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
15109 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
15110 have been discovered and reported in the process
15111 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
15112 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
15113 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
15114 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
15115 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
15116
15117 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
15118 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
15119 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
15120 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
15121 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
15122 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
15123
15124 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
15125 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
15126 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
15127 is created.  The bug report
15128 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
15129 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
15130 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
15131 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
15132 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
15133 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
15134 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
15135 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
15136 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
15137 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
15138 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
15139 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
15140 Debian Squeeze.</p>
15141
15142 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
15143 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
15144 trick:</p>
15145
15146 <blockquote><pre>
15147 #!/bin/sh
15148 set -ex
15149
15150 if [ "$1" ] ; then
15151     desktop=$1
15152 else
15153     desktop=gnome
15154 fi
15155
15156 from=lenny
15157 to=squeeze
15158
15159 exec &lt; /dev/null
15160 unset LANG
15161 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
15162 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
15163 fuser -mv .
15164 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
15165 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
15166 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
15167 #!/bin/sh
15168 exit 101
15169 EOF
15170 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
15171 exit_cleanup() {
15172     umount $tmpdir/proc
15173 }
15174 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
15175 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
15176 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
15177
15178 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
15179
15180 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
15181 # to return the correct answers.
15182 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
15183     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
15184
15185 # Include the desktop and laptop task
15186 for test in desktop laptop ; do
15187     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
15188 #!/bin/sh
15189 exit 2
15190 EOF
15191     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
15192 done
15193
15194 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
15195 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
15196 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
15197 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
15198
15199 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
15200 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
15201 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
15202 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
15203 fuser -mv
15204 </pre></blockquote>
15205
15206 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
15207 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
15208 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
15209 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
15210 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
15211 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
15212
15213 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
15214 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
15215 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
15216 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
15217 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
15218 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
15219 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
15220
15221 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
15222 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
15223 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
15224 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
15225 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
15226 packages.</p>
15227
15228       </div>
15229       <div class="tags">
15230
15231
15232         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>.
15233
15234
15235       </div>
15236     </div>
15237     <div class="padding"></div>
15238
15239     <div class="entry">
15240       <div class="title">
15241         <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>
15242       </div>
15243       <div class="date">
15244          6th June 2010
15245       </div>
15246       <div class="body">
15247         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
15248 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
15249 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
15250 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
15251 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
15252 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
15253 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
15254
15255 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
15256 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
15257 COLUMNS):</p>
15258
15259 <blockquote><pre>
15260 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
15261 previous=N
15262 PREVLEVEL=
15263 RUNLEVEL=
15264 runlevel=S
15265 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
15266 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
15267 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
15268 </pre></blockquote>
15269
15270 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
15271 script.</p>
15272
15273 <blockquote><pre>
15274 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
15275 previous=N
15276 PREVLEVEL=N
15277 RUNLEVEL=S
15278 runlevel=S
15279 </pre></blockquote>
15280
15281 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
15282 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
15283 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
15284
15285 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
15286 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
15287 choice.</p>
15288
15289       </div>
15290       <div class="tags">
15291
15292
15293         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>.
15294
15295
15296       </div>
15297     </div>
15298     <div class="padding"></div>
15299
15300     <div class="entry">
15301       <div class="title">
15302         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
15303       </div>
15304       <div class="date">
15305          6th June 2010
15306       </div>
15307       <div class="body">
15308         <p>Via the
15309 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
15310 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
15311 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
15312 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
15313 following the standards wars of today.</p>
15314
15315       </div>
15316       <div class="tags">
15317
15318
15319         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>.
15320
15321
15322       </div>
15323     </div>
15324     <div class="padding"></div>
15325
15326     <div class="entry">
15327       <div class="title">
15328         <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>
15329       </div>
15330       <div class="date">
15331          3rd June 2010
15332       </div>
15333       <div class="body">
15334         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
15335 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
15336 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
15337 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
15338 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
15339
15340 <blockquote><pre>
15341 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
15342   vendor                    count
15343   Dell Computer Corporation     1
15344     PowerEdge 1750              1
15345   IBM                           1
15346     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
15347   Intel                         2
15348   [no-dmi-info]                 3
15349 maintainer:~#
15350 </pre></blockquote>
15351
15352 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
15353 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
15354 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
15355 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
15356 option to list the individual machines.</p>
15357
15358 <p>A larger list is
15359 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
15360 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
15361 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
15362 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
15363 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
15364 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
15365 collector.</p>
15366
15367       </div>
15368       <div class="tags">
15369
15370
15371         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>.
15372
15373
15374       </div>
15375     </div>
15376     <div class="padding"></div>
15377
15378     <div class="entry">
15379       <div class="title">
15380         <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>
15381       </div>
15382       <div class="date">
15383          1st June 2010
15384       </div>
15385       <div class="body">
15386         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
15387 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
15388 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
15389 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
15390 wait.</p>
15391
15392 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
15393 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
15394 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
15395 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
15396 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
15397 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
15398
15399 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
15400 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
15401 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
15402 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
15403 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
15404 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
15405 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
15406 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
15407
15408 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
15409
15410       </div>
15411       <div class="tags">
15412
15413
15414         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>.
15415
15416
15417       </div>
15418     </div>
15419     <div class="padding"></div>
15420
15421     <div class="entry">
15422       <div class="title">
15423         <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>
15424       </div>
15425       <div class="date">
15426         27th May 2010
15427       </div>
15428       <div class="body">
15429         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
15430 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
15431 issues are known and should be solved:
15432
15433 <p><ul>
15434
15435 <li>The wicd package seen to
15436 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
15437 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
15438 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
15439 seem to be on the case.</li>
15440
15441 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
15442 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
15443 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
15444 maintainer is on the case.</li>
15445
15446 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
15447 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
15448 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
15449 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
15450 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
15451 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
15452 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
15453 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
15454
15455 </ul></p>
15456
15457 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
15458 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
15459 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
15460 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
15461
15462 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
15463 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
15464 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
15465 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
15466
15467 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
15468
15469       </div>
15470       <div class="tags">
15471
15472
15473         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>.
15474
15475
15476       </div>
15477     </div>
15478     <div class="padding"></div>
15479
15480     <div class="entry">
15481       <div class="title">
15482         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
15483       </div>
15484       <div class="date">
15485         22nd May 2010
15486       </div>
15487       <div class="body">
15488         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
15489 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
15490 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
15491 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
15492
15493 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
15494 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
15495 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
15496 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
15497 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
15498 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
15499 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
15500 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
15501 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
15502 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
15503 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
15504 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
15505 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
15506 going to work.</p>
15507
15508 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
15509 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
15510 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
15511 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
15512 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
15513 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
15514 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
15515 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
15516 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
15517 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
15518 Edu.</p>
15519
15520 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
15521 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
15522 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
15523 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
15524 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
15525 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
15526
15527 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
15528 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
15529
15530       </div>
15531       <div class="tags">
15532
15533
15534         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>.
15535
15536
15537       </div>
15538     </div>
15539     <div class="padding"></div>
15540
15541     <div class="entry">
15542       <div class="title">
15543         <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>
15544       </div>
15545       <div class="date">
15546         19th May 2010
15547       </div>
15548       <div class="body">
15549         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
15550 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
15551 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
15552 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
15553 into unstable.  The
15554 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
15555 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
15556 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
15557 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
15558 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
15559 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
15560 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
15561
15562 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
15563 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
15564 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
15565 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
15566 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
15567 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
15568 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
15569 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
15570
15571 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
15572 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
15573 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
15574 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
15575 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
15576 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
15577 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
15578
15579 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
15580 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
15581 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
15582 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
15583 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
15584 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
15585 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
15586 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
15587 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
15588 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
15589 on the home directory servers.</p>
15590
15591 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
15592 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
15593 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
15594 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
15595 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
15596 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
15597
15598 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
15599 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15600
15601       </div>
15602       <div class="tags">
15603
15604
15605         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
15606
15607
15608       </div>
15609     </div>
15610     <div class="padding"></div>
15611
15612     <div class="entry">
15613       <div class="title">
15614         <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>
15615       </div>
15616       <div class="date">
15617         14th May 2010
15618       </div>
15619       <div class="body">
15620         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
15621 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
15622 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
15623 expected, if I am to believe the
15624 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
15625 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
15626 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
15627 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
15628 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
15629 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
15630 version.</p>
15631
15632 More information about
15633 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
15634 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
15635 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
15636 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
15637
15638 <blockquote><pre>
15639 CONCURRENCY=none
15640 </pre></blockquote>
15641
15642 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
15643 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
15644 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
15645 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
15646
15647       </div>
15648       <div class="tags">
15649
15650
15651         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>.
15652
15653
15654       </div>
15655     </div>
15656     <div class="padding"></div>
15657
15658     <div class="entry">
15659       <div class="title">
15660         <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>
15661       </div>
15662       <div class="date">
15663         14th May 2010
15664       </div>
15665       <div class="body">
15666         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
15667 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
15668 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
15669 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
15670 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
15671 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
15672 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
15673 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
15674
15675 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
15676 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
15677 this on the collector host:</p>
15678
15679 <blockquote><pre>
15680 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
15681 </pre></blockquote>
15682
15683 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
15684 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
15685
15686 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
15687 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
15688 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
15689 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
15690 written yet.</p>
15691
15692       </div>
15693       <div class="tags">
15694
15695
15696         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>.
15697
15698
15699       </div>
15700     </div>
15701     <div class="padding"></div>
15702
15703     <div class="entry">
15704       <div class="title">
15705         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
15706       </div>
15707       <div class="date">
15708         13th May 2010
15709       </div>
15710       <div class="body">
15711         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
15712 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
15713 has been
15714 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
15715
15716 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
15717 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
15718 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
15719 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
15720 based boot system.  Tollef is
15721 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
15722 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
15723 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
15724 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
15725 at the moment do not.</p>
15726
15727 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
15728 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
15729 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
15730 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
15731 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
15732 way forward.</p>
15733
15734 <p>In the mean time, based on the
15735 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
15736 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
15737 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
15738 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
15739 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
15740 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
15741 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
15742 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
15743
15744       </div>
15745       <div class="tags">
15746
15747
15748         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>.
15749
15750
15751       </div>
15752     </div>
15753     <div class="padding"></div>
15754
15755     <div class="entry">
15756       <div class="title">
15757         <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>
15758       </div>
15759       <div class="date">
15760          6th May 2010
15761       </div>
15762       <div class="body">
15763         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
15764 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
15765 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
15766 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
15767 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
15768 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
15769 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
15770
15771 <blockquote><pre>
15772 CONCURRENCY=makefile
15773 </pre></blockquote>
15774
15775 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
15776 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
15777 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
15778 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
15779 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
15780 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
15781 make this happen.</p>
15782
15783 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
15784 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
15785 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
15786 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
15787 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
15788
15789 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
15790 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
15791 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
15792 fix the remaining issues.</p>
15793
15794 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
15795 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
15796 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
15797 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
15798
15799       </div>
15800       <div class="tags">
15801
15802
15803         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>.
15804
15805
15806       </div>
15807     </div>
15808     <div class="padding"></div>
15809
15810     <div class="entry">
15811       <div class="title">
15812         <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>
15813       </div>
15814       <div class="date">
15815          2nd May 2010
15816       </div>
15817       <div class="body">
15818         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
15819 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
15820 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
15821
15822 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
15823 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
15824 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
15825 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
15826 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
15827
15828 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
15829 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
15830
15831 <blockquote><pre>
15832 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
15833 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
15834 Password expires                                        : never
15835 Password inactive                                       : never
15836 Account expires                                         : never
15837 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
15838 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
15839 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
15840 root@tjener:~#
15841 </pre></blockquote>
15842
15843 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
15844 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
15845 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
15846 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
15847 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
15848 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
15849
15850 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
15851 intended:</p>
15852
15853 <blockquote><pre>
15854 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
15855 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
15856 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
15857 Password expires                                        : never
15858 Password inactive                                       : never
15859 Account expires                                         : never
15860 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
15861 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
15862 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
15863 root@tjener:~#
15864 </pre></blockquote>
15865
15866 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
15867 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
15868 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
15869
15870 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
15871 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
15872
15873 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
15874 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15875
15876 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
15877 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
15878 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
15879 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
15880 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
15881 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
15882 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
15883
15884 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
15885 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
15886 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
15887 change.</p>
15888
15889       </div>
15890       <div class="tags">
15891
15892
15893         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
15894
15895
15896       </div>
15897     </div>
15898     <div class="padding"></div>
15899
15900     <div class="entry">
15901       <div class="title">
15902         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thoughts_on_roaming_laptop_setup_for_Debian_Edu.html">Thoughts on roaming laptop setup for Debian Edu</a>
15903       </div>
15904       <div class="date">
15905         28th April 2010
15906       </div>
15907       <div class="body">
15908         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
15909 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
15910 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
15911 and go.</p>
15912
15913 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
15914 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
15915 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
15916 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
15917
15918 <ul>
15919
15920  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
15921    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
15922    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
15923    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
15924    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
15925    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
15926    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
15927    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
15928    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
15929    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
15930    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
15931    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
15932
15933  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
15934    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
15935    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
15936    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
15937    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
15938    or the Fedora developed
15939    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
15940    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
15941
15942  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
15943    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
15944    directory, using unison.</li>
15945
15946  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
15947    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
15948    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
15949    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
15950    implemented.</li>
15951
15952  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
15953    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
15954
15955  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
15956    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
15957    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
15958
15959 </ul>
15960
15961 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
15962 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
15963 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
15964 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
15965 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
15966 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
15967 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
15968 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
15969 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
15970
15971 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
15972 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15973
15974       </div>
15975       <div class="tags">
15976
15977
15978         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
15979
15980
15981       </div>
15982     </div>
15983     <div class="padding"></div>
15984
15985     <div class="entry">
15986       <div class="title">
15987         <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>
15988       </div>
15989       <div class="date">
15990         19th April 2010
15991       </div>
15992       <div class="body">
15993         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
15994 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
15995 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
15996 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
15997 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
15998 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
15999 restrictions on the web, for example from
16000 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
16001 epub-version from
16002 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
16003 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
16004 strongly recommend this book.</p>
16005
16006       </div>
16007       <div class="tags">
16008
16009
16010         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>.
16011
16012
16013       </div>
16014     </div>
16015     <div class="padding"></div>
16016
16017     <div class="entry">
16018       <div class="title">
16019         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
16020       </div>
16021       <div class="date">
16022         14th April 2010
16023       </div>
16024       <div class="body">
16025         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
16026 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
16027 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
16028 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
16029 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
16030 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
16031 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
16032 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
16033 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
16034
16035 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
16036 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
16037 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
16038 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
16039 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
16040
16041 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
16042 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
16043
16044 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
16045 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
16046 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
16047 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
16048 to work properly.</p>
16049
16050 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
16051 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
16052 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
16053 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
16054 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
16055 time.</p>
16056
16057 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
16058 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
16059 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
16060 up in a few days.</p>
16061
16062       </div>
16063       <div class="tags">
16064
16065
16066         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
16067
16068
16069       </div>
16070     </div>
16071     <div class="padding"></div>
16072
16073     <div class="entry">
16074       <div class="title">
16075         <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>
16076       </div>
16077       <div class="date">
16078          6th March 2010
16079       </div>
16080       <div class="body">
16081         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
16082 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
16083 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
16084 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
16085 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
16086 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
16087
16088 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
16089 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
16090 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
16091 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
16092
16093 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
16094 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
16095 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
16096 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
16097 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
16098 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
16099
16100       </div>
16101       <div class="tags">
16102
16103
16104         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
16105
16106
16107       </div>
16108     </div>
16109     <div class="padding"></div>
16110
16111     <div class="entry">
16112       <div class="title">
16113         <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>
16114       </div>
16115       <div class="date">
16116         11th February 2010
16117       </div>
16118       <div class="body">
16119         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
16120 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
16121 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
16122 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
16123 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
16124 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
16125 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
16126
16127 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
16128
16129 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
16130 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
16131 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
16132 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
16133
16134       </div>
16135       <div class="tags">
16136
16137
16138         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
16139
16140
16141       </div>
16142     </div>
16143     <div class="padding"></div>
16144
16145     <div class="entry">
16146       <div class="title">
16147         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
16148       </div>
16149       <div class="date">
16150         27th January 2010
16151       </div>
16152       <div class="body">
16153         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
16154 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
16155 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
16156 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
16157 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
16158 further.</p>
16159
16160 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
16161 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
16162 configured to be a server for the
16163 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
16164 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
16165 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
16166 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
16167 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
16168 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
16169 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
16170 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
16171 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
16172 and Nagios configuration.</p>
16173
16174 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
16175 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
16176 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
16177 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
16178
16179 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
16180 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
16181 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
16182 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
16183 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
16184 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
16185 the machine.</p>
16186
16187 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
16188 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
16189 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
16190 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
16191
16192 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
16193 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
16194 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
16195 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
16196 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
16197 everything is taken care of.</p>
16198
16199       </div>
16200       <div class="tags">
16201
16202
16203         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
16204
16205
16206       </div>
16207     </div>
16208     <div class="padding"></div>
16209
16210     <div class="entry">
16211       <div class="title">
16212         <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>
16213       </div>
16214       <div class="date">
16215         12th August 2009
16216       </div>
16217       <div class="body">
16218         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
16219 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
16220 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
16221 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
16222
16223 <table>
16224 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
16225 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
16226 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
16227 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
16228 </table>
16229
16230 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
16231 got these numbers:</p>
16232
16233 <table>
16234 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
16235 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
16236 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
16237 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
16238 </table>
16239
16240 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
16241
16242 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
16243 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
16244 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
16245 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
16246 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
16247
16248
16249 <table>
16250 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
16251 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
16252 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
16253 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
16254 </table>
16255
16256 <p>And with 'site:no':
16257
16258 <table>
16259 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
16260 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
16261 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
16262 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
16263 </table>
16264
16265 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
16266 numbers.</p>
16267
16268       </div>
16269       <div class="tags">
16270
16271
16272         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>.
16273
16274
16275       </div>
16276     </div>
16277     <div class="padding"></div>
16278
16279     <div class="entry">
16280       <div class="title">
16281         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
16282       </div>
16283       <div class="date">
16284          8th August 2009
16285       </div>
16286       <div class="body">
16287         <p>According to <a
16288 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
16289 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
16290 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
16291 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
16292 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
16293 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
16294 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
16295 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
16296 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
16297 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
16298
16299 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
16300 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
16301 seminar this autumn.</p>
16302
16303       </div>
16304       <div class="tags">
16305
16306
16307         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>.
16308
16309
16310       </div>
16311     </div>
16312     <div class="padding"></div>
16313
16314     <div class="entry">
16315       <div class="title">
16316         <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>
16317       </div>
16318       <div class="date">
16319         27th July 2009
16320       </div>
16321       <div class="body">
16322         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
16323 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
16324 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
16325 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
16326 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
16327 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
16328 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
16329
16330 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
16331 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
16332 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
16333
16334       </div>
16335       <div class="tags">
16336
16337
16338         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>.
16339
16340
16341       </div>
16342     </div>
16343     <div class="padding"></div>
16344
16345     <div class="entry">
16346       <div class="title">
16347         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
16348       </div>
16349       <div class="date">
16350         22nd July 2009
16351       </div>
16352       <div class="body">
16353         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
16354 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
16355 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
16356 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
16357 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
16358 the package up to date.</p>
16359
16360 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
16361 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
16362 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
16363 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
16364 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
16365 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
16366 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
16367 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
16368 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
16369 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
16370 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
16371 working on the future release.</p>
16372
16373 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
16374 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
16375
16376       </div>
16377       <div class="tags">
16378
16379
16380         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>.
16381
16382
16383       </div>
16384     </div>
16385     <div class="padding"></div>
16386
16387     <div class="entry">
16388       <div class="title">
16389         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
16390       </div>
16391       <div class="date">
16392         24th June 2009
16393       </div>
16394       <div class="body">
16395         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
16396 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
16397 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
16398 funded
16399 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
16400 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
16401 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
16402 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
16403 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
16404 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
16405
16406 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
16407 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
16408 boot:</p>
16409
16410 <ul>
16411
16412 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
16413
16414 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
16415    clock is in UTC.</li>
16416
16417 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
16418    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
16419    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
16420
16421 </ul>
16422
16423 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
16424 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
16425 Villegas</a>.
16426
16427 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
16428 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
16429 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
16430 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
16431 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
16432 using this.</p>
16433
16434 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
16435 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
16436 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
16437 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
16438 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
16439 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
16440 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
16441
16442       </div>
16443       <div class="tags">
16444
16445
16446         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>.
16447
16448
16449       </div>
16450     </div>
16451     <div class="padding"></div>
16452
16453     <div class="entry">
16454       <div class="title">
16455         <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>
16456       </div>
16457       <div class="date">
16458          2nd May 2009
16459       </div>
16460       <div class="body">
16461         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
16462 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
16463 do not yet know them.</p>
16464
16465 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
16466 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
16467 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
16468 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
16469 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
16470 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
16471 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
16472 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
16473 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
16474 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
16475 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
16476
16477 <p>The second one is
16478 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
16479 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
16480 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
16481 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
16482 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
16483 and the company behind it is running
16484 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
16485 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
16486 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
16487 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
16488 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
16489 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
16490 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
16491 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
16492
16493 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
16494 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
16495 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
16496 surrounded by today.</p>
16497
16498       </div>
16499       <div class="tags">
16500
16501
16502         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>.
16503
16504
16505       </div>
16506     </div>
16507     <div class="padding"></div>
16508
16509     <div class="entry">
16510       <div class="title">
16511         <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>
16512       </div>
16513       <div class="date">
16514         28th April 2009
16515       </div>
16516       <div class="body">
16517         <p>Julien Blache
16518 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
16519 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
16520 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
16521 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
16522 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
16523 properties.</p>
16524
16525       </div>
16526       <div class="tags">
16527
16528
16529         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>.
16530
16531
16532       </div>
16533     </div>
16534     <div class="padding"></div>
16535
16536     <div class="entry">
16537       <div class="title">
16538         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
16539       </div>
16540       <div class="date">
16541          5th April 2009
16542       </div>
16543       <div class="body">
16544         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
16545 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
16546 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
16547 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
16548 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
16549 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
16550 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
16551 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
16552
16553 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
16554 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
16555 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
16556   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
16557   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
16558
16559 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
16560 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
16561 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
16562 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
16563
16564 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
16565 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
16566 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
16567 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
16568
16569 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
16570 set -e
16571 URL="$1"
16572 SAVEFILE="$2"
16573 DURATION="$3"
16574 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
16575   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
16576   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
16577 pid=$!
16578 sleep $DURATION
16579 kill $pid
16580 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
16581
16582       </div>
16583       <div class="tags">
16584
16585
16586         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>.
16587
16588
16589       </div>
16590     </div>
16591     <div class="padding"></div>
16592
16593     <div class="entry">
16594       <div class="title">
16595         <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>
16596       </div>
16597       <div class="date">
16598         30th March 2009
16599       </div>
16600       <div class="body">
16601         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
16602 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
16603 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
16604 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
16605 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
16606 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
16607 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
16608 application.</p>
16609
16610 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
16611 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
16612 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
16613 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
16614 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
16615 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
16616 blocked from doing so.</p>
16617
16618 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
16619 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
16620 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
16621 requirements change.</p>
16622
16623 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
16624 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
16625 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
16626
16627       </div>
16628       <div class="tags">
16629
16630
16631         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>.
16632
16633
16634       </div>
16635     </div>
16636     <div class="padding"></div>
16637
16638     <div class="entry">
16639       <div class="title">
16640         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
16641       </div>
16642       <div class="date">
16643         29th March 2009
16644       </div>
16645       <div class="body">
16646         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
16647 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
16648 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
16649 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
16650 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
16651 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
16652 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
16653 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
16654 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
16655 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
16656 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
16657 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
16658 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
16659 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
16660 now. :)</p>
16661
16662       </div>
16663       <div class="tags">
16664
16665
16666         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>.
16667
16668
16669       </div>
16670     </div>
16671     <div class="padding"></div>
16672
16673     <div class="entry">
16674       <div class="title">
16675         <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>
16676       </div>
16677       <div class="date">
16678         29th March 2009
16679       </div>
16680       <div class="body">
16681         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
16682 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
16683 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
16684 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
16685 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
16686 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
16687
16688 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
16689 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
16690 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
16691 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
16692 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
16693 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
16694 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
16695 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
16696 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
16697 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
16698 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
16699 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
16700 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
16701
16702 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
16703 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
16704 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
16705 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
16706
16707 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
16708 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
16709
16710 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
16711 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
16712 new IETF work group?</p>
16713
16714       </div>
16715       <div class="tags">
16716
16717
16718         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>.
16719
16720
16721       </div>
16722     </div>
16723     <div class="padding"></div>
16724
16725     <div class="entry">
16726       <div class="title">
16727         <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>
16728       </div>
16729       <div class="date">
16730         28th February 2009
16731       </div>
16732       <div class="body">
16733         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
16734 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
16735 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
16736 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
16737 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
16738 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
16739 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
16740 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
16741 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
16742 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
16743 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
16744 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
16745 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
16746 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
16747 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
16748 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
16749 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
16750 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
16751 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
16752 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
16753 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
16754 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
16755 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
16756 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
16757 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
16758 machine.</p>
16759
16760 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
16761 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
16762 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
16763 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
16764 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
16765 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
16766 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
16767
16768 <pre>
16769 use LWP::Simple;
16770 use POSIX;
16771 use WWW::Mechanize;
16772 use Date::Parse;
16773 [...]
16774 sub get_support_info {
16775     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
16776     my $str;
16777
16778     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
16779         # fetch website from Dell support
16780         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";
16781         my $webpage = get($url);
16782         return undef unless ($webpage);
16783
16784         my $daysleft = -1;
16785         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
16786         foreach my $line (@lines) {
16787             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
16788             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
16789             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
16790
16791             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
16792             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
16793             my $lastend = "";
16794             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
16795                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
16796
16797                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
16798                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
16799                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
16800                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
16801                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
16802                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
16803                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
16804             }
16805             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
16806             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
16807                 if ($lastend lt $today);
16808         }
16809     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
16810         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
16811         my $url =
16812             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
16813         $mech->get($url);
16814         my $fields = {
16815             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
16816             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
16817             'country' => 'NO',
16818             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
16819             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
16820         };
16821         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
16822                             fields      => $fields );
16823         # Next step is screen scraping
16824         my $content = $mech->content();
16825
16826         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
16827         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
16828         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
16829         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
16830
16831         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
16832
16833         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
16834             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
16835                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
16836             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
16837             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
16838                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
16839             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
16840                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
16841
16842             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
16843
16844             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
16845                 if ($end lt $today);
16846         }
16847     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
16848         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
16849         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
16850         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
16851             my $content =
16852                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
16853             if ($content) {
16854                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
16855                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
16856                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
16857                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
16858
16859                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
16860                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
16861
16862                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
16863
16864                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
16865                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
16866                     if ($end lt $today);
16867             }
16868         }
16869     }
16870     return $str;
16871 }
16872 </pre>
16873
16874 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
16875 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
16876 from dmidecode.</p>
16877
16878 <pre>
16879 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
16880                        "447707-B21");
16881 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
16882 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
16883                        "1234567");
16884 </pre>
16885
16886 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
16887 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
16888
16889 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
16890 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
16891 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
16892 do so.</p>
16893
16894       </div>
16895       <div class="tags">
16896
16897
16898         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>.
16899
16900
16901       </div>
16902     </div>
16903     <div class="padding"></div>
16904
16905     <div class="entry">
16906       <div class="title">
16907         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
16908       </div>
16909       <div class="date">
16910         20th February 2009
16911       </div>
16912       <div class="body">
16913         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
16914 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
16915 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
16916 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
16917 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
16918 the "missing" computer.</p>
16919
16920 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
16921 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
16922 code blocks as defined in the
16923 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
16924 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
16925 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
16926 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
16927 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
16928 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
16929 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
16930 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
16931 codes.</p>
16932
16933 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
16934 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
16935 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
16936 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
16937 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
16938 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
16939
16940 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
16941 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
16942 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
16943 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
16944 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
16945 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
16946 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
16947 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
16948 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
16949 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
16950
16951 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
16952 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
16953 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
16954
16955       </div>
16956       <div class="tags">
16957
16958
16959         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>.
16960
16961
16962       </div>
16963     </div>
16964     <div class="padding"></div>
16965
16966     <div class="entry">
16967       <div class="title">
16968         <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>
16969       </div>
16970       <div class="date">
16971         17th January 2009
16972       </div>
16973       <div class="body">
16974         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
16975 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
16976 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
16977 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
16978 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
16979 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
16980 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
16981 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
16982 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
16983 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
16984 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
16985 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
16986 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
16987 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
16988
16989 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
16990 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
16991 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
16992 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
16993 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
16994 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
16995 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
16996 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
16997 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
16998 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
16999 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
17000 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
17001 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
17002 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
17003 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
17004 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
17005 playing when the download is done.</p>
17006
17007 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
17008 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
17009 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
17010 too.</p>
17011
17012 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
17013 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
17014 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
17015 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
17016
17017       </div>
17018       <div class="tags">
17019
17020
17021         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>.
17022
17023
17024       </div>
17025     </div>
17026     <div class="padding"></div>
17027
17028     <div class="entry">
17029       <div class="title">
17030         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
17031       </div>
17032       <div class="date">
17033         28th December 2008
17034       </div>
17035       <div class="body">
17036         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
17037 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
17038 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
17039 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
17040 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
17041 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
17042 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
17043 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
17044 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
17045 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
17046 source, sink and mixer applications and
17047 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
17048 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
17049 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
17050 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
17051 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
17052 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
17053 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
17054 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
17055 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
17056
17057 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
17058 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
17059 larger stick as well.</p>
17060
17061       </div>
17062       <div class="tags">
17063
17064
17065         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>.
17066
17067
17068       </div>
17069     </div>
17070     <div class="padding"></div>
17071
17072     <div class="entry">
17073       <div class="title">
17074         <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>
17075       </div>
17076       <div class="date">
17077          7th December 2008
17078       </div>
17079       <div class="body">
17080         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
17081 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
17082 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
17083 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
17084 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
17085 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
17086 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
17087 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
17088
17089 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
17090 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
17091 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
17092 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
17093 of these cards.</p>
17094
17095       </div>
17096       <div class="tags">
17097
17098
17099         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>.
17100
17101
17102       </div>
17103     </div>
17104     <div class="padding"></div>
17105
17106     <div class="entry">
17107       <div class="title">
17108         <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>
17109       </div>
17110       <div class="date">
17111         25th November 2008
17112       </div>
17113       <div class="body">
17114         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
17115 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
17116 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
17117 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
17118 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
17119 notes are available on
17120 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
17121 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
17122 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
17123 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
17124 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
17125 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
17126 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
17127 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
17128 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
17129
17130 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
17131 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
17132
17133       </div>
17134       <div class="tags">
17135
17136
17137         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>.
17138
17139
17140       </div>
17141     </div>
17142     <div class="padding"></div>
17143
17144     <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>
17145     <div id="sidebar">
17146
17147
17148
17149 <h2>Archive</h2>
17150 <ul>
17151
17152 <li>2013
17153 <ul>
17154
17155 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
17156
17157 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
17158
17159 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
17160
17161 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
17162
17163 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
17164
17165 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
17166
17167 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
17168
17169 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
17170
17171 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
17172
17173 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (1)</a></li>
17174
17175 </ul></li>
17176
17177 <li>2012
17178 <ul>
17179
17180 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
17181
17182 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
17183
17184 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
17185
17186 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
17187
17188 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
17189
17190 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
17191
17192 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
17193
17194 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
17195
17196 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
17197
17198 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
17199
17200 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
17201
17202 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
17203
17204 </ul></li>
17205
17206 <li>2011
17207 <ul>
17208
17209 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
17210
17211 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
17212
17213 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
17214
17215 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
17216
17217 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
17218
17219 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
17220
17221 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
17222
17223 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
17224
17225 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
17226
17227 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
17228
17229 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
17230
17231 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
17232
17233 </ul></li>
17234
17235 <li>2010
17236 <ul>
17237
17238 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
17239
17240 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
17241
17242 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
17243
17244 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
17245
17246 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
17247
17248 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
17249
17250 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
17251
17252 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
17253
17254 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
17255
17256 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
17257
17258 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
17259
17260 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
17261
17262 </ul></li>
17263
17264 <li>2009
17265 <ul>
17266
17267 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
17268
17269 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
17270
17271 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
17272
17273 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
17274
17275 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
17276
17277 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
17278
17279 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
17280
17281 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
17282
17283 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
17284
17285 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
17286
17287 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
17288
17289 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
17290
17291 </ul></li>
17292
17293 <li>2008
17294 <ul>
17295
17296 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
17297
17298 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
17299
17300 </ul></li>
17301
17302 </ul>
17303
17304
17305
17306 <h2>Tags</h2>
17307 <ul>
17308
17309  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
17310
17311  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
17312
17313  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
17314
17315  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
17316
17317  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (7)</a></li>
17318
17319  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
17320
17321  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
17322
17323  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (86)</a></li>
17324
17325  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (142)</a></li>
17326
17327  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
17328
17329  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
17330
17331  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
17332
17333  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (218)</a></li>
17334
17335  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
17336
17337  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
17338
17339  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
17340
17341  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (2)</a></li>
17342
17343  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
17344
17345  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (37)</a></li>
17346
17347  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
17348
17349  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
17350
17351  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
17352
17353  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
17354
17355  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
17356
17357  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
17358
17359  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (235)</a></li>
17360
17361  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (153)</a></li>
17362
17363  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (8)</a></li>
17364
17365  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
17366
17367  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (44)</a></li>
17368
17369  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (66)</a></li>
17370
17371  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
17372
17373  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
17374
17375  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
17376
17377  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (7)</a></li>
17378
17379  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
17380
17381  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
17382
17383  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
17384
17385  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (31)</a></li>
17386
17387  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
17388
17389  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
17390
17391  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (43)</a></li>
17392
17393  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
17394
17395  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (8)</a></li>
17396
17397  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (18)</a></li>
17398
17399  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
17400
17401  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
17402
17403  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (39)</a></li>
17404
17405  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
17406
17407  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (28)</a></li>
17408
17409 </ul>
17410
17411
17412     </div>
17413     <p style="text-align: right">
17414  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
17415 </p>
17416
17417   </body>
17418 </html>