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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/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28          3rd February 2014
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
  32 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
  33 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
  34 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
  35 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
  36 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
  37 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
  38 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
  39 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
  40
  41 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
  42 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
  43 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
  44 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
  45 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
  46 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
  47
  48 <p><blockquote><pre>
  49 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
  50 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
  51 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
  52 dhclient /dev/eth0
  53 </pre></blockquote></p>
  54
  55 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
  56 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
  57 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
  58
  59 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
  60 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
  61 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
  62 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
  63 side.</p>
  64
  65 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
  66 stuff:</p>
  67
  68 <p><blockquote><pre>
  69 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
  70 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
  71 EOF
  72 apt-get update
  73 apt-get dist-upgrade
  74 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
  75     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
  76 update-alternatives --config runsystem
  77 </pre></blockquote></p>
  78
  79 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
  80 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
  81 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
  82 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
  83 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
  84 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
  85 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
  86 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
  87 ssh instead.
  88
  89 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
  90 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
  91 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
  92 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
  93 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
  94 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
  95
  96 <p><blockquote><pre>
  97 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
  98 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
  99 EOF
 100 </pre></blockquote></p>
 101
 102 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
 103 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
 104 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
 105 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
 106
 107 <p><blockquote><pre>
 108 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
 109 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
 110 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
 111 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
 112 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
 113 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
 114 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
 115 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
 116 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
 117 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
 118 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
 119 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
 120 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
 121 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
 122 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
 123 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
 124 #
 125 </pre></blockquote></p>
 126
 127 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
 128 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
 129 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
 130 command line stuff.<p>
 131
 132       </div>
 133       <div class="tags">
 134
 135
 136         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>.
 137
 138
 139       </div>
 140     </div>
 141     <div class="padding"></div>
 142
 143     <div class="entry">
 144       <div class="title">
 145         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_fist_full_of_non_anonymous_Bitcoins.html">A fist full of non-anonymous Bitcoins</a>
 146       </div>
 147       <div class="date">
 148         29th January 2014
 149       </div>
 150       <div class="body">
 151         <p>Bitcoin is a incredible use of peer to peer communication and
 152 encryption, allowing direct and immediate money transfer without any
 153 central control.  It is sometimes claimed to be ideal for illegal
 154 activity, which I believe is quite a long way from the truth.  At least
 155 I would not conduct illegal money transfers using a system where the
 156 details of every transaction are kept forever.  This point is
 157 investigated in
 158 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">USENIX ;login:</a>
 159 from December 2013, in the article
 160 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/03_meiklejohn-online.pdf">A
 161 Fistful of Bitcoins - Characterizing Payments Among Men with No
 162 Names</a>" by Sarah Meiklejohn, Marjori Pomarole,Grant Jordan, Kirill
 163 Levchenko, Damon McCoy, Geoffrey M. Voelker, and Stefan Savage.  They
 164 analyse the transaction log in the Bitcoin system, using it to find
 165 addresses belong to individuals and organisations and follow the flow
 166 of money from both Bitcoin theft and trades on Silk Road to where the
 167 money end up.  This is how they wrap up their article:</p>
 168
 169 <p><blockquote>
 170 <p>"To demonstrate the usefulness of this type of analysis, we turned
 171 our attention to criminal activity. In the Bitcoin economy, criminal
 172 activity can appear in a number of forms, such as dealing drugs on
 173 Silk Road or simply stealing someone else’s bitcoins. We followed the
 174 flow of bitcoins out of Silk Road (in particular, from one notorious
 175 address) and from a number of highly publicized thefts to see whether
 176 we could track the bitcoins to known services. Although some of the
 177 thieves attempted to use sophisticated mixing techniques (or possibly
 178 mix services) to obscure the flow of bitcoins, for the most part
 179 tracking the bitcoins was quite straightforward, and we ultimately saw
 180 large quantities of bitcoins flow to a variety of exchanges directly
 181 from the point of theft (or the withdrawal from Silk Road).</p>
 182
 183 <p>As acknowledged above, following stolen bitcoins to the point at
 184 which they are deposited into an exchange does not in itself identify
 185 the thief; however, it does enable further de-anonymization in the
 186 case in which certain agencies can determine (through, for example,
 187 subpoena power) the real-world owner of the account into which the
 188 stolen bitcoins were deposited.  Because such exchanges seem to serve
 189 as chokepoints into and out of the Bitcoin economy (i.e., there are
 190 few alternative ways to cash out), we conclude that using Bitcoin for
 191 money laundering or other illicit purposes does not (at least at
 192 present) seem to be particularly attractive."</p>
 193 </blockquote><p>
 194
 195 <p>These researches are not the first to analyse the Bitcoin
 196 transaction log.  The 2011 paper
 197 "<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.4524">An Analysis of Anonymity in
 198 the Bitcoin System</A>" by Fergal Reid and Martin Harrigan is
 199 summarized like this:</p>
 200
 201 <p><blockquote>
 202 "Anonymity in Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic currency system, is a
 203 complicated issue. Within the system, users are identified by
 204 public-keys only. An attacker wishing to de-anonymize its users will
 205 attempt to construct the one-to-many mapping between users and
 206 public-keys and associate information external to the system with the
 207 users. Bitcoin tries to prevent this attack by storing the mapping of
 208 a user to his or her public-keys on that user's node only and by
 209 allowing each user to generate as many public-keys as required. In
 210 this chapter we consider the topological structure of two networks
 211 derived from Bitcoin's public transaction history. We show that the
 212 two networks have a non-trivial topological structure, provide
 213 complementary views of the Bitcoin system and have implications for
 214 anonymity. We combine these structures with external information and
 215 techniques such as context discovery and flow analysis to investigate
 216 an alleged theft of Bitcoins, which, at the time of the theft, had a
 217 market value of approximately half a million U.S. dollars."
 218 </blockquote></p>
 219
 220 <p>I hope these references can help kill the urban myth that Bitcoin
 221 is anonymous.  It isn't really a good fit for illegal activites.  Use
 222 cash if you need to stay anonymous, at least until regular DNA
 223 sampling of notes and coins become the norm. :)</p>
 224
 225 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 226 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 227 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 228
 229       </div>
 230       <div class="tags">
 231
 232
 233         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>.
 234
 235
 236       </div>
 237     </div>
 238     <div class="padding"></div>
 239
 240     <div class="entry">
 241       <div class="title">
 242         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
 243       </div>
 244       <div class="date">
 245         14th January 2014
 246       </div>
 247       <div class="body">
 248         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
 249 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
 250 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
 251 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
 252 the source.  The company behind it provide
 253 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
 254 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
 255 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
 256 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
 257 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
 258 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
 259 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
 260 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
 261 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
 262 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
 263 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
 264 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
 265 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
 266 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
 267 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
 268 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
 269 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
 270 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
 271 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
 272
 273 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
 274
 275 <ul>
 276
 277   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
 278   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
 279   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
 280
 281 </ul>
 282
 283 <p>You can
 284 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
 285 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
 286 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
 287 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
 288 include a test suite check.</p>
 289
 290       </div>
 291       <div class="tags">
 292
 293
 294         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 295
 296
 297       </div>
 298     </div>
 299     <div class="padding"></div>
 300
 301     <div class="entry">
 302       <div class="title">
 303         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Dominik_George.html">Debian Edu interview: Dominik George</a>
 304       </div>
 305       <div class="date">
 306         25th December 2013
 307       </div>
 308       <div class="body">
 309         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
 310 project</a> consist of both newcomers and old timers, and this time I
 311 was able to get an interview with a newcomer in the project who showed
 312 up on the IRC channel a few weeks ago to let us know about his
 313 successful installation of Debian Edu Wheezy in his School.  Say hello
 314 to <a href="https://www.ohloh.net/accounts/Natureshadow">Dominik
 315 George</a>.</p>
 316
 317 <!-- http://www.dominik-george.de/images/foto.jpg -->
 318
 319 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 320
 321 <p>I am a 23 year-old student from Germany who has spent half of his
 322 life with open source. In "real life", I am, as already mentioned, a
 323 student in the fields of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering,
 324 Information Technologies and Anglistics. Due to my (only partially
 325 voluntary) huge engagement in the open source world, these things are
 326 a bit vacant right now however.</p>
 327
 328 <p>I also have been working as a project teacher at a Gymasnium
 329 (public school) for various years now. I took up that work some time
 330 around 2005 when still attending that school myself and have continued
 331 it until today. I also had been running the (kind of very advanced)
 332 network of that school together with a team of very interested and
 333 talented students in the age of 11 to 15 years, who took the chance to
 334 learn a lot about open source and networking before I left the school
 335 to help building another school's informational education concept from
 336 scratch.</p>
 337
 338 <p>That said, one might see me as a kind of "glue" between school kids
 339 and the elderly of teachers as well as between the open source
 340 ecosystem and the (even more complex) educational ecosystem.</p>
 341
 342 <p>When I am not busy with open source or education, I like Geocaching
 343 and cycling.</p>
 344
 345 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
 346 project?</strong></p>
 347
 348 <p>I think that happened some time around 2009 when I first attended
 349 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">FrOSCon</a> and visited the project
 350 booth. I think I wasn't too interested back then because I used to
 351 have an attitude of disliking software that does too much stuff on its
 352 own. Maybe I was too inexperienced to realise the upsides of an
 353 "out-of-the-box" solution ;).</p>
 354
 355 <p>The first time I actively talked to Skolelinux people was at
 356 <a href="http://www.openrheinruhr.de">OpenRheinRuhr</a> 2011 when the
 357 BiscuIT project, a home-grewn software used by my school for various
 358 really cool things from timetables and class contact lists to lunch
 359 ordering, student ID card printing and project elections first got to
 360 a stage where it could have been published. I asked the Skolelinux
 361 guys running the booth if the project were interested in it and gave a
 362 small demonstration, but there wasn't any real feedback and the guys
 363 seemed rather uninterested.</p>
 364
 365 <p>After I left the school where I developed the software, it got
 366 mostly lost, but I am now reimplementing it for my new school. I have
 367 reusability and compatibility in mind, and I hop there will be a new
 368 basis for contributing it to the Skolelinux project ;)!</p>
 369
 370 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 371 Edu?</strong></p>
 372
 373 <p>The most important advantage seems to be that it "just
 374 works". After overcoming some minor (but still very annoying) glitches
 375 in the installer, I got a fully functional, working school network,
 376 without the month-long hassle I experienced when setting all that up
 377 from scratch in earlier years. And above that, it rocked - I didn't
 378 have any real hardware at hand, because the school was just founded
 379 and has no money whatsoever, so I installed a combined server (main
 380 server, terminal services and workstation) in a VM on my personal
 381 notebook, bridging the LTSP network interface to the ethernet port,
 382 and then PXE-booted the Windows notebooks that were lying around from
 383 it. I could use 8 clients without any performance issues, by using a
 384 tiny little VM on a tiny little notebook. I think that's enough to say
 385 that it rocks!</p>
 386
 387 <p>Secondly, there are marketing reasons. Life's bad, and so no
 388 politician will ever permit a setup described as "Debian, an universal
 389 operating system, with some really cool educational tools" while they
 390 will be jsut fine with "Skolelinux, a single-purpose solution for your
 391 school network", even if both turn out to be the very same thing (yes,
 392 this is unfair towards the Skolelinux project, and must not be taken
 393 too seriously - you get the idea, anyway).</p>
 394
 395 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 396 Edu?</strong></p>
 397
 398 <p>I have not been involved with Skolelinux long enough to really
 399 answer this question in a fair way. Thus, please allow me to put it in
 400 other words: "What do you expect from Skolelinux to keep liking it?" I
 401 can list a few points about that:</p>
 402
 403 <ul>
 404
 405  <li>always strive to get all things integrated into Debian upstream
 406  <li>be open to discussion about changes and the like, even with newcomers
 407  <li>be helpful at being helpful ;)
 408
 409 </ul>
 410
 411 <p>I'm really sorry I cannot say much more about that :(!</p>
 412
 413 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 414
 415 <p>First of all, all software I use is free and open. I have abandoned
 416 all non-free software (except for firmware on my darned phone) this
 417 year.</p>
 418
 419 <p>I run Debian GNU/Linux on all PC systems I use. On that, I mostly
 420 run text tools. I use
 421 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm">mksh</a> as shell,
 422 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/jupp.htm">jupp</a> as very advanced
 423 text editor (I even got the developer to help me write a script/macro
 424 based full-featured student management software with the two),
 425 <a href="http://mcabber.com/">mcabber</a> for XMPP and
 426 <a href="http://www.irssi.org/">irssi</a> for IRC. For that overly
 427 coloured world called the WWW, I use
 428 <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/">Iceweasel
 429 (Firefox)</a>. Oh, and <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</a> for
 430 e-mail.</p>
 431
 432 <p>However, while I am personally aware of the fact that text tools
 433 are more efficient and powerful than anything else, I also use (or at
 434 least operate) some tools that are suitable to bring open source to
 435 kids. One of these things is <a href="http://jappix.org/">Jappix</a>,
 436 which I already introduced to some kids even before they got aware of
 437 Facebook, making them see for themselves that they do not need
 438 Facebook now ;).</p>
 439
 440 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 441 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 442
 443 <p>Well, that's a two-sided thing. One side is what I believe, and one
 444 side is what I have experienced.</p>
 445
 446 <p>I believe that the right strategy is showing them the benefits. But
 447 that won't work out as long as the acceptance of free alternatives
 448 grows globally. What I mean is that if all the kids are almost forced
 449 to use Windows, Facebook, Skype, you name it at home, they will not
 450 see why they would want to use alternatives at school. I have seen
 451 students take seat in front of a fully-functional, modern Debian
 452 desktop that could do anything their Windows at home could do, and
 453 they jsut refused to use it because "Linux sucks". It is something
 454 that makes the council of our city spend around 600000 € to buy
 455 software - not including hardware, mind you - for operating school
 456 networks, and for installing a system that, as has been proved, does
 457 not work. For those of you readers who are good at maths, have you
 458 already found out how many lives could have been saved with that money
 459 if we had instead used it to bring education to parts of the world
 460 that need it? I have, and found it to be nothing less dramatic than
 461 plain criminal.</p>
 462
 463 <p>That said, the only feasible way appears to be the bottom up
 464 method. We have to bring free software to kids and parents. I have
 465 founded an association named
 466 <a href="https://www.teckids.org">Teckids</a> here in Germany that does
 467 just that. We organise several events for kids and adolescents in the
 468 area of free and open source software, for example the
 469 <a href="http://kids.froscon.org">FrogLabs</a>, which share staff with
 470 Teckids and are the youth programme of
 471 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">the Free and Open Source Software
 472 Conference (FrOSCon)</a>. We do a lot more than most other conferences
 473 - this year, we first offered the FrogLabs as a holiday camp for kids
 474 aged 10 to 16. It was a huge success, with approx. 30 kids taking part
 475 and learning with and about free software through a whole weekend. All
 476 of us had a lot of fun, and the results were really exciting.</p>
 477
 478 <p>Apart from that, we are preparing a campaign that is supposed to bring
 479 the message of free alternatives to stuff kids use every day to them and
 480 their parents, e.g. the use of Jabber / Jappix instead of Facebook and
 481 Skype. To make that possible, we are planning to get together a team of
 482 clever kids who understand very well what their peers need and can bring
 483 it across to them. So we will have a peer-driven network of adolescents
 484 who teach each other and collect feedback from the community of minors.
 485 We then take that feedback and our own experience to work closely with
 486 open source projects, such as Skolelinux or Jappix, at improving their
 487 software in a way that makes it more and more attractive for the target
 488 group. At least I hope that we will have good cooperation with
 489 Skolelinux in the future ;)!</p>
 490
 491 <p>So in conclusion, what I believe is that, if it weren't for the world
 492 being so bad, it should be very clear to the political decision makers
 493 that the only way to go nowadays is free software for various reasons,
 494 but I have learnt that the only way that seems to work is bottom up.</p>
 495
 496 <!--
 497
 498 >  * Who should be interviewed with this questions in the future?
 499
 500 That's probably the hardest question of them all, as I do not know the
 501 community. However, I would be willing to do the following:
 502
 503  <li>Run an interview with a German headteacher who is very open to
 504    free software, and also prefers it, but cannot really use it because
 505    of the decision makers above;
 506  <li>Run interviews with some kids, both with and without previous
 507    knowledge about free software
 508
 509 If that is wanted, just let me know ;).
 510
 511 -->
 512
 513       </div>
 514       <div class="tags">
 515
 516
 517         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
 518
 519
 520       </div>
 521     </div>
 522     <div class="padding"></div>
 523
 524     <div class="entry">
 525       <div class="title">
 526         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Klaus_Knopper.html">Debian Edu interview: Klaus Knopper</a>
 527       </div>
 528       <div class="date">
 529          6th December 2013
 530       </div>
 531       <div class="body">
 532         <p>It has been a while since I managed to publish the last interview,
 533 but the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
 534 Skolelinux</a> community is still going strong, and yesterday we even
 535 had a new school administrator show up on
 536 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a> to share
 537 his success story with installing Debian Edu at their school.  This
 538 time I have been able to get some helpful comments from the creator of
 539 Knoppix, Klaus Knopper, who was involved in a Skolelinux project in
 540 Germany a few years ago.</p>
 541
 542 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 543
 544 <p>I am Klaus Knopper.  I have a master degree in electrical
 545 engineering, and is currently professor in information management at
 546 the university of applied sciences Kaiserslautern / Germany and
 547 freelance Open Source software developer and consultant.</p>
 548
 549 <p>All of this is pretty much of the work I spend my days with. Apart
 550 from teaching, I'm also conducting some more or less experimental
 551 projects like the <a href="http://www.knoppix.org">Knoppix GNU/Linux live
 552 system</a> (Debian-based like Skolelinux),
 553 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html">ADRIANE</a>
 554 (a blind-friendly talking desktop system) and
 555 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/linbo/index-en.html">LINBO</a>
 556 (Linux-based network boot console, a fast remote install and repair
 557 system supporting various operating systems).</p>
 558
 559 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
 560 project?</strong></p>
 561
 562 <p>The credit for this have to go to Kurt Gramlich, who is the German
 563 coordinator for Skolelinux.  We were looking for an all-in-one open
 564 source community-supported distribution for schools, and Kurt
 565 introduced us to Skolelinux for this purpose.</p>
 566
 567 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 568 Edu?</strong></p>
 569
 570 <ul>
 571   <li>Quick installation,</li>
 572   <li>works (almost) out of the box,</li>
 573   <li>contains many useful software packages for teaching and learning,</li>
 574   <li>is a purely community-based distro and not controlled by a
 575     single company,</li>
 576   <li>has a large number of supporters and teachers who share their
 577     experience and problem solutions.</li>
 578 </ul>
 579
 580 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 581 Edu?</strong></p>
 582
 583 <ul>
 584   <li>Skolelinux is - as we had to learn - not easily upgradable to
 585   the next version.  Opposed to its genuine Debian base, upgrading to
 586   a new version means a full new installation from scratch to get it
 587   working again reliably.
 588
 589   <li>Skolelinux is based on Debian/stable, and therefore always a
 590   little outdated in terms of program versions compared to Edubuntu or
 591   similar educational Linux distros, which rather use Debian/testing
 592   as their base.
 593
 594   <li>Skolelinux has some very self-opinionated and stubborn default
 595   configuration which in my opinion adds unnecessary complexity and is
 596   not always suitable for a schools needs, the preset network
 597   configuration is actually a core definition feature of Skolelinux
 598   and not easy to change, so schools sometimes have to change their
 599   network configuration to make it "Skolelinux-compatible".
 600
 601   <li>Some proposed extensions, which were made available as
 602   contribution, like secure examination mode and lecture material
 603   distribution and collection, were not accepted into the mainline
 604   Skolelinux development and are now not easy to maintain in the
 605   future because of Skolelinux somewhat undeterministic update
 606   schemes.</li>
 607
 608   <li>Skolelinux has only a very tiny number of base developers
 609   compared to Debian.</li>
 610
 611 </ul>
 612
 613 <p>For these reasons and experience from our project, I would now
 614 rather consider using plain Debian for schools next time, until
 615 Skolelinux is more closely integrated into Debian and becomes
 616 upgradeable without reinstallation.</p>
 617
 618 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 619
 620 <p>GNU/Linux with LXDE desktop, bash for interactive dialog and
 621 programming, texlive for documentation and correspondence,
 622 occasionally LibreOffice for document format conversion. Various
 623 programming languages for teaching.</p>
 624
 625 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 626 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 627
 628 <p>Strong arguments are</p>
 629
 630 <ul>
 631
 632   <li>Knowledge is free, and so should be methods and tools for
 633     teaching and learning.</li>
 634
 635   <li>Students can learn with and use the same software at school, at
 636     home, and at their working place without running into license or
 637     conversion problems.</li>
 638
 639   <li>Closed source or proprietary software hides knowledge rather
 640     than exposing it, and proprietary software vendors try to bind
 641     customers to certain products.  But teachers need to teach
 642     science, not products.</li>
 643
 644   <li>If you have everything you for daily work as open source, what
 645     would you need proprietary software for?</li>
 646
 647 </ul>
 648
 649       </div>
 650       <div class="tags">
 651
 652
 653         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
 654
 655
 656       </div>
 657     </div>
 658     <div class="padding"></div>
 659
 660     <div class="entry">
 661       <div class="title">
 662         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnadsnett_for_alle__a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo__take_shape.html">Dugnadsnett for alle, a wireless community network in Oslo, take shape</a>
 663       </div>
 664       <div class="date">
 665         30th November 2013
 666       </div>
 667       <div class="body">
 668         <p>If you want the ability to electronically communicate directly with
 669 your neighbors and friends using a network controlled by your peers in
 670 stead of centrally controlled by a few corporations, or would like to
 671 experiment with interesting network technology, the
 672 <a href="http://www.dugnadsnett.no/">Dugnasnett for alle i Oslo</a>
 673 might be project for you.  39 mesh nodes are currently being planned,
 674 in the freshly started initiative from NUUG and Hackeriet to create a
 675 wireless community network.  The work is inspired by
 676 <a href="http://freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a>,
 677 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan
 678 Network</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roofnet">Roofnet</a>
 679 and other successful mesh networks around the globe.  Two days ago we
 680 held a workshop to try to get people started on setting up their own
 681 mesh node, and there we decided to create a new mailing list
 682 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/dugnadsnett">dugnadsnett
 683 (at) nuug.no</a> and IRC channel
 684 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#dugnadsnett.no">#dugnadsnett.no</a> to
 685 coordinate the work.  See also the NUUG blog post
 686 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/E_postliste_og_IRC_kanal_for_Dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">announcing
 687 the mailing list and IRC channel</a>.</p>
 688
 689       </div>
 690       <div class="tags">
 691
 692
 693         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 694
 695
 696       </div>
 697     </div>
 698     <div class="padding"></div>
 699
 700     <div class="entry">
 701       <div class="title">
 702         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
 703       </div>
 704       <div class="date">
 705         24th November 2013
 706       </div>
 707       <div class="body">
 708         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
 709 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
 710 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
 711 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
 712 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
 713 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
 714 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
 715 is working on.  I checked the
 716 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
 717 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
 718 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
 719 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
 720 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
 721 These are the release notes:</p>
 722
 723 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
 724
 725 <ul>
 726
 727   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
 728    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
 729    up.</li>
 730
 731   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
 732
 733   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
 734    Matthias Klose.</li>
 735
 736   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
 737    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
 738
 739   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
 740    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
 741    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
 742
 743 </ul>
 744
 745 <p>You can
 746 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
 747 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
 748 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
 749 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
 750 include a testsuite check.</p>
 751
 752       </div>
 753       <div class="tags">
 754
 755
 756         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 757
 758
 759       </div>
 760     </div>
 761     <div class="padding"></div>
 762
 763     <div class="entry">
 764       <div class="title">
 765         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/All_drones_should_be_radio_marked_with_what_they_do_and_who_they_belong_to.html">All drones should be radio marked with what they do and who they belong to</a>
 766       </div>
 767       <div class="date">
 768         21st November 2013
 769       </div>
 770       <div class="body">
 771         <p>Drones, flying robots, are getting more and more popular.  The most
 772 know ones are the killer drones used by some government to murder
 773 people they do not like without giving them the chance of a fair
 774 trial, but the technology have many good uses too, from mapping and
 775 forest maintenance to photography and search and rescue.  I am sure it
 776 is just a question of time before "bad drones" are in the hands of
 777 private enterprises and not only state criminals but petty criminals
 778 too.  The drone technology is very useful and very dangerous.  To have
 779 some control over the use of drones, I agree with Daniel Suarez in his
 780 TED talk
 781 "<a href="https://archive.org/details/DanielSuarez_2013G">The kill
 782 decision shouldn't belong to a robot</a>", where he suggested this
 783 little gem to keep the good while limiting the bad use of drones:</p>
 784
 785 <blockquote>
 786
 787 <p>Each robot and drone should have a cryptographically signed
 788 I.D. burned in at the factory that can be used to track its movement
 789 through public spaces. We have license plates on cars, tail numbers on
 790 aircraft. This is no different. And every citizen should be able to
 791 download an app that shows the population of drones and autonomous
 792 vehicles moving through public spaces around them, both right now and
 793 historically. And civic leaders should deploy sensors and civic drones
 794 to detect rogue drones, and instead of sending killer drones of their
 795 own up to shoot them down, they should notify humans to their
 796 presence. And in certain very high-security areas, perhaps civic
 797 drones would snare them and drag them off to a bomb disposal facility.</p>
 798
 799 <p>But notice, this is more an immune system than a weapons system. It
 800 would allow us to avail ourselves of the use of autonomous vehicles
 801 and drones while still preserving our open, civil society.</p>
 802
 803 </blockquote>
 804
 805 <p>The key is that <em>every citizen</em> should be able to read the
 806 radio beacons sent from the drones in the area, to be able to check
 807 both the government and others use of drones.  For such control to be
 808 effective, everyone must be able to do it.  What should such beacon
 809 contain?  At least formal owner, purpose, contact information and GPS
 810 location.  Probably also the origin and target position of the current
 811 flight.  And perhaps some registration number to be able to look up
 812 the drone in a central database tracking their movement.  Robots
 813 should not have privacy.  It is people who need privacy.</p>
 814
 815       </div>
 816       <div class="tags">
 817
 818
 819         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 820
 821
 822       </div>
 823     </div>
 824     <div class="padding"></div>
 825
 826     <div class="entry">
 827       <div class="title">
 828         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo_.html">Lets make a wireless community network in Oslo!</a>
 829       </div>
 830       <div class="date">
 831         13th November 2013
 832       </div>
 833       <div class="body">
 834         <p>Today NUUG and Hackeriet announced
 835 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Bli_med___bygge_dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">our
 836 plans to join forces and create a wireless community network in
 837 Oslo</a>.  The workshop to help people get started will take place
 838 Thursday 2013-11-28, but we already are collecting the geolocation of
 839 people joining forces to make this happen.  We have
 840 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/oslo-nodes.geojson">9
 841 locations plotted on the map</a>, but we will need more before we have
 842 a connected mesh spread across Oslo.  If this sound interesting to
 843 you, please join us at the workshop.  If you are too impatient to wait
 844 15 days, please join us on the IRC channel
 845 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
 846 right away. :)</p>
 847
 848       </div>
 849       <div class="tags">
 850
 851
 852         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 853
 854
 855       </div>
 856     </div>
 857     <div class="padding"></div>
 858
 859     <div class="entry">
 860       <div class="title">
 861         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Running_TP_Link_MR3040_as_a_batman_adv_mesh_node_using_openwrt.html">Running TP-Link MR3040 as a batman-adv mesh node using openwrt</a>
 862       </div>
 863       <div class="date">
 864         10th November 2013
 865       </div>
 866       <div class="body">
 867         <p>Continuing my research into mesh networking, I was recommended to
 868 use TP-Link 3040 and 3600 access points as mesh nodes, and the pair I
 869 bought arrived on Friday.  Here are my notes on how to set up the
 870 MR3040 as a mesh node using
 871 <a href="http://www.openwrt.org/">OpenWrt</a>.</p>
 872
 873 <p>I started by following the instructions on the OpenWRT wiki for
 874 <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3040">TL-MR3040</a>,
 875 and downloaded
 876 <a href="http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin">the
 877 recommended firmware image</a>
 878 (openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin) and
 879 uploaded it into the original web interface.  The flashing went fine,
 880 and the machine was available via telnet on the ethernet port.  After
 881 logging in and setting the root password, ssh was available and I
 882 could start to set it up as a batman-adv mesh node.</p>
 883
 884 <p>I started off by reading the instructions from
 885 <a href="http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php?title=Antoine's_Research">Wireless
 886 Africa</a>, which had quite a lot of useful information, but
 887 eventually I followed the recipe from the Open Mesh wiki for
 888 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Batman-adv-openwrt-config">using
 889 batman-adv on OpenWrt</a>.  A small snag was the fact that the
 890 <tt>opkg install kmod-batman-adv</tt> command did not work as it
 891 should.  The batman-adv kernel module would fail to load because its
 892 dependency crc16 was not already loaded.  I
 893 <a href="https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/14452">reported the bug</a> to
 894 the openwrt project and hope it will be fixed soon.  But the problem
 895 only seem to affect initial testing of batman-adv, as configuration
 896 seem to work when booting from scratch.</p>
 897
 898 <p>The setup is done using files in /etc/config/.  I did not bridge
 899 the Ethernet and mesh interfaces this time, to be able to hook up the
 900 box on my local network and log into it for configuration updates.
 901 The following files were changed and look like this after modifying
 902 them:</p>
 903
 904 <p><tt>/etc/config/network</tt></p>
 905
 906 <pre>
 907
 908 config interface 'loopback'
 909         option ifname 'lo'
 910         option proto 'static'
 911         option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
 912         option netmask '255.0.0.0'
 913
 914 config globals 'globals'
 915         option ula_prefix 'fdbf:4c12:3fed::/48'
 916
 917 config interface 'lan'
 918         option ifname 'eth0'
 919         option type 'bridge'
 920         option proto 'dhcp'
 921         option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
 922         option netmask '255.255.255.0'
 923         option hostname 'tl-mr3040'
 924         option ip6assign '60'
 925
 926 config interface 'mesh'
 927         option ifname 'adhoc0'
 928         option mtu '1528'
 929         option proto 'batadv'
 930         option mesh 'bat0'
 931 </pre>
 932
 933 <p><tt>/etc/config/wireless</tt></p>
 934 <pre>
 935
 936 config wifi-device 'radio0'
 937         option type 'mac80211'
 938         option channel '11'
 939         option hwmode '11ng'
 940         option path 'platform/ar933x_wmac'
 941         option htmode 'HT20'
 942         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-20'
 943         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-40'
 944         list ht_capab 'RX-STBC1'
 945         list ht_capab 'DSSS_CCK-40'
 946         option disabled '0'
 947
 948 config wifi-iface 'wmesh'
 949         option device 'radio0'
 950         option ifname 'adhoc0'
 951         option network 'mesh'
 952         option encryption 'none'
 953         option mode 'adhoc'
 954         option bssid '02:BA:00:00:00:01'
 955         option ssid 'meshfx@hackeriet'
 956 </pre>
 957 <p><tt>/etc/config/batman-adv</tt></p>
 958 <pre>
 959
 960 config 'mesh' 'bat0'
 961         option interfaces 'adhoc0'
 962         option 'aggregated_ogms'
 963         option 'ap_isolation'
 964         option 'bonding'
 965         option 'fragmentation'
 966         option 'gw_bandwidth'
 967         option 'gw_mode'
 968         option 'gw_sel_class'
 969         option 'log_level'
 970         option 'orig_interval'
 971         option 'vis_mode'
 972         option 'bridge_loop_avoidance'
 973         option 'distributed_arp_table'
 974         option 'network_coding'
 975         option 'hop_penalty'
 976
 977 # yet another batX instance
 978 # config 'mesh' 'bat5'
 979 #       option 'interfaces' 'second_mesh'
 980 </pre>
 981
 982 <p>The mesh node is now operational.  I have yet to test its range,
 983 but I hope it is good.  I have not yet tested the TP-Link 3600 box
 984 still wrapped up in plastic.</p>
 985
 986       </div>
 987       <div class="tags">
 988
 989
 990         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 991
 992
 993       </div>
 994     </div>
 995     <div class="padding"></div>
 996
 997     <div class="entry">
 998       <div class="title">
 999         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
1000       </div>
1001       <div class="date">
1002          2nd November 2013
1003       </div>
1004       <div class="body">
1005         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
1006 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
1007 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
1008 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
1009 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
1010
1011 <p><pre>
1012 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
1013 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
1014 # Provides:          rsyslog
1015 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
1016 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
1017 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
1018 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
1019 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
1020 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
1021 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
1022 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
1023 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
1024 ### END INIT INFO
1025 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
1026 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
1027 </pre></p>
1028
1029 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
1030 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
1031 info/comments.</p>
1032
1033 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
1034 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
1035
1036 <p><pre>
1037 #!/bin/sh
1038
1039 # Define LSB log_* functions.
1040 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
1041 # and status_of_proc is working.
1042 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
1043
1044 #
1045 # Function that starts the daemon/service
1046
1047 #
1048 do_start()
1049 {
1050         # Return
1051         #   0 if daemon has been started
1052         #   1 if daemon was already running
1053         #   2 if daemon could not be started
1054         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
1055                 || return 1
1056         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
1057                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
1058                 || return 2
1059         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
1060         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
1061         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
1062 }
1063
1064 #
1065 # Function that stops the daemon/service
1066 #
1067 do_stop()
1068 {
1069         # Return
1070         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
1071         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
1072         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
1073         #   other if a failure occurred
1074         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1075         RETVAL="$?"
1076         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
1077         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
1078         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
1079         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
1080         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
1081         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
1082         # sleep for some time.
1083         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
1084         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
1085         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
1086         rm -f $PIDFILE
1087         return "$RETVAL"
1088 }
1089
1090 #
1091 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
1092 #
1093 do_reload() {
1094         #
1095         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
1096         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
1097         # then implement that here.
1098         #
1099         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
1100         return 0
1101 }
1102
1103 SCRIPTNAME=$1
1104 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
1105 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
1106 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
1107     script="$1"
1108     shift
1109     . $script
1110 else
1111     exit 0
1112 fi
1113
1114 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
1115 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
1116
1117 # Exit if the package is not installed
1118 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
1119
1120 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
1121 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
1122
1123 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
1124 . /lib/init/vars.sh
1125
1126 case "$1" in
1127   start)
1128         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
1129         do_start
1130         case "$?" in
1131                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1132                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1133         esac
1134         ;;
1135   stop)
1136         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
1137         do_stop
1138         case "$?" in
1139                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
1140                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
1141         esac
1142         ;;
1143   status)
1144         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
1145         ;;
1146   #reload|force-reload)
1147         #
1148         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
1149         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
1150         #
1151         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
1152         #do_reload
1153         #log_end_msg $?
1154         #;;
1155   restart|force-reload)
1156         #
1157         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
1158         # 'force-reload' alias
1159         #
1160         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
1161         do_stop
1162         case "$?" in
1163           0|1)
1164                 do_start
1165                 case "$?" in
1166                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
1167                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
1168                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
1169                 esac
1170                 ;;
1171           *)
1172                 # Failed to stop
1173                 log_end_msg 1
1174                 ;;
1175         esac
1176         ;;
1177   *)
1178         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
1179         exit 3
1180         ;;
1181 esac
1182
1183 :
1184 </pre></p>
1185
1186 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
1187 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
1188 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
1189 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
1190
1191 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
1192 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
1193 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
1194 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
1195 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
1196
1197       </div>
1198       <div class="tags">
1199
1200
1201         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>.
1202
1203
1204       </div>
1205     </div>
1206     <div class="padding"></div>
1207
1208     <div class="entry">
1209       <div class="title">
1210         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
1211       </div>
1212       <div class="date">
1213          1st November 2013
1214       </div>
1215       <div class="body">
1216         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
1217 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
1218 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
1219 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
1220 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
1221 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
1222 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
1223 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
1224 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
1225 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
1226 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
1227 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
1228
1229 <p>The source is now available from
1230 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
1231
1232       </div>
1233       <div class="tags">
1234
1235
1236         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>.
1237
1238
1239       </div>
1240     </div>
1241     <div class="padding"></div>
1242
1243     <div class="entry">
1244       <div class="title">
1245         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
1246       </div>
1247       <div class="date">
1248         27th October 2013
1249       </div>
1250       <div class="body">
1251         <p>The
1252 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
1253 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
1254 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
1255 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
1256 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
1257 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
1258 of a plan to simplify the build system for
1259 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
1260 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
1261 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
1262 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
1263 Raspberry Pi.</p>
1264
1265 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
1266 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
1267 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
1268 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
1269 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
1270 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
1271 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
1272 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
1273 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
1274 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
1275 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
1276 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
1277 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
1278 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
1279 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
1280 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
1281 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
1282 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
1283 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
1284 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
1285 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
1286 available from
1287 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
1288 upstream project page</a>.</p>
1289
1290 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
1291 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
1292 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
1293 list:</p>
1294
1295 <p><pre>
1296 #!/bin/sh
1297 set -e # Exit on first error
1298 rootdir="$1"
1299 cd "$rootdir"
1300 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
1301 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
1302 EOF
1303 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
1304 # install a kernel somewhere too.
1305 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
1306     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1307 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
1308 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
1309 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
1310 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
1311 </pre></p>
1312
1313 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
1314 to build the image:</p>
1315
1316 <pre>
1317 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
1318     --variant minbase \
1319     --arch armel \
1320     --distribution jessie \
1321     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
1322     --image test.img \
1323     --size 600M \
1324     --bootsize 64M \
1325     --boottype vfat \
1326     --log-level debug \
1327     --verbose \
1328     --no-kernel \
1329     --no-extlinux \
1330     --root-password raspberry \
1331     --hostname raspberrypi \
1332     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
1333     --customize `pwd`/customize \
1334     --package netbase \
1335     --package git-core \
1336     --package binutils \
1337     --package ca-certificates \
1338     --package wget \
1339     --package kmod
1340 </pre></p>
1341
1342 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
1343 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
1344 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
1345 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
1346 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
1347 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
1348 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
1349
1350 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
1351 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
1352 build dependency list.</p>
1353
1354 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
1355 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
1356 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
1357 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
1358
1359       </div>
1360       <div class="tags">
1361
1362
1363         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
1364
1365
1366       </div>
1367     </div>
1368     <div class="padding"></div>
1369
1370     <div class="entry">
1371       <div class="title">
1372         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node</a>
1373       </div>
1374       <div class="date">
1375         21st October 2013
1376       </div>
1377       <div class="body">
1378         <p>The last few days I have been experimenting with
1379 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki">the
1380 batman-adv mesh technology</a>.  I want to gain some experience to see
1381 if it will fit <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the
1382 Freedombox project</a>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
1383 mesh network around the park where I live.  Batman-adv is a layer 2
1384 mesh system ("ethernet" in other words), where the mesh network appear
1385 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.</p>
1386
1387 <p>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
1388 around, but I've been unable to get them working with batman-adv.  So
1389 instead, I started playing with a
1390 <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>, and tried to
1391 get it working as a mesh node.  My idea is to use it to create a mesh
1392 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
1393 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
1394 network.  This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
1395 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
1396 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh.  This in turn is useful for
1397 Android phones using <a href="http://servalproject.org/">the Serval
1398 Project</a> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
1399 phone and message each other for free.  The reason is that Android
1400 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
1401 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted.  But if
1402 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
1403 every client on the local network.</p>
1404
1405 <p>To get this working, I've created a debian package
1406 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node">meshfx-node</a>
1407 and a script
1408 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node">build-rpi-mesh-node</a>
1409 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image.  I'm using Debian Jessie (and
1410 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
1411 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
1412 image to get it booting, but I'll ignore that for now.  Also, as
1413 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
1414 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit.  I hope
1415 the routing performance isn't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
1416 support.</p>
1417
1418 <p>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
1419 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:</p>
1420
1421 <p><pre>
1422 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
1423     https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
1424 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node > build.log 2>&1
1425 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M
1426 %
1427 </pre></p>
1428
1429 <p>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
1430 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node.  At least it does for
1431 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
1432 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
1433 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">an
1434 earlier blog post about this mesh testing</a>.</p>
1435
1436 <p>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either.  I bought
1437 everything over the counter in shops nearby.  If I had ordered online
1438 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:</p>
1439
1440 <p><table>
1441
1442 <tr><th>Supplier</th><th>Model</th><th>NOK</th></tr>
1443 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi model B</td><td>349.90</td></tr>
1444 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi type B case</td><td>99.90</td></tr>
1445 <tr><td>Lefdal</td><td>Jensen Air:Link 25150</td><td>295.-</td></tr>
1446 <tr><td>Clas Ohlson</td><td>Kingston 16 GB SD card</td><td>199.-</td></tr>
1447 <tr><td>Total cost</td><td></td><td>943.80</td></tr>
1448
1449 </table></p>
1450
1451 <p>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
1452 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the 1th
1453 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
1454 play-node I use to develop the image building script.  And some times
1455 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it.  I look forward
1456 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
1457 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)</p>
1458
1459       </div>
1460       <div class="tags">
1461
1462
1463         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
1464
1465
1466       </div>
1467     </div>
1468     <div class="padding"></div>
1469
1470     <div class="entry">
1471       <div class="title">
1472         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html">Perl library to control the Spykee robot moved to github</a>
1473       </div>
1474       <div class="date">
1475         19th October 2013
1476       </div>
1477       <div class="body">
1478         <p>Back in 2010, I created a Perl library to talk to
1479 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee">the Spykee robot</a>
1480 (with two belts, wifi, USB and Linux) and made it available from my
1481 web page.  Today I concluded that it should move to a site that is
1482 easier to use to cooperate with others, and moved it to github.  If
1483 you got a Spykee robot, you might want to check out
1484 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/libspykee-perl">the
1485 libspykee-perl github repository</a>.</p>
1486
1487       </div>
1488       <div class="tags">
1489
1490
1491         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>.
1492
1493
1494       </div>
1495     </div>
1496     <div class="padding"></div>
1497
1498     <div class="entry">
1499       <div class="title">
1500         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
1501       </div>
1502       <div class="date">
1503         15th October 2013
1504       </div>
1505       <div class="body">
1506         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
1507 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
1508 these. :)</p>
1509
1510 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
1511 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
1512 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
1513 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
1514 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
1515 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
1516 hope you will to. :)</p>
1517
1518 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
1519 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
1520 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
1521 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
1522 donated.  Are you next?</p>
1523
1524 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
1525 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
1526 statement under the heading
1527 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
1528 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
1529 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
1530 too.</p>
1531
1532       </div>
1533       <div class="tags">
1534
1535
1536         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1537
1538
1539       </div>
1540     </div>
1541     <div class="padding"></div>
1542
1543     <div class="entry">
1544       <div class="title">
1545         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">Oslo community mesh network - with NUUG and Hackeriet at Hausmania</a>
1546       </div>
1547       <div class="date">
1548         11th October 2013
1549       </div>
1550       <div class="body">
1551         <p>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
1552 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
1553 areas, depending on the radio technology used.  Normal wifi equipment
1554 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
1555 successful examples like
1556 <a href="http://www.freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a> and
1557 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network</a>
1558 (see
1559 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece">wikipedia
1560 for a large list</a>) around the globe.  To give you an idea how it
1561 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
1562 can be seen from their
1563 <a href="http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html">dynamically
1564 updated node graph and map</a>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
1565 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
1566 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
1567 and that is the main topic of this blog post.</p>
1568
1569 <p>I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
1570 to do it as part of my involvement with the <a
1571 href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member organisation</a> community, and
1572 my recent involvement in
1573 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the Freedombox project</a>
1574 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
1575 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
1576 when possible, given that most communication between people are
1577 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
1578 communication patterns).  It also allow people to communicate without
1579 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
1580 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
1581 important over the years.</p>
1582
1583 <p>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
1584 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
1585 <a href="http://hackeriet.no/">Hackeriet</a> at Husmania.  They seem to
1586 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
1587 <a href="http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page">the Oslo
1588 Freifunk project</a>, but that effort is now dead and the people
1589 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
1590 <a href="http://meshfx.org/trac">meshfx</a>.  Unfortunately the wiki
1591 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
1592 reflect this fact, so the old project page can't be updated to point to
1593 the new project.  A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
1594 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks.  I
1595 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
1596 speakers about this talk (from
1597 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY">youtube</a>):</p>
1598
1599 <p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
1600
1601 <p>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
1602 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
1603 figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but
1604 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
1605 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
1606 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
1607 batman-adv for now.  It sure help me to  know that the very cool
1608 <a href="http://www.servalproject.org/">Serval project in Australia</a>
1609 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
1610 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
1611 less industrialized communities.  Check out this cool video presenting
1612 that project (from
1613 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qNfzJCQOA">youtube</a>):</p>
1614
1615 <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30qNfzJCQOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
1616
1617 <p>According to the wikipedia page on
1618 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network">Wireless
1619 mesh network</a> there are around 70 competing schemes for routing
1620 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
1621 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
1622 based community mesh networks.</p>
1623
1624 <p>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer 2
1625 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
1626 network.  One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
1627 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
1628 computer.  The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
1629 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up.  A
1630 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide">good
1631 introduction</a> is available from the Open Mesh project.  These are
1632 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:</p>
1633
1634 <p><table>
1635 <tr><th>Setting</th><th>Value</th></tr>
1636 <tr><td>Protocol / kernel module</td><td>batman-adv</td></tr>
1637 <tr><td>ESSID</td><td>meshfx@hackeriet</td></tr>
1638 <td>Channel / Frequency</td><td>11 / 2462</td></tr>
1639 <td>Cell ID</td><td>02:BA:00:00:00:01</td>
1640 </table></p>
1641
1642 <p>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
1643 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers.  (See a nice post from
1644 VillageTelco about
1645 "<a href="http://tiebing.blogspot.no/2009/12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html">Information
1646 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!</a>
1647 for details.)  When these settings are activated and you have some
1648 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
1649 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
1650 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)</p>
1651
1652 <p>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
1653 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
1654 firmware supporting batman-adv.  If anyone know how to use that old
1655 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.</p>
1656
1657 <p>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
1658 us on IRC, either channel
1659 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace">#oslohackerspace</a>
1660 or <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug">#nuug</a> on
1661 irc.freenode.net.</p>
1662
1663 <p>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
1664 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
1665 and Innovation called
1666 <a href="http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-2008.pdf">The
1667 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks</a> and elsewhere
1668 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
1669 Grünerløkka in Oslo.  So mesh networks are also interesting for
1670 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
1671 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
1672 know have closed down the experiment.  Perhaps Telenor or others would
1673 be interested in a cooperation?</p>
1674
1675 <p><strong>Update 2013-10-12</strong>: I was just
1676 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2013-October/005900.html">told
1677 by the Serval project developers</a> that they no longer use
1678 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
1679 mesh system.</p>
1680
1681       </div>
1682       <div class="tags">
1683
1684
1685         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
1686
1687
1688       </div>
1689     </div>
1690     <div class="padding"></div>
1691
1692     <div class="entry">
1693       <div class="title">
1694         <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>
1695       </div>
1696       <div class="date">
1697          8th October 2013
1698       </div>
1699       <div class="body">
1700         <p>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
1701 Salvador had published a
1702 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc">video on
1703 Youtube</a> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
1704 Skolelinux profile.  This is the profile intended for use at home or
1705 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
1706 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
1707 in other word a single user machine).  The result is 11 minutes long,
1708 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
1709 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
1710 showing the <a href="http://www.zygotebody.com/">Zygote Body 3D model
1711 of the human body</a>, but I guess he did not know about those or find
1712 other programs more interesting. :) And the video do not show the
1713 advantages I believe is one of the most valuable featuers in Debian
1714 Edu, its central school server making it possible to run hundreds of
1715 computers without hard drives by installing one central
1716 <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP server</a>.</p>
1717
1718 <p>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:</p>
1719
1720 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
1721
1722 <p>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux?  Please let
1723 me know. :)</p>
1724
1725       </div>
1726       <div class="tags">
1727
1728
1729         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
1730
1731
1732       </div>
1733     </div>
1734     <div class="padding"></div>
1735
1736     <div class="entry">
1737       <div class="title">
1738         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html">Finally, Debian Edu Wheezy is released today!</a>
1739       </div>
1740       <div class="date">
1741         29th September 2013
1742       </div>
1743       <div class="body">
1744         <p>A few hours ago, the announcement for the first stable release of
1745 Debian Edu Wheezy went out from the Debian publicity team.  The
1746 complete announcement text can be found at
1747 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130928">the Debian News
1748 section</a>, translated to several languages.  Please check it out.</p>
1749
1750 <p>There is one minor known problem that we will fix very soon.  One
1751 can not install a amd64 Thin Client Server using PXE, as the /var/
1752 partition is too small.  A workaround is to extend the partition (use
1753 lvresize + resize2fs in tty 2 while installing).</p>
1754
1755       </div>
1756       <div class="tags">
1757
1758
1759         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1760
1761
1762       </div>
1763     </div>
1764     <div class="padding"></div>
1765
1766     <div class="entry">
1767       <div class="title">
1768         <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>
1769       </div>
1770       <div class="date">
1771         27th September 2013
1772       </div>
1773       <div class="body">
1774         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
1775 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
1776 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
1777 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
1778
1779 <ul>
1780
1781 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
1782 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
1783
1784 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
1785 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
1786
1787 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
1788 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
1789 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
1790 (Youtube)</li>
1791
1792 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
1793 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
1794
1795 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
1796 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
1797
1798 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
1799 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
1800 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
1801
1802 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
1803 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
1804 (Youtube)</li>
1805
1806 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
1807 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
1808
1809 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
1810 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
1811
1812 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
1813 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
1814 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
1815
1816 </ul>
1817
1818 <p>A larger list is available from
1819 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
1820 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
1821
1822 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
1823 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
1824 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
1825 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
1826 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
1827 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
1828 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
1829 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
1830 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
1831 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1832 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1833
1834       </div>
1835       <div class="tags">
1836
1837
1838         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>.
1839
1840
1841       </div>
1842     </div>
1843     <div class="padding"></div>
1844
1845     <div class="entry">
1846       <div class="title">
1847         <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>
1848       </div>
1849       <div class="date">
1850         16th September 2013
1851       </div>
1852       <div class="body">
1853         <p>The third wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
1854 today.  This is the release announcement from Holger Levsen:</p>
1855
1856 <blockquote>
1857 <p>Hi,</p>
1858
1859 <p>it is my pleasure to announce the third beta release (beta 2 for
1860 short) of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
1861 Skolelinux</a> based on Debian Wheezy!</p>
1862
1863 <p>Please test these images extensivly, if no new problems are found
1864 we plan to do this final Debian Edu Wheezy release this coming
1865 weekend.  We are not aware of any major problems or blockers in beta2,
1866 if you find something, please notify us immediately!</p>
1867
1868 <p>(More about the remaining steps for the Edu Wheezy release in
1869 another mail to the edu list tonight or tomorrow...)</p>
1870
1871 <p>Noteworthy changes and software updates for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b2
1872 compared to beta1:</p>
1873
1874 <ul>
1875
1876 <li>The KDE proxy setup has been adjusted to use the provided wpad.dat. This
1877 also gets Chromium to use this proxy.</li>
1878 <li>Install kdepim-groupware with KDE desktops to make sure korganizer
1879 understand ical/dav sources.</li>
1880 <li>Increased default maximum size of /var/spool/squid and /skole/backup on the
1881 main server.</li>
1882 <li>A source DVD image containing all source packages is now available as well.</li>
1883 <li>Updates for chromium (29.0.1547.57-1~deb7u1), imagemagick
1884 (6.7.7.10-5+deb7u2), php5 (5.4.4-14+deb7u4), libmodplug
1885 (0.8.8.4-3+deb7u1+git20130828), tiff (4.0.2-6+deb7u2), linux-image
1886 (3.2.0-4-486_3.2.46-1+deb7u1).</li>
1887
1888 </ul>
1889
1890 <p>Where to get it:</p>
1891
1892 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
1893
1894 <ul>
1895 <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>
1896 <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>
1897 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso .</li>
1898 </ul>
1899
1900 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is:  3a1c89f4666df80eebcd46c5bf5fedb866f9472f</p>
1901
1902 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use
1903 <ul>
1904 <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>
1905 <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>
1906 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso .</li>
1907 </ul>
1908
1909 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 702d1718548f401c74bfa6df9f032cc3ee16597e</p>
1910
1911 <p>The Source DVD image has the filename
1912 debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-source-DVD.iso and the SHA1SUM
1913 089eed8b3f962db47aae1f6a9685e9bb2fa30ca5 and is available the same way
1914 as the other isos.</p>
1915
1916 <p>How to report bugs</p>
1917
1918 <p>For information how to report bugs please see
1919 <br><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
1920
1921
1922 <p>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</p>
1923
1924 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
1925 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
1926 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
1927 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
1928 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
1929 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
1930 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
1931 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
1932 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
1933 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
1934 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
1935 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
1936 can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
1937
1938 <p>This is the seventh test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
1939 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
1940 Squeeze release.</p>
1941
1942 <p>Notes for upgrades from Alpha Prereleases</p>
1943
1944 <p>Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
1945 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
1946 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
1947 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
1948 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined on the mailing list. (2)
1949 Accept the new version of gosa.conf and replace both contained admin
1950 password placeholders with the password hashes found in the old one
1951 (backup copy!). In both cases all users need to change their password
1952 to make sure a password is set for CIFS access to their home
1953 directory.</p>
1954
1955
1956 <p>cheers,
1957 <br>        Holger</p>
1958 </blockquote>
1959
1960       </div>
1961       <div class="tags">
1962
1963
1964         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1965
1966
1967       </div>
1968     </div>
1969     <div class="padding"></div>
1970
1971     <div class="entry">
1972       <div class="title">
1973         <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>
1974       </div>
1975       <div class="date">
1976         10th September 2013
1977       </div>
1978       <div class="body">
1979         <p>I was introduced to the
1980 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
1981 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
1982 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
1983 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
1984 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
1985 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
1986 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
1987 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
1988
1989 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
1990 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
1991 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
1992 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
1993 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
1994
1995 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
1996 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
1997 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
1998 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
1999 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
2000 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
2001 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
2002 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
2003 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
2004 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
2005 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
2006 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
2007 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
2008 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
2009 missing in Debian).</p>
2010
2011 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
2012 scripts
2013 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
2014 and a administrative web interface
2015 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
2016 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
2017 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
2018 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
2019 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
2020 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
2021 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
2022 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
2023 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
2024 this is really working yet, see
2025 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
2026 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
2027 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
2028 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
2029 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
2030 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
2031 with lots of half baked features.</p>
2032
2033 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
2034 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
2035 at.</p>
2036
2037 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
2038
2039 <ol>
2040
2041 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
2042 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
2043 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
2044 to the Debian installer:<p>
2045 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
2046
2047 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
2048 install on.</li>
2049
2050 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
2051 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
2052
2053 </ol>
2054
2055 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
2056
2057 <ol>
2058
2059 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
2060 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
2061 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
2062 <pre>
2063 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
2064 </pre></li>
2065 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
2066 <pre>
2067 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
2068    apt-key add -
2069 apt-get update
2070 apt-get install freedombox-setup
2071 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
2072 </pre></li>
2073 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
2074
2075 </ol>
2076
2077 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
2078 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
2079 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
2080 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
2081 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
2082
2083 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
2084 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
2085 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
2086 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
2087
2088 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
2089 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
2090 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
2091 irc.debian.org and the
2092 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
2093 mailing list</a>.</p>
2094
2095 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
2096 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
2097 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
2098 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
2099 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
2100 default password is 'secret'.</p>
2101
2102       </div>
2103       <div class="tags">
2104
2105
2106         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>.
2107
2108
2109       </div>
2110     </div>
2111     <div class="padding"></div>
2112
2113     <div class="entry">
2114       <div class="title">
2115         <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>
2116       </div>
2117       <div class="date">
2118         22nd August 2013
2119       </div>
2120       <div class="body">
2121         <p>The second wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
2122 today, slightly delayed because of some bugs in the initial Windows
2123 integration fixes .  This is the release announcement:</p>
2124
2125 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b1 released 2013-08-22</strong></p>
2126
2127 <p>These are the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2128 7.1+edu0~b1, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
2129
2130 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
2131
2132 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
2133 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
2134 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
2135 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
2136 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
2137 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
2138 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
2139 the main server from CD or USB stick all other machines can be
2140 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
2141 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
2142 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
2143 desktop contains
2144 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
2145 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
2146 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
2147 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
2148
2149 <p>This is the sixth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically this
2150 is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the Squeeze
2151 release.</p>
2152
2153 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
2154 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
2155 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
2156 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
2157 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined
2158 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/08/msg00127.html">on
2159 the mailing list</a>. (2) Accept the new version of gosa.conf and
2160 replace both contained admin password placeholders with the password
2161 hashes found in the old one (backup copy!). In both cases every user
2162 need to change their their password to make sure a password is set for
2163 CIFS access to their home directory.</p>
2164
2165 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
2166
2167 <ul>
2168
2169 <li>Added ssh askpass packages to default installation, to ensure ssh
2170     work also without a attached tty.</li>
2171 <li>Add the command-not-found package to the default installation to
2172     make it easier to figure out where to find missing command line
2173     tools. Please note, that the command 'update-command-not-found'
2174     has to be run as root to actually make it useful (internet access
2175     required).</li>
2176
2177 </ul>
2178
2179 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
2180
2181 <ul>
2182
2183 <li>Adjusted the USB stick ISO image build to include every tool
2184 needed for desktop=xfce installations.</li>
2185 <li>Adjust thin-client-server task to work when installing from USB
2186 stick ISO image.</li>
2187 <li>Made new grub artwork (changed png from indexed to RGB format).</li>
2188 <li>Minor cleanup in the CUPS setup.</li>
2189 <li>Make sure that bootstrapping of the Samba domain really happens
2190     during installation of the main server and adjust SID handling to
2191     cope with this.</li>
2192 <li>Make Samba passwords changeable (again) via GOsa².</li>
2193 <li>Fix generation of LM and NT password hashes via GOsa² to avoid
2194     empty password hashes.</li>
2195 <li>Adapted Samba machine domain joining to latest change in the
2196     smbldap-tools Perl package, fixing bugs blocking Windows machines
2197     from joining the Samba domain.</li>
2198
2199 </ul>
2200
2201 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
2202
2203 <ul>
2204
2205 <li>KDE fails to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
2206     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
2207 <li>Chromium also fails to use the proxy when using the KDE desktop
2208     (using the KDE configuration).</li>
2209
2210 </ul>
2211
2212 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
2213
2214 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
2215
2216 <ul>
2217
2218 <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>
2219
2220 <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>
2221
2222 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso .</li>
2223
2224 </ul>
2225
2226 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 1e357f80b55e703523f2254adde6d78b
2227 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 7157f9be5fd27c7694d713c6ecfed61c3edda3b2</p>
2228
2229 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
2230
2231 <ul>
2232
2233 <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>
2234 <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>
2235 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso .</li>
2236
2237 </ul>
2238
2239 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 7a8408ead59cf7e3cef25afb6e91590b
2240 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: f1817c031f02790d5edb3bfa0dcf8451088ad119</p>
2241
2242
2243 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
2244
2245 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
2246
2247       </div>
2248       <div class="tags">
2249
2250
2251         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2252
2253
2254       </div>
2255     </div>
2256     <div class="padding"></div>
2257
2258     <div class="entry">
2259       <div class="title">
2260         <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>
2261       </div>
2262       <div class="date">
2263         18th August 2013
2264       </div>
2265       <div class="body">
2266         <p>Earlier, I reported about
2267 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
2268 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
2269 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
2270 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
2271 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
2272 currently on the disk.</p>
2273
2274 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
2275 <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>
2276 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
2277 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
2278 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
2279 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
2280 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
2281 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
2282 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
2283 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
2284 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
2285 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
2286 the broken disks.</p>
2287
2288       </div>
2289       <div class="tags">
2290
2291
2292         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>.
2293
2294
2295       </div>
2296     </div>
2297     <div class="padding"></div>
2298
2299     <div class="entry">
2300       <div class="title">
2301         <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>
2302       </div>
2303       <div class="date">
2304          2nd August 2013
2305       </div>
2306       <div class="body">
2307         <p>It has been a while since my last update.  Since last summer, I
2308 have worked on a Norwegian
2309 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
2310 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
2311 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright
2312 law.  Yesterday, I finally broken the 90% mark, when counting the
2313 number of strings to translate.  Due to real life constraints, I have
2314 not had time to work on it since March, but when the summer broke out,
2315 I found time to work on it again.  Still lots of work left, but the
2316 first draft is nearing completion.  I created a graph to show the
2317 progress of the translation:</p>
2318
2319 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
2320
2321 <p>When the first draft is done, the translated text need to be
2322 proof read, and the remaining formatting problems with images and SVG
2323 drawings need to be fixed.  There are probably also some index entries
2324 missing that need to be added.  This can be done by comparing the
2325 index entries listed in the SiSU version of the book, or comparing the
2326 English docbook version with the paper version.  Last, the colophon
2327 page with ISBN numbers etc need to be wrapped up before the release is
2328 done.  I should also figure out how to get correct Norwegian sorting
2329 of the index pages.  All docbook tools I have tried so far (xmlto,
2330 docbook-xsl, dblatex) get the order of symbols and the special
2331 Norwegian letters ÆØÅ wrong.</p>
2332
2333 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
2334 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
2335 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
2336 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
2337 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
2338 around?  There are also some legal terms that are unfamiliar to me.
2339 If you want to help, please get in touch with me, and check out the
2340 project files currently available from
2341 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
2342
2343 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
2344 the updated
2345 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
2346 and
2347 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
2348 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
2349 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
2350 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
2351
2352       </div>
2353       <div class="tags">
2354
2355
2356         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>.
2357
2358
2359       </div>
2360     </div>
2361     <div class="padding"></div>
2362
2363     <div class="entry">
2364       <div class="title">
2365         <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>
2366       </div>
2367       <div class="date">
2368         27th July 2013
2369       </div>
2370       <div class="body">
2371         <p>The first wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
2372 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
2373
2374 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b0 released
2375 2013-07-27</strong></p>
2376
2377 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2378 7.1+edu0~b0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
2379
2380 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
2381
2382 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
2383 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
2384 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
2385 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
2386 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
2387 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
2388 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
2389 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
2390 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
2391 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
2392 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
2393 desktop contains
2394 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
2395 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
2396 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
2397 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
2398
2399 <p>This is the fifth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
2400 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
2401 Squeeze release.</p>
2402
2403 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
2404 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
2405 release.</p>
2406
2407 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
2408
2409 <ul>
2410
2411 <li>Switched roaming workstation profiles from wicd to network-manager
2412    for network configuration, as wicd didn't work any more.</li>
2413 <li>Changed version numbers of patched gosa and libpam-mklocaluser
2414    packages to make sure our locally patched versions will be replaced
2415    by the official packages when they are released from Debian. Those
2416    installing alpha version need to reinstall or manually downgrade gosa
2417    and libpam-mklocaluser.</li>
2418 <li>Added bluetooth tools to the default desktop (bluedevil, blueman).</li>
2419 <li>Added tools for sharing the desktop on KDE (krdc, krfb).</li>
2420 <li>Added valgrind to the default installation for easier debugging of
2421    crash bugs.</li>
2422
2423 </ul>
2424
2425 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
2426
2427 <ul>
2428
2429 <li>Fixed artwork package to work with gnome, no longer break
2430    desktop=gnome installations.</li>
2431 <li>Adjusted installer to now work when forced to use a proxy with the
2432    netinst CD.</li>
2433 <li>Fixed code detecting and setting/loading hardware specific
2434    setup/firmware to work more robust out of the box.</li>
2435 <li>Adjusted Kerberos setup to detect realm and server settings at
2436    install time instead of dynamically at run time. This avoid a crash
2437    with krb5-auth-dialog on diskless workstations without a DNS name.</li>
2438 <li>Worked around misfeature in network-manager not calling the dhclient
2439    exit hooks, causing automatic proxy configuration and automatic host
2440    name setting at run time to work again.</li>
2441 <li>Fixed feature setting the default Iceweasel start page from URL
2442    fetched from LDAP, to allow schools to set the global default by
2443    updating the dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no LDAP object.</li>
2444 <li>Changed default host name on all networked machines to be unique
2445    (generated from MAC or reverse DNS) after boot.</li>
2446 <li>Adjusted partition sizes to make sure they are big enough.</li>
2447
2448 </ul>
2449
2450 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
2451
2452 <ul>
2453
2454 <li>Grub is missing the new artwork.</li>
2455 <li>KDE fail to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
2456     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
2457 <li>Chromium also fail to use the proxy.</li>
2458
2459 </ul>
2460
2461 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
2462
2463 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
2464
2465 <ul>
2466
2467 <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>
2468
2469 <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>
2470
2471 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso .</li>
2472
2473 </ul>
2474
2475 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 55d5de9765b6dccd5d9ec33cf1a07109
2476 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 996a1d9517740e4d627d100de2d12b23dd545a3f</p>
2477
2478 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
2479
2480 <ul>
2481
2482 <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>
2483 <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>
2484 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso .</li>
2485
2486 </ul>
2487
2488 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: d8f0818c51a78d357de794066f289f69
2489 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 49185ca354e8d0543240423746924f76a6cee733</p>
2490
2491
2492 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
2493
2494 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
2495
2496       </div>
2497       <div class="tags">
2498
2499
2500         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2501
2502
2503       </div>
2504     </div>
2505     <div class="padding"></div>
2506
2507     <div class="entry">
2508       <div class="title">
2509         <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>
2510       </div>
2511       <div class="date">
2512         17th July 2013
2513       </div>
2514       <div class="body">
2515         <p>Today I switched to
2516 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
2517 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
2518 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
2519 <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
2520 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
2521 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
2522 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
2523 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
2524 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
2525 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
2526 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
2527 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
2528 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
2529 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
2530 station from now on.</p>
2531
2532 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
2533 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
2534 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
2535 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
2536 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
2537 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
2538 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
2539 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
2540 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
2541 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
2542 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
2543 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
2544
2545 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
2546 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
2547 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
2548 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
2549 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
2550 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
2551 parameters are tuned:</p>
2552
2553 <ul>
2554
2555 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
2556     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
2557
2558 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
2559     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
2560     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
2561
2562 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
2563     systems.</li>
2564
2565 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
2566     /etc/fstab.</li>
2567
2568 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
2569
2570 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
2571     cron.daily).</li>
2572
2573 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
2574     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
2575
2576 </ul>
2577
2578 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
2579 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
2580 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
2581 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
2582 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
2583 from getting the data on the disk (see
2584 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
2585 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
2586 right thing to do.</p>
2587
2588 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
2589 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
2590 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
2591
2592 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
2593 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
2594 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
2595 instead of during my work.</p>
2596
2597 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
2598 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
2599
2600 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
2601 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
2602 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
2603
2604 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
2605 there.</p>
2606
2607 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
2608 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
2609 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
2610 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
2611 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
2612 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
2613 back.</p>
2614
2615       </div>
2616       <div class="tags">
2617
2618
2619         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>.
2620
2621
2622       </div>
2623     </div>
2624     <div class="padding"></div>
2625
2626     <div class="entry">
2627       <div class="title">
2628         <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>
2629       </div>
2630       <div class="date">
2631         10th July 2013
2632       </div>
2633       <div class="body">
2634         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
2635 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
2636 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
2637 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
2638 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
2639 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
2640 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
2641 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
2642
2643 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
2644 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
2645 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
2646 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
2647 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
2648 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
2649 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
2650 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
2651 lock up when I download a new
2652 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
2653 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
2654 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
2655
2656 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2657 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
2658 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2659 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
2660 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2661 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2662
2663 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
2664 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
2665 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
2666 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
2667 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
2668 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
2669
2670 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
2671 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
2672 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
2673 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
2674 exist).</p>
2675
2676       </div>
2677       <div class="tags">
2678
2679
2680         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>.
2681
2682
2683       </div>
2684     </div>
2685     <div class="padding"></div>
2686
2687     <div class="entry">
2688       <div class="title">
2689         <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>
2690       </div>
2691       <div class="date">
2692          9th July 2013
2693       </div>
2694       <div class="body">
2695         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
2696 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
2697 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
2698 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
2699 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2700 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
2701 Bitraf</a>.</p>
2702
2703 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
2704 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
2705 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
2706 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
2707 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
2708
2709       </div>
2710       <div class="tags">
2711
2712
2713         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
2714
2715
2716       </div>
2717     </div>
2718     <div class="padding"></div>
2719
2720     <div class="entry">
2721       <div class="title">
2722         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
2723       </div>
2724       <div class="date">
2725          5th July 2013
2726       </div>
2727       <div class="body">
2728         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
2729 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
2730 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
2731 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
2732 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
2733 ended up picking a
2734 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
2735 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
2736 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
2737 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
2738 on that below.</p>
2739
2740 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2741 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2742 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2743 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2744 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2745 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
2746 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
2747 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
2748 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
2749
2750 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
2751 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
2752 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
2753 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
2754 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
2755 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
2756 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
2757
2758 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
2759 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
2760
2761 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
2762 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
2763 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
2764 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
2765 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
2766 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
2767 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
2768 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
2769 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
2770 kernel developers as
2771 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
2772 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
2773 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
2774 Lenovo forums, both for
2775 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
2776 2012-11-10</a> and for
2777 <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
2778 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
2779 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
2780 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
2781 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
2782 There is even a
2783 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
2784 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
2785 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
2786
2787 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
2788 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
2789 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
2790 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
2791 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
2792 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
2793 fixed. :)</p>
2794
2795       </div>
2796       <div class="tags">
2797
2798
2799         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>.
2800
2801
2802       </div>
2803     </div>
2804     <div class="padding"></div>
2805
2806     <div class="entry">
2807       <div class="title">
2808         <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>
2809       </div>
2810       <div class="date">
2811          4th July 2013
2812       </div>
2813       <div class="body">
2814         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
2815 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
2816 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
2817 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
2818 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
2819 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
2820 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
2821 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
2822 with an expencive door stop.</p>
2823
2824 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2825 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2826 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2827 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2828 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2829 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
2830 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
2831
2832 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
2833 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
2834 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
2835 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
2836 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
2837 new laptop now. :)</p>
2838
2839 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
2840
2841       </div>
2842       <div class="tags">
2843
2844
2845         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2846
2847
2848       </div>
2849     </div>
2850     <div class="padding"></div>
2851
2852     <div class="entry">
2853       <div class="title">
2854         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fourth_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Fourth alpha release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
2855       </div>
2856       <div class="date">
2857          3rd July 2013
2858       </div>
2859       <div class="body">
2860         <p>The fourth wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
2861 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
2862
2863 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~alpha3 released
2864 2013-07-03</strong></p>
2865
2866 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2867 7.1+edu0~alpha3, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
2868
2869 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
2870
2871 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
2872 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
2873 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
2874 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
2875 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
2876 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
2877 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
2878 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
2879 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
2880 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
2881 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
2882 desktop contains
2883 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
2884 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
2885 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
2886 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
2887
2888 <p>This is the fourth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
2889 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
2890 Squeeze release.</p>
2891
2892 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
2893 <ul>
2894   <li>Dropped ispell dictionaries from our default installation.</li>
2895   <li>Dropped menu-xdg from the KDE desktop option, to drop the Debian
2896     submenu.  It was not included with Gnome, LXDE or Xfce, so this
2897     brings KDE in line with the others.</li>
2898   <li>Dropped xdrawchem, xjig and xsok from our default installation as
2899     they don't have a desktop menu entry and thus won't show up in the
2900     menu now that menu-xdg was removed.</li>
2901   <li>Removed the killer system to kill left behind processes on
2902     multi-user machines, as it was no longer able to understand when a
2903     X display was in use and killed the processes of the active users
2904     too.</li>
2905   <li>Dropped the golearn (from goplay) package as the debtags in wheezy
2906     are too few to make the package useful.</li>
2907 </ul>
2908 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
2909 <ul>
2910   <li>Updated artwork matching http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/Joy
2911   <li>Multi-arch i386/amd64 USB stick ISO available.</li>
2912   <li>Got rid of ispell/wordlist related debconf questions that showed
2913     up for some language options.</li>
2914   <li>Switched to using http.debian.net as APT source by default.</li>
2915   <li>Fixed proxy configuration on Main Server installations.</li>
2916   <li>Changed LTSP setup to ask dpkg to use force-unsafe-io the same way
2917     d-i is doing it.</li>
2918   <li>Made sure root and user passwords were not left behind in the
2919     debconf database after installation on Main Server installations.</li>
2920   <li>Made Roaming Workstation dynamic setup more robust and added draft
2921     script setup-ad-client to hook a Roaming Workstation up to a
2922     Active Directory server instead of a Debian Edu Main Server.</li>
2923   <li>Update system to install needed firmware packages during
2924     installation, to work properly in Wheezy.</li>
2925   <li>Update system to handle hardware quirks (debian-edu-hwsetup).</li>
2926   <li>Corrected PXE installation setup to properly pass selected desktop
2927     and keymap settings to PXE installation clients.</li>
2928   <li>LTSP diskless workstations use sshfs by default, allowing them to
2929     work without adding them to DNS and NIS netgroups for NFS access.</li>
2930 </ul>
2931 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
2932 <ul>
2933   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
2934     available yet (698840).</li>
2935   <li>Artwork not enabled for all desktops.</li>
2936 </ul>
2937 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
2938
2939 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
2940 <ul>
2941   <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>
2942   <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>
2943   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso .</li>
2944 </ul>
2945
2946 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 2b161a99d2a848c376d8d04e3854e30c
2947 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 498922e9c508c0a7ee9dbe1dfe5bf830d779c3c8</p>
2948
2949 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
2950 <ul>
2951   <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>
2952   <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>
2953   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso .</li>
2954 </ul>
2955
2956 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 25e808e403a4c15dbef1d13c37d572ac
2957 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 15ecfc93eb6b4f453b7eb0bc04b6a279262d9721</p>
2958
2959 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
2960
2961 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
2962
2963       </div>
2964       <div class="tags">
2965
2966
2967         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2968
2969
2970       </div>
2971     </div>
2972     <div class="padding"></div>
2973
2974     <div class="entry">
2975       <div class="title">
2976         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
2977       </div>
2978       <div class="date">
2979         25th June 2013
2980       </div>
2981       <div class="body">
2982         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
2983 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
2984 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
2985 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
2986 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
2987 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
2988 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
2989 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
2990 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
2991 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
2992 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
2993
2994 <p><pre>
2995 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2996 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
2997 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
2998 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
2999 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
3000 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
3001 firmware-ipw2x00
3002 firmware-ipw2x00
3003 Preconfiguring packages ...
3004 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
3005 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
3006 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
3007 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
3008 #
3009 </pre></p>
3010
3011 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
3012 printed instead:</p>
3013
3014 <p><pre>
3015 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
3016 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
3017 #
3018 </pre></p>
3019
3020 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
3021 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
3022
3023 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
3024 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
3025 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
3026 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
3027 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
3028 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
3029 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
3030 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
3031 machine.</p>
3032
3033 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
3034 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
3035 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
3036 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
3037 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
3038 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
3039
3040       </div>
3041       <div class="tags">
3042
3043
3044         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>.
3045
3046
3047       </div>
3048     </div>
3049     <div class="padding"></div>
3050
3051     <div class="entry">
3052       <div class="title">
3053         <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>
3054       </div>
3055       <div class="date">
3056         22nd June 2013
3057       </div>
3058       <div class="body">
3059         <p>In the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
3060 Skolelinux</a> project, we include a post-installation test suite,
3061 which check that services are running, working, and return the
3062 expected results.  It runs automatically just after the first boot on
3063 test installations (using test ISOs), but not on production
3064 installations (using non-test ISOs).  It test that the LDAP service is
3065 operating, Kerberos is responding, DNS is replying, file systems are
3066 online resizable, etc, etc.  And it check that the PXE service is
3067 configured, which is the topic of this post.</p>
3068
3069 <p>The last week I've fixed the DVD and USB stick ISOs for our Debian
3070 Edu Wheezy release.  These ISOs are supposed to be able to install a
3071 complete system without any Internet connection, but for that to
3072 happen all the needed packages need to be on them.  Thanks to our test
3073 suite, I discovered that we had forgotten to adjust our PXE setup to
3074 cope with the new names and paths used by the netboot d-i packages.
3075 When Internet connectivity was available, the installer fall back to
3076 using wget to fetch d-i boot images, but when offline it require
3077 working packages to get it working.  And the packages changed name
3078 from debian-installer-6.0-netboot-$arch to
3079 debian-installer-7.0-netboot-$arch, we no longer pulled in the
3080 packages during installation.  Without our test suite, I suspect we
3081 would never have discovered this before release.  Now it is fixed
3082 right after we got the ISOs operational.</p>
3083
3084 <p>Another by-product of the test suite is that we can ask system
3085 administrators with problems getting Debian Edu to work, to run the
3086 test suite using <tt>/usr/sbin/debian-edu-test-install</tt> and see if
3087 any errors are detected.  This usually pinpoint the subsystem causing
3088 the problem.</p>
3089
3090 <p>If you want to help us help kids learn how to share and create,
3091 please join us on
3092 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
3093 irc.debian.org</a> and the
3094 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@</a> mailing
3095 list.</p>
3096
3097       </div>
3098       <div class="tags">
3099
3100
3101         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3102
3103
3104       </div>
3105     </div>
3106     <div class="padding"></div>
3107
3108     <div class="entry">
3109       <div class="title">
3110         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html">Debian Edu interview: Victor Nițu</a>
3111       </div>
3112       <div class="date">
3113         17th June 2013
3114       </div>
3115       <div class="body">
3116         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
3117 Skolelinux</a> distribution have users and contributors all around the
3118 globe.  And a while back, an enterprising young man showed up on
3119 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">our IRC channel
3120 #debian-edu</a> and started asking questions about how Debian Edu
3121 worked.  We answered as good as we could, and even convinced him to
3122 help us with translations.  And today I managed to get an interview
3123 with him, to learn more about him.</p>
3124
3125 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3126
3127 <p>I'm a 25 year old free software enthusiast, living in Romania,
3128 which is also my country of origin. Back in 2009, at a New Year's Eve
3129 party, I had a very nice <strike>beer</strike> discussion with a
3130 friend, when we realized we have no organised Debian community in our
3131 country. A few days later, we put together the infrastructure for such
3132 community and even gathered a nice Debian-ish crowd. Since then, I
3133 began my quest as a free software hacker and activist and I am
3134 constantly trying to cover as much ground as possible on that
3135 field.</p>
3136
3137 <p>A few years ago I founded a small web development company, which
3138 provided me the flexible schedule I needed so much for my
3139 activities. For the last 13 months, I have been the Technical Director
3140 of <a href="http://ceata.org/">Fundația Ceata</a>, which is a free
3141 software activist organisation endorsed by the FSF and the FSFE, and
3142 the only one we have in our country.</p>
3143
3144 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
3145 project?</strong></p>
3146
3147 <p>The idea of participating in the Debian Edu project was a surprise
3148 even to me, since I never used it before I began getting involved in
3149 it. This year I had a great opportunity to deliver a talk on
3150 educational software, and I knew immediately where to look. It was a
3151 love at first sight, since I was previously involved with some of the
3152 technologies the project incorporates, and I rapidly found a lot of
3153 ways to contribute.</p>
3154
3155 <p>My first contributions consisted in translating the installer and
3156 configuration dialogs, then I found some bugs to squash (I still
3157 haven't fixed them yet though), and I even got my eyes on some other
3158 areas where I can prove myself helpful. Since the appetite for free
3159 software in my country is pretty low, I'll be happy to be the first
3160 one around here advocating for the project's adoption in educational
3161 environments, and maybe even get my hands dirty in creating a flavour
3162 for our own needs. I am not used to make very advanced plannings, so
3163 from now on, time will tell what I'll be doing next, but I think I
3164 have a pretty consistent starting point.</p>
3165
3166 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3167 Edu?</strong></p>
3168
3169 <p>Not a long time ago, I was in the position of configuring and
3170 maintaining a LDAP server on some Debian derivative, and I must say it
3171 took me a while. A long time ago, I was maintaining a bigger
3172 Samba-powered infrastructure, and I must say I spent quite a lot of
3173 time on it. I have similar stories about many of the services included
3174 with Skolelinux, and the main advantage I see about it is the
3175 out-of-the box availability of them, making it quite competitive when
3176 it comes to managing a school's network, for example.</p>
3177
3178 <p>Of course, there is more to say about Skolelinux than the
3179 availability of the software included, its flexibility in various
3180 scenarios is something I can't wait to experiment "into the wild" (I
3181 only played with virtual machines so far). And I am sure there is a
3182 lot more I haven't discovered yet about it, being so new within the
3183 project.</p>
3184
3185 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3186 Edu?</strong></p>
3187
3188 <p>As usual, when it comes to Debian Blends, I see as the biggest
3189 disadvantage the lack of a numerous team dedicated to the
3190 project. Every day I see the same names in the changelogs, and I have
3191 a constantly fear of the bus factor in this story.  I'd like to see
3192 Debian Edu advertised more as an entry point into the Debian
3193 ecosystem, especially amongst newcomers and students. IMHO there are a
3194 lot low-hanging fruits in terms of bug squashing, and enough
3195 opportunities to get the feeling of the Debian Project's dynamics. Not
3196 to mention it's a very fun blend to work on!</p>
3197
3198 <p>Derived from the previous statement, is the delay in catching up
3199 with the main Debian release and documentation. This is common though
3200 to all blends and derivatives, but it's an issue we can all work
3201 on.</p>
3202
3203 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3204
3205 <p>I can hardly imagine myself spending a day without Vim, since my
3206 daily routine covers writing code and hacking configuration files. I
3207 am a fan of the Awesome window manager (but I also like the
3208 Enlightenment project a lot!),
3209 <a href="http://www.claws-mail.org/‎">Claws Mail</a> due to its ease of
3210 use and very configurable behaviour. Recently I fell in love with
3211 <a href="https://launchpad.net/redshift">Redshift</a>, which helps me
3212 get through the night without headaches. Of course, there is much more
3213 stuff in this bag, but I'll need a blog on my own for doing this!</p>
3214
3215 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3216 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3217
3218 <p>Well, on this field, I cannot do much more than experiment right
3219 now. So, being far from having a recipe for success, I can only assume
3220 that:</p>
3221
3222 <ul>
3223
3224 <li>schools would like to get rid of proprietary software</li>
3225
3226 <li>students will love the openness of the system, and will want to
3227     experiment with it - maybe we need to harvest the native curiosity
3228     of teenagers more?</li>
3229
3230 <li>there is no "right one" when it comes to strategies, but it would
3231     be useful to have some success stories published somewhere, so
3232     other can get some inspiration from them (I know I'd promote
3233     them!)</li>
3234
3235 <li>more active promotion - talks, conferences, even small school
3236     lectures can do magical things if they encounter at least one
3237     person interested. Who knows who that person might be? ;-)</li>
3238
3239 </ul>
3240
3241 <p>I also see some problems in getting Skolelinux into schools; for
3242 example, in our country we have a great deal of corruption issues, so
3243 it might be hard(er) to fight against proprietary solutions. Also,
3244 people who relied on commercial software for all their lives, would be
3245 very hard to convert against their will.</p>
3246
3247       </div>
3248       <div class="tags">
3249
3250
3251         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
3252
3253
3254       </div>
3255     </div>
3256     <div class="padding"></div>
3257
3258     <div class="entry">
3259       <div class="title">
3260         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html">Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</a>
3261       </div>
3262       <div class="date">
3263         12th June 2013
3264       </div>
3265       <div class="body">
3266         <p>There is a certain cross-over between the
3267 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3268 project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
3269 project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
3270 effort between the projects.  One person with a foot in both camps is
3271 Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
3272
3273 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3274
3275 <p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
3276 days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
3277 getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>
3278
3279 <p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
3280 opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
3281 each other.</p>
3282
3283 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
3284 project?</strong></p>
3285
3286 <p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
3287 first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
3288 [Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
3289 London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
3290 Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
3291 it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
3292 was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
3293 day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
3294 over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
3295 been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
3296 still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
3297 we'll get there one day.</p>
3298
3299 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3300 Edu?</strong></p>
3301
3302 <p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
3303 it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
3304 that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
3305 very high quality work.</p>
3306
3307 <p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
3308 set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
3309 with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
3310 helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
3311 community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>
3312
3313 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3314 Edu?</strong></p>
3315
3316 <p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
3317 separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
3318 what I originally rambled on about)</p>
3319
3320 <p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
3321 project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
3322 think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
3323 content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
3324 on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
3325 years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
3326 concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
3327 more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
3328 myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
3329 currently.</p>
3330
3331 <p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
3332 for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
3333 their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
3334 educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
3335 have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
3336 much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
3337 autonomous.</p>
3338
3339 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3340
3341 <p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
3342 Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
3343 some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
3344 particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
3345 so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>
3346
3347 <p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
3348 git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
3349 which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
3350 while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
3351 Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
3352 it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
3353 up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
3354 X.</p>
3355
3356 <p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
3357 using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
3358 people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
3359 it :p)
3360
3361 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3362 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3363
3364 <p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
3365 many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
3366 don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
3367 that.</p>
3368
3369 <p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
3370 problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
3371 advantage of that.</p>
3372
3373 <p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
3374 some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
3375 Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
3376 general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
3377 Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
3378 that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
3379 best solution for them.</p>
3380
3381 <p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
3382 educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
3383 make a decision that would work for them.</p>
3384
3385       </div>
3386       <div class="tags">
3387
3388
3389         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
3390
3391
3392       </div>
3393     </div>
3394     <div class="padding"></div>
3395
3396     <div class="entry">
3397       <div class="title">
3398         <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>
3399       </div>
3400       <div class="date">
3401         11th June 2013
3402       </div>
3403       <div class="body">
3404         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
3405 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
3406 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
3407 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
3408 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
3409 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
3410 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
3411 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
3412 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
3413 i915 driver used by the
3414 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3415 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
3416
3417 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
3418 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
3419 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
3420 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
3421 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
3422
3423 <pre>
3424 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
3425 update-initramfs -u -k all
3426 </pre>
3427
3428 <p>Since March 2012 there is
3429 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
3430 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
3431 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
3432 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
3433 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
3434 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
3435 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
3436 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
3437 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
3438 number.</p>
3439
3440 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
3441 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
3442
3443 <p><pre>
3444 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
3445     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
3446     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
3447  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
3448  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
3449     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
3450  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
3451     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
3452  Latency: 0
3453  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
3454  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
3455  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
3456  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
3457  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
3458  Capabilities: <access denied>
3459  Kernel driver in use: i915
3460 </pre></p>
3461
3462 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
3463
3464 <p><pre>
3465 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
3466        ...
3467         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
3468         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
3469        ...
3470 }
3471 </pre></p>
3472
3473 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
3474 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
3475 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
3476 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
3477 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
3478 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
3479 yet shown up in
3480 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
3481 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
3482 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
3483 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
3484 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
3485 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
3486
3487 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
3488 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
3489 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
3490 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
3491 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
3492 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
3493 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
3494 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
3495 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
3496 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
3497 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
3498 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
3499
3500 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
3501 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
3502 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
3503 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
3504 backlight.</p>
3505
3506       </div>
3507       <div class="tags">
3508
3509
3510         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>.
3511
3512
3513       </div>
3514     </div>
3515     <div class="padding"></div>
3516
3517     <div class="entry">
3518       <div class="title">
3519         <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>
3520       </div>
3521       <div class="date">
3522         10th June 2013
3523       </div>
3524       <div class="body">
3525         <p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
3526 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
3527
3528 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
3529 2013-06-10</strong></p>
3530
3531 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
3532 alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
3533
3534 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
3535
3536 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
3537 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
3538 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
3539 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
3540 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
3541 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
3542 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
3543 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
3544 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
3545 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
3546 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
3547 desktop contains
3548 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
3549 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
3550 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
3551 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
3552
3553 <p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
3554 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
3555 Squeeze release.</p>
3556
3557 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
3558
3559 <ul>
3560
3561 <li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
3562 <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).
3563 <li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
3564 <li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
3565 <li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
3566
3567 </ul>
3568
3569 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
3570
3571 <ul>
3572
3573 <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.
3574 <li>Updated translation of the installation.
3575 <li>New Romanian translation.
3576 <li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
3577 <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).
3578 <li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
3579 <li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
3580 <li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
3581 <li>More testsuite tests.
3582 <li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
3583 <li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
3584
3585 <li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
3586 LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
3587
3588 <li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
3589 them up with GOsa².</li>
3590
3591 <li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
3592
3593 <li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
3594 slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
3595 entered password). </li>
3596
3597 </ul>
3598
3599 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
3600
3601 <ul>
3602
3603 <li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
3604
3605 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
3606 available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
3607 missing import feature).</li>
3608
3609 <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
3610
3611 <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
3612 own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
3613 unfixed.</li>
3614
3615 </ul>
3616
3617 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
3618
3619 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
3620
3621 <ul>
3622
3623 <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>
3624
3625 <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>
3626
3627 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
3628
3629 </ul>
3630
3631 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
3632 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
3633
3634 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
3635
3636 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
3637
3638       </div>
3639       <div class="tags">
3640
3641
3642         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3643
3644
3645       </div>
3646     </div>
3647     <div class="padding"></div>
3648
3649     <div class="entry">
3650       <div class="title">
3651         <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>
3652       </div>
3653       <div class="date">
3654          5th June 2013
3655       </div>
3656       <div class="body">
3657         <p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
3658 We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
3659 hope to get released soon.  The two problems require some with PHP
3660 skills, and we seem to lack anyone with both time and PHP skills in
3661 the project:
3662
3663 <ol>
3664
3665 <li>It is impossible to log into the slbackup web interface
3666   (slbackup-php) using the root user and password.  This is
3667   <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">BTS report #700257</a>.
3668   This used to work, but stopped working some time since Squeeze.
3669   Perhaps some obsolete PHP feature was used?</li>
3670
3671 <li>It is not possible to "mass import" user lists in Gosa, neither
3672   using ldif nor using CSV files.  The feature was disabled after a
3673   major rewrite of Gosa, and need to be ported to the new system.
3674   This is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">BTS report
3675   #698840</a>.</li>
3676
3677 </ol>
3678
3679 <p>If you can help us, please join us on IRC
3680 (<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
3681 irc.debian.org</a>) and provide patches via the BTS.</p>
3682
3683       </div>
3684       <div class="tags">
3685
3686
3687         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3688
3689
3690       </div>
3691     </div>
3692     <div class="padding"></div>
3693
3694     <div class="entry">
3695       <div class="title">
3696         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</a>
3697       </div>
3698       <div class="date">
3699          4th June 2013
3700       </div>
3701       <div class="body">
3702         <p>It has been a while since my last English
3703 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
3704 interview last November.  But the developers and translators are still
3705 pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
3706 time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
3707 in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
3708
3709 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3710
3711 <p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
3712 professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
3713 mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
3714 probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
3715
3716 <p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
3717 and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
3718 packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
3719
3720 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
3721 project?</strong></p>
3722
3723 <p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
3724 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
3725 Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
3726 then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
3727 manual.
3728
3729 <p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
3730 virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
3731 shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
3732 how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
3733
3734 <p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
3735 ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
3736 by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>.  What pleased
3737 me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
3738 there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
3739 to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
3740 artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
3741 <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
3742 movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
3743 <a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
3744
3745 <p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
3746 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
3747 Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
3748 beautiful project.</p>
3749
3750 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3751 Edu?</strong></p>
3752
3753 <p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
3754 community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
3755 fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
3756
3757 <p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
3758 distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
3759 of educational free software.</p>
3760
3761 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
3762 Edu?</strong></p>
3763
3764 <p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
3765 project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
3766 not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
3767 solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
3768 is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
3769
3770 <p>One can find support from a company by looking at
3771 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
3772 wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
3773 companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
3774 Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
3775 for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
3776 consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
3777 support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
3778
3779 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3780
3781 <p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
3782 most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
3783 scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice.  I am
3784 also using the mathematical software
3785 <a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about‎">Scilab</a> and
3786 <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html‎">Sage</a> (built from
3787 source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
3788
3789 <p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
3790 using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
3791 statistics?</strong></p>
3792
3793 <p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
3794 university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/‎">R</a> and
3795 Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
3796 geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
3797
3798 <ul>
3799
3800 <li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
3801 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig‎">kig</a> to do
3802 constructions in planar geometry
3803
3804 <li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
3805 to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
3806 groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
3807
3808 </ul>
3809
3810 <p>I like also
3811 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
3812 provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
3813 <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave‎">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
3814
3815 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3816 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3817
3818 <p>My suggestions would be to</p>
3819
3820 <ul>
3821
3822 <li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
3823
3824 <li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
3825     well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
3826     OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
3827
3828 <li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
3829
3830 <li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
3831     system.</li>
3832
3833 </ul>
3834
3835       </div>
3836       <div class="tags">
3837
3838
3839         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
3840
3841
3842       </div>
3843     </div>
3844     <div class="padding"></div>
3845
3846     <div class="entry">
3847       <div class="title">
3848         <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>
3849       </div>
3850       <div class="date">
3851          1st June 2013
3852       </div>
3853       <div class="body">
3854         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
3855 Skolelinux</a>, there are quite a lot of educational software.
3856 Created to help teachers teach, and pupils learn.  We have tried to
3857 tag them all using debtags use::learning and role::program, and using
3858 the debtags I was happy to be able to create a collage of the
3859 educational software packages installed by default, sorted by the
3860 debtag field.  Here it is.  Click on a image to learn more about the
3861 program.</p>
3862
3863 <!-- 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 -->
3864
3865 <p><strong>field::arts</strong></p>
3866 <p>
3867 <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>
3868 <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>
3869 <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>
3870 <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>
3871 <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>
3872 <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>
3873 <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>
3874 <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>
3875 <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>
3876 <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>
3877 <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>
3878 <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>
3879 <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>
3880 <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>
3881 </p>
3882
3883 <p><strong>field::astronomy</strong></p>
3884 <p>
3885 <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>
3886 <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>
3887 <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>
3888 <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>
3889 <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>
3890 <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>
3891 </p>
3892
3893 <p><strong>field::biology:structural</strong></p>
3894 <p>
3895 <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>
3896 </p>
3897
3898 <p><strong>field::chemistry</strong></p>
3899 <p>
3900 <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>
3901 <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>
3902 <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>
3903 <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>
3904 <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>
3905 <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>
3906 <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>
3907 <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>
3908 <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>
3909 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=viewmol'>[viewmol]</a>
3910 <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>
3911 </p>
3912
3913 <p><strong>field::electronics</strong></p>
3914 <p>
3915 <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>
3916 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpsim'>[gpsim]</a>
3917 </p>
3918
3919 <p><strong>field::geography</strong></p>
3920 <p>
3921 <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>
3922 <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>
3923 <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>
3924 </p>
3925
3926 <p><strong>field::linguistics</strong></p>
3927 <p>
3928 <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>
3929 <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>
3930 <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>
3931 <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>
3932 <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>
3933 </p>
3934
3935 <p><strong>field::mathematics</strong></p>
3936 <p>
3937 <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>
3938 <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>
3939 <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>
3940 <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>
3941 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geomview'>[geomview]</a>
3942 <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>
3943 <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>
3944 <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>
3945 <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>
3946 <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>
3947 <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>
3948 <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>
3949 <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>
3950 <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>
3951 <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>
3952 <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>
3953 <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>
3954 </p>
3955
3956 <p><strong>field::physics</strong></p>
3957 <p>
3958 <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>
3959 <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>
3960 </p>
3961
3962 <p><strong>field::TODO</strong></p>
3963 <p>
3964 <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>
3965 <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>
3966 <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>
3967 <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>
3968 <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>
3969 <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>
3970 <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>
3971 <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>
3972 <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>
3973 <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>
3974 </p>
3975
3976 <p>In total, 61 applications.  3 of them lacked screen shots on
3977 <a href="http://screenshot.debian.net">screenshot.debian.net</a>.  If
3978 you know of some packages we should install by default, please let us
3979 know on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu
3980 on irc.debian.org</a>, or our
3981 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">mailing list
3982 debian-edu@</a>.</p>
3983
3984       </div>
3985       <div class="tags">
3986
3987
3988         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3989
3990
3991       </div>
3992     </div>
3993     <div class="padding"></div>
3994
3995     <div class="entry">
3996       <div class="title">
3997         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/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>
3998       </div>
3999       <div class="date">
4000         27th May 2013
4001       </div>
4002       <div class="body">
4003         <p>Two days ago, I asked
4004 <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
4005 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
4006 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
4007 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
4008 and Windows 8.</p>
4009
4010 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
4011 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
4012 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
4013 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
4014 enough to tell.</p>
4015
4016 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
4017 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
4018 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
4019 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
4020 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
4021 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
4022 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
4023 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
4024 to follow.</p>
4025
4026 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
4027 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
4028 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
4029 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
4030 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
4031 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
4032 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
4033 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
4034
4035 <p>I've updated the
4036 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
4037 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
4038 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
4039 machine.</p>
4040
4041 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
4042 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
4043
4044       </div>
4045       <div class="tags">
4046
4047
4048         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>.
4049
4050
4051       </div>
4052     </div>
4053     <div class="padding"></div>
4054
4055     <div class="entry">
4056       <div class="title">
4057         <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>
4058       </div>
4059       <div class="date">
4060         25th May 2013
4061       </div>
4062       <div class="body">
4063         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
4064 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
4065 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
4066 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
4067 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
4068 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
4069
4070 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
4071 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
4072 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
4073 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
4074 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
4075 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
4076 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
4077 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
4078 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
4079 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
4080
4081 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
4082 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
4083 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
4084 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
4085 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
4086 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
4087
4088 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
4089 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
4090 on new Laptops?</p>
4091
4092       </div>
4093       <div class="tags">
4094
4095
4096         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>.
4097
4098
4099       </div>
4100     </div>
4101     <div class="padding"></div>
4102
4103     <div class="entry">
4104       <div class="title">
4105         <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>
4106       </div>
4107       <div class="date">
4108         17th May 2013
4109       </div>
4110       <div class="body">
4111         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
4112 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
4113 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
4114 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
4115 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
4116 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
4117 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
4118 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
4119 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
4120 donate some money</a>.
4121
4122 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
4123 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
4124 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
4125 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
4126 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
4127
4128 <p>The script,
4129 <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/>
4130 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
4131 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
4132 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
4133
4134 <ol>
4135
4136 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
4137 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
4138 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
4139     our configuration.</li>
4140 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
4141     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
4142     according to the profile specified in the config above,
4143     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
4144 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
4145     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
4146 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
4147
4148 </ol>
4149
4150 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
4151 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
4152 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
4153 the needed packages.</p>
4154
4155 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
4156 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
4157 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
4158 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
4159 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
4160 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
4161
4162 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
4163 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
4164 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
4165
4166 <p><pre>
4167 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
4168 DESKTOP="lxde"
4169 </pre></p>
4170
4171 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
4172 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
4173 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
4174 boot.</p>
4175
4176       </div>
4177       <div class="tags">
4178
4179
4180         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>.
4181
4182
4183       </div>
4184     </div>
4185     <div class="padding"></div>
4186
4187     <div class="entry">
4188       <div class="title">
4189         <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>
4190       </div>
4191       <div class="date">
4192         14th May 2013
4193       </div>
4194       <div class="body">
4195         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4196 project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
4197 release today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
4198
4199 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
4200 2013-05-14</strong></p>
4201
4202 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
4203 alpha1, based on <a href="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a> with
4204 codename "Wheezy".</p>
4205
4206 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
4207
4208 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
4209 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
4210 configured school network. Immediatly after installation a school
4211 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
4212 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
4213 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
4214 initial installation of the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all
4215 other machines can be installed via the network.</p>
4216
4217 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
4218 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
4219 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
4220
4221 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
4222 <ul>
4223   <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
4224     default.</li>
4225   <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
4226   <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
4227   <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
4228     ibus-anthy.</li>
4229 </ul>
4230
4231 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
4232 <ul>
4233
4234   <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
4235     reliability improvements.</li>
4236   <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
4237     of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
4238   <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
4239     problems.</li>
4240   <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
4241     direct:// URL.</li>
4242   <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
4243   <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
4244   <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
4245   <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
4246     servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
4247   <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
4248     log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
4249 </ul>
4250
4251 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
4252 <ul>
4253
4254   <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
4255     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>).  Only install
4256     libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
4257   <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
4258   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
4259     available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
4260   <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
4261   <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
4262   <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
4263     (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
4264   <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
4265     password submission problem
4266     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
4267
4268 </ul>
4269
4270 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
4271
4272 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
4273 <ul>
4274
4275   <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>
4276   <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>
4277   <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>
4278
4279 </ul>
4280
4281 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
4282
4283 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</p>
4284
4285 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
4286
4287 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
4288
4289       </div>
4290       <div class="tags">
4291
4292
4293         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4294
4295
4296       </div>
4297     </div>
4298     <div class="padding"></div>
4299
4300     <div class="entry">
4301       <div class="title">
4302         <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>
4303       </div>
4304       <div class="date">
4305         11th May 2013
4306       </div>
4307       <div class="body">
4308         <P>In January,
4309 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
4310 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
4311 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
4312 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
4313 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
4314 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
4315 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
4316 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
4317 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
4318 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
4319 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
4320 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
4321
4322 <p><table>
4323 <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>
4324 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
4325 <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>
4326 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
4327 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
4328 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
4329 <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>
4330 <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>
4331 <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>
4332 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
4333 </table></p>
4334
4335 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
4336 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
4337 available in experimental.</p>
4338
4339 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
4340 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
4341 for LEGO designers.</p>
4342
4343       </div>
4344       <div class="tags">
4345
4346
4347         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>.
4348
4349
4350       </div>
4351     </div>
4352     <div class="padding"></div>
4353
4354     <div class="entry">
4355       <div class="title">
4356         <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>
4357       </div>
4358       <div class="date">
4359          5th May 2013
4360       </div>
4361       <div class="body">
4362         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
4363 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
4364 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
4365 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
4366 soon.</p>
4367
4368 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
4369 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
4370 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
4371 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
4372 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
4373 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
4374 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
4375 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
4376 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
4377 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
4378 Edu.</a>
4379
4380 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
4381 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
4382 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
4383 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
4384 follow.<p>
4385
4386       </div>
4387       <div class="tags">
4388
4389
4390         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>.
4391
4392
4393       </div>
4394     </div>
4395     <div class="padding"></div>
4396
4397     <div class="entry">
4398       <div class="title">
4399         <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>
4400       </div>
4401       <div class="date">
4402         26th April 2013
4403       </div>
4404       <div class="body">
4405         <p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
4406 its first Wheezy based release today.  This is the release
4407 announcement:</p>
4408
4409 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu ~7.0.0 alpha0 released
4410 2013-04-26</strong></p>
4411
4412 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
4413 edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
4414
4415 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
4416
4417 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
4418 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
4419 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
4420 network. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
4421 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
4422 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
4423 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
4424 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
4425 installed via the network.</p>
4426
4427 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
4428 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
4429 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
4430
4431 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
4432
4433 <ul>
4434 <li>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
4435   <ul>
4436      <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
4437      <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
4438          (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
4439          manual.)</li>
4440      <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
4441      <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
4442      <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
4443      <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
4444      <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
4445      <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
4446      <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
4447      <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
4448      <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
4449      <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
4450      <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
4451      <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
4452          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
4453          manual</a> for more details.</li>
4454      <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
4455          installation.</li>
4456      <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
4457          <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>
4458   </ul></li>
4459 </ul>
4460
4461 <p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
4462 <ul>
4463 <li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
4464     German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
4465     for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
4466 </ul>
4467
4468 <p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
4469 <ul>
4470 <li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
4471     choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
4472     server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
4473 </ul>
4474
4475 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
4476 <ul>
4477 <li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
4478     configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
4479     entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
4480 <li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
4481     functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
4482     completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
4483 </ul>
4484
4485 <p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
4486 <ul>
4487 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
4488     yet.</li>
4489 </ul>
4490
4491 <p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
4492
4493 <ul>
4494 <li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
4495     screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
4496     had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
4497 </ul>
4498
4499 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
4500
4501 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
4502 <ul>
4503 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
4504 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
4505 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
4506 </ul>
4507
4508 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
4509
4510 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
4511
4512 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
4513
4514 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
4515
4516       </div>
4517       <div class="tags">
4518
4519
4520         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4521
4522
4523       </div>
4524     </div>
4525     <div class="padding"></div>
4526
4527     <div class="entry">
4528       <div class="title">
4529         <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>
4530       </div>
4531       <div class="date">
4532         16th April 2013
4533       </div>
4534       <div class="body">
4535         <p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
4536 Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
4537 Details about the gathering can be found
4538 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
4539 the FRiSK wiki</a>.  The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
4540 participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
4541 and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
4542 weekend.</p>
4543
4544 <p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
4545 infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
4546 Edu release.</p>
4547
4548 <p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
4549
4550       </div>
4551       <div class="tags">
4552
4553
4554         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4555
4556
4557       </div>
4558     </div>
4559     <div class="padding"></div>
4560
4561     <div class="entry">
4562       <div class="title">
4563         <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>
4564       </div>
4565       <div class="date">
4566          3rd April 2013
4567       </div>
4568       <div class="body">
4569         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
4570 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
4571 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
4572 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
4573
4574 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
4575 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
4576 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
4577 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
4578 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
4579 BTS. :)</p>
4580
4581       </div>
4582       <div class="tags">
4583
4584
4585         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>.
4586
4587
4588       </div>
4589     </div>
4590     <div class="padding"></div>
4591
4592     <div class="entry">
4593       <div class="title">
4594         <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>
4595       </div>
4596       <div class="date">
4597         26th March 2013
4598       </div>
4599       <div class="body">
4600         <p>Would you like to help the environment and save money at the same
4601 time, without much sacrifice?  A small step could be to change the
4602 font you use when printing.</p>
4603
4604 <p>Three years ago,
4605 <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/04/last-year-printer-comparison-website/">Ars
4606 Technica</a> reported how the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
4607 changed their default front from
4608 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial">Arial</a> to
4609 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic">Century
4610 Gothic</a> to save money.  The Century Gothic font uses 30% less toner
4611 than Arial to print the same text.  In other word, you could cut your
4612 toner costs by 30% (or actually, increase your toner supply life time
4613 by more than 30%), by simply changing the default font used in your
4614 prints.</p>
4615
4616 <p>But it is not quite obvious how much one will save by switching.
4617 The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay said it used $100,000 per year
4618 on ink and toner cartridges, according to
4619 <a href="http://www.twincities.com/ci_14833097">a report from
4620 TwinCities.com</a>, and expected to save between $5,000 and $10,000
4621 per year by asking staff and students to use a different font.  Not
4622 all PDFs and documents are created internally, and those from external
4623 sources will most likely still use a different font.  Also, the
4624 Century Gothic font is slightly wider than Arial, and thus might use
4625 more sheets of paper to print the same text, so the total saving
4626 depend on the documents printed.</p>
4627
4628 <p>But it is definitely something to consider, if you want to reduce
4629 the amount of trash, decrease the amount of toner used in the world,
4630 and save some money in the process.</p>
4631
4632 <p>Update 2013-04-10: If you want to know how much ink/toner could be
4633 saved when switching between fonts, Inkfarm got a
4634 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/What-the-Font">service to calculate the
4635 difference between font pairs</a>.  They also
4636 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/Recommended-Ink-Saving-Fonts---">recommend
4637 which fonts to use</a> to save ink.  Check it out. :) While updating
4638 this blog post, I also came across a blog post from InkCloners,
4639 <a href="http://inkcloners.com/blog/ink-cartridges/change-fonts-to-save-ink-costs/">listing
4640 the fonts they recommend</a>, with Centory Gothic at the top.</p>
4641
4642       </div>
4643       <div class="tags">
4644
4645
4646         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4647
4648
4649       </div>
4650     </div>
4651     <div class="padding"></div>
4652
4653     <div class="entry">
4654       <div class="title">
4655         <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>
4656       </div>
4657       <div class="date">
4658         24th March 2013
4659       </div>
4660       <div class="body">
4661         <p>A few days ago, during a discussion in
4662 <a href="http://www.efn.no/">EFN</a> about interesting books to read
4663 about copyright and the data retention directive, a suggestion to read
4664 the 1968 short story Kodémus by
4665 <a href="http://web2.gyldendal.no/toraage/">Tore Åge Bringsværd</a>
4666 came up.  The text was only available in old paper books, and thus not
4667 easily available for current and future generations.  Some of the
4668 people participating in the discussion contacted the author, and
4669 reported back 2013-03-19 that the author was OK with releasing the
4670 short story using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative
4671 Commons</a> license.  The text was quickly scanned and OCR-ed, and we
4672 were ready to start on the editing and typesetting.</p>
4673
4674 <p>As I already had some experience formatting text in my project to
4675 provide a Norwegian version of the Free Culture book by Lawrence
4676 Lessig, I chipped in and set up a
4677 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook</a> processing framework to
4678 generate PDF, HTML and EPUB version of the short story.  The tools to
4679 transform DocBook to different formats are already in my Linux
4680 distribution of choice, <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, so
4681 all I had to do was to use the
4682 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a>,
4683 <a href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/epub/README">dbtoepub</a>
4684 and <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/xmlto/">xmlto</a> tools to do the
4685 conversion.  After a few days, we decided to replace dblatex with
4686 xsltproc/fop (aka
4687 <a href="http://wiki.docbook.org/DocBookXslStylesheets">docbook-xsl</a>),
4688 to get the copyright information to show up in the PDF and to get a
4689 nicer &lt;variablelist&gt; typesetting, but that is just a minor
4690 technical detail.</p>
4691
4692 <p>There were a few challenges, of course.  We want to typeset the
4693 short story to look like the original, and that require fairly good
4694 control over the layout.  The original short story have three
4695 parts/scenes separated by a single horizontally centred star (*), and
4696 the paragraphs do not contain only flowing text, but dialogs and text
4697 that started on a new line in the middle of the paragraph.</p>
4698
4699 <p>I initially solved the first challenge by using a paragraph with a
4700 single star in it, ie &lt;para&gt;*&lt;/para&gt;, but it made sure a
4701 placeholder indicated where the scene shifted.  This did not look too
4702 good without the centring.  The next approach was to create a new
4703 preprocessor directive &lt;?newscene?&gt;, mapping to "&lt;hr/&gt;"
4704 for HTML and "&lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;&lt;fo:leader
4705 leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;&lt;/fo:block&gt;"
4706 for FO/PDF output (did not try to implement this in dblatex, as we had
4707 switched at this time).  The HTML XSL file looked like this:</p>
4708
4709 <p><blockquote><pre>
4710 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
4711 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
4712   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
4713     &lt;hr/&gt;
4714   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
4715 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
4716 </pre></blockquote></p>
4717
4718 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
4719
4720 <p><blockquote><pre>
4721 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
4722 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
4723   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
4724     &lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;
4725       &lt;fo:leader leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;
4726     &lt;/fo:block&gt;
4727   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
4728 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
4729 </pre></blockquote></p>
4730
4731 <p>Finally, I came across the &lt;bridgehead&gt; tag, which seem to be
4732 a good fit for the task at hand, and I replaced &lt;?newscene?&gt;
4733 with &lt;bridgehead&gt;*&lt;/bridgehead&gt;.  It isn't centred, but we
4734 can fix it with some XSL rule if the current visual layout isn't
4735 enough.</p>
4736
4737 <p>I did not find a good DocBook compliant way to solve the
4738 linebreak/paragraph challenge, so I ended up creating a new processor
4739 directive &lt;?linebreak?&gt;, mapping to &lt;br/&gt; in HTML, and
4740 &lt;fo:block/&gt; in FO/PDF.  I suspect there are better ways to do
4741 this, and welcome ideas and patches on github.  The HTML XSL file now
4742 look like this:</p>
4743
4744 <p><blockquote><pre>
4745 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
4746 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
4747   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
4748     &lt;br/&gt;
4749   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
4750 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
4751 </pre></blockquote></p>
4752
4753 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
4754
4755 <p><blockquote><pre>
4756 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
4757 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'
4758   xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"&gt;
4759   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
4760     &lt;fo:block/&gt;
4761   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
4762 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
4763 </pre></blockquote></p>
4764
4765 <p>One unsolved challenge is our wish to expose different ISBN numbers
4766 per publication format, while keeping all of them in some conditional
4767 structure in the DocBook source.  No idea how to do this, so we ended
4768 up listing all the ISBN numbers next to their format in the colophon
4769 page.</p>
4770
4771 <p>If you want to check out the finished result, check out the
4772 <a href="https://github.com/sickel/kodemus">source repository at
4773 github</a>
4774 (<a href="https://github.com/EFN/kodemus">future/new/official
4775 repository</a>).  We expect it to be ready and announced in a few
4776 days.</p>
4777
4778       </div>
4779       <div class="tags">
4780
4781
4782         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>.
4783
4784
4785       </div>
4786     </div>
4787     <div class="padding"></div>
4788
4789     <div class="entry">
4790       <div class="title">
4791         <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>
4792       </div>
4793       <div class="date">
4794         17th March 2013
4795       </div>
4796       <div class="body">
4797         <p>Via
4798 <a href="https://twitter.com/pcwizz/status/313044373262716930">twitter</a>
4799 I just discovered that <a href="http://pcwizz.net/">Pcwizz</a> have
4800 done a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzTZ61Pcuc">video
4801 review</a> on Youtube of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
4802 / Debian Edu</a> version 6.  He installed the standalone profile and
4803 the video show a walk-through of of the menu content, demonstration of
4804 a few programs and his view of our distribution.</p>
4805
4806 <p>There is also some really nice quotes (transcribed by me, might
4807 have heard wrong).  While looking thought the Graphics menu:</p>
4808
4809 <blockquote>
4810 "Basically everything you ever need in a school environment."
4811 </blockquote>
4812
4813 <p>And as a general evaluation of the entire distribution:</p>
4814
4815 <blockquote>
4816 "So, yeah, a bit bloated.  It kept all the Debian stuff in there, just
4817 to keep it nice and GNU.  So, I do not want to go on about it, but
4818 lets give it 7 out of 10.  I am not going to use it.  That is because
4819 I am not deploying a school network.  There may be some mythical
4820 feature to help you deploy Skolelinux on a school network."
4821 </blockquote>
4822
4823 <p>To bad he did not test the server profile, and discovered the PXE
4824 installation option.  It make it possible to install only the main
4825 server from CD, and the rest of the machines via the net, and might be
4826 considered the mythical feature he talk about. :)</p>
4827
4828 <p>While looking through the menus, there is also this funny comment
4829 about the part of the K menu generated from the Debian menu subsystem:
4830
4831 <blockquote>
4832 "[The K menu] have a special Debian section for software that no-one
4833 is going to look at, because it contain lots of junky stuff that you
4834 actually don't need in the education distribution, but have just been
4835 included because it isn't stripped out for some reason."
4836 </blockquote>
4837
4838 <p>I guess it is yet another argument for merging the Debian menu and
4839 Gnome/KDE desktop menu entries into
4840 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries">one
4841 consistent menu system</a> instead of two incomplete and partly
4842 inconsistent menu systems.</p>
4843
4844 <p>The entire video is available below for those accepting iframe
4845 embedding:</p>
4846
4847 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPzTZ61Pcuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
4848
4849       </div>
4850       <div class="tags">
4851
4852
4853         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
4854
4855
4856       </div>
4857     </div>
4858     <div class="padding"></div>
4859
4860     <div class="entry">
4861       <div class="title">
4862         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_update_released.html">First Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze update released</a>
4863       </div>
4864       <div class="date">
4865          8th March 2013
4866       </div>
4867       <div class="body">
4868         <p>Last Sunday, 2013-03-03,, Holger Levsen announced the first update
4869 of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
4870 based on Debian Squeeze.  This is the first update since
4871 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
4872 initial release 2012-03-11</a>.  This is the
4873 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2013/03/msg00000.html">release
4874 announcement email from Holger</a>:</p>
4875
4876 <blockquote><p>Hi,</p>
4877
4878 <p>it's my pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Debian
4879 Edu 6.0.7+r1 ("Debian Edu Squeeze").</p>
4880
4881 <p>Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 is an incremental update to Debian Edu
4882 6.0.4+r0, containing all the changes between Debian 6.0.4 and 6.0.7 as
4883 well Debian Edu specific bugfixes and enhancements. See below (in this
4884 mail) for the full list of (edu) changes.  Please see
4885 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311">http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311</a>
4886 for more information on "Debian Edu Squeeze".</p>
4887
4888 <p>Images are available for download at
4889 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/</a></p>
4890
4891 <p>md5sums:
4892 <br>1fe79eb4f0f9ae1c58fc318e26cc1e2e  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
4893 <br>a6ddd924a8bd9a1b5ca122e8fe1c34ec  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
4894 <br>ac6c72cd7925ccec51bfbf58e2a7c69c  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
4895
4896 <p>sha1sums:
4897 <br>a4b58233b672a99c7df8dc24fb6de3327654a5c3  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
4898 <br>9b524915e0ff2aa793f13d93123e5bd2bab2dbaa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
4899 <br>43997614893fc5e9e59ad6ce066b05d07fd836fa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
4900
4901 <p>These images are suitable for amd64+i386.</p>
4902
4903 <p>Changes for Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 Codename "Squeeze", released
4904 2013-03-03:</p>
4905
4906 <ul>
4907   <li>sitesummary was updated from 0.1.3 to 0.1.8
4908   <ul>
4909         <li>Make Nagios configuration more robust and efficient</li>
4910         <li>Comply with 3.X kernel</li>
4911   </ul></li>
4912   <li>debian-edu-doc from 1.4~20120310~6.0.4+r0 to 1.4~20130228~6.0.7+r1
4913   <ul>
4914         <li>Minor updates from the wiki</li>
4915         <li>Danish translation now complete</li>
4916   </ul></li>
4917   <li>debian-edu-config from 1.453 to 1.455
4918      <ul>
4919         <li>Fix /etc/hosts for LTSP diskless workstations. Closes: #699880</li>
4920         <li>Make ltsp_local_mount script work for multiple devices.</li>
4921         <li>Correct Kerberos user policy: don't expire password after 2 days.
4922                 Closes: #664596</li>
4923         <li>Handle '#' characters in the root or first users password.
4924                 Closes: #664976</li>
4925         <li>Fixes for gosa-sync:
4926            <ul>
4927                 <li>Don't fail if password contains "</li>
4928                 <li>Don't disclose new password string in syslog</li>
4929            </ul></li>
4930         <li>Fixes for gosa-create:
4931            <ul>
4932                 <li>Invalidate libnss cache before applying changes</li>
4933                 <li>Multiple failures during mass user import into GOsa²</li>
4934                 <li>gosa-netgroups plugin: don't erase entries of attribute type
4935                          "memberNisNetgroup". Closes: #687256</li>
4936                 <li>First user now uses the same Kerberos policy as all other users</li>
4937            </ul></li>
4938         <li>Add Danish web page</li>
4939     </ul>
4940   <li>debian-edu-install from 1.528 to 1.530
4941     <ul>
4942         <li>Improve preseeding support and documentation</li>
4943     </ul></li>
4944 </ul>
4945
4946 <p>End-user documentation in English is available at
4947 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/</a>
4948 - translations to French, Italian, Danish and German are available in
4949 the debian-edu-doc package. (Other languages could use your help!)</p>
4950
4951 <p>If you want to contribute to Debian Edu, please join our
4952 mailinglist
4953 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@lists.debian.org</a>!
4954 </p></blockquote>
4955
4956 <p>I am very happy to see the fruits of a year of hard work. :)</p>
4957
4958       </div>
4959       <div class="tags">
4960
4961
4962         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4963
4964
4965       </div>
4966     </div>
4967     <div class="padding"></div>
4968
4969     <div class="entry">
4970       <div class="title">
4971         <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>
4972       </div>
4973       <div class="date">
4974          3rd March 2013
4975       </div>
4976       <div class="body">
4977         <p>Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and
4978 broadcast them on the air?  Using free software?  With video on demand
4979 support using
4980 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
4981 open standards</a>?  Included a web based video stream as well?  And
4982 administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world?  A
4983 few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel
4984 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> have been building a
4985 system to do just this.  The source code for the solution is licensed
4986 using the GNU LGPL, and
4987 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from github</a>.</p>
4988
4989 <p>The idea is simple.  You upload a video file over the web, and
4990 attach meta information to the file.  You select a time slot in the
4991 program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and
4992 in the web stream.  It is also made available in a video on demand
4993 solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time.  All
4994 you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.</p>
4995
4996 <p>There are several parts to this web based solution.  I'll mention
4997 the three most important ones.  The first part is the database of
4998 videos and the schedule.  This is written in Django and include a REST
4999 API.  The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to
5000 PostgreSQL.  At the moment this system can be tested on
5001 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/">beta.frikanalen.tv</a>.  The
5002 second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from
5003 the database and providing a video stream to broadcast.  This is done
5004 using <a href="http://www.casparcg.com/">CasparCG from SVT</a> and
5005 <a href="http://www.mltframework.org/">Media Lovin' Toolkit</a>.  Video
5006 signal distribution is handled using
5007 <a href="http://www.ob-encoder.com/">Open Broadcast Encoder</a>.  The
5008 third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded
5009 video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video
5010 on demand.  It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet
5011 decided what it will end up using.  Note that the source of the latter
5012 two parts are not yet pushed to github.  The lead author want to clean
5013 them up a bit more first.</p>
5014
5015 <p>The development is coordinated on the
5016 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23frikanalen">#frikanalen IRC
5017 channel</a> (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on
5018 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/frikanalen">the
5019 frikanalen mailing list</a>. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim
5020 (phed on IRC).  Anyone is welcome to participate in the
5021 development.</p>
5022
5023       </div>
5024       <div class="tags">
5025
5026
5027         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>.
5028
5029
5030       </div>
5031     </div>
5032     <div class="padding"></div>
5033
5034     <div class="entry">
5035       <div class="title">
5036         <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>
5037       </div>
5038       <div class="date">
5039         27th February 2013
5040       </div>
5041       <div class="body">
5042         <p>Dr. <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a>,
5043 founder of <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>,
5044 is giving <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">a
5045 talk in Oslo March 1st 2013 17:00 to 19:00</a>.  The event is public
5046 and organised by <a href="">Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG)</a>
5047 (where I am the chair of the board) and
5048 <a href="http://www.friprog.no/">The Norwegian Open Source Competence
5049 Center</a>.  The title of the talk is «The Free Software Movement and
5050 GNU», with this description:
5051
5052 <p><blockquote>
5053 The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to
5054 cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement
5055 developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the
5056 kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.
5057 </blockquote></p>
5058
5059 <p>The meeting is open for everyone.  Due to space limitations, the
5060 doors opens for NUUG members at 16:15, and everyone else at 16:45.  I
5061 am really curious how many will show up.  See
5062 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">the event
5063 page</a> for the location details.</p>
5064
5065       </div>
5066       <div class="tags">
5067
5068
5069         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>.
5070
5071
5072       </div>
5073     </div>
5074     <div class="padding"></div>
5075
5076     <div class="entry">
5077       <div class="title">
5078         <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>
5079       </div>
5080       <div class="date">
5081         15th February 2013
5082       </div>
5083       <div class="body">
5084         <p>If you, like me, want an updated a map for your Garmin GPS, there is
5085 now a great source of free maps available from
5086 <a href="http://www.frikart.no/garmin/index.html">Frikart</a>.  To
5087 download a map, just click on the country you are interested in, and
5088 download the map type you want.  There are 8 different maps available,
5089 using different colours and data selection.  Pick one of Roadmap, Topo
5090 Summer, Topo Winter, Roadmap II, Topo Summer II, Topo Winter II,
5091 "Trails - overlay map" and "Cross country - overlay map" (see the web
5092 page for descriptions).</p>
5093
5094 <p>The maps are updated weekly, so if you find something wrong in the
5095 map you can just edit the
5096 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> map source
5097 (anyone can contribute) and fetch a fixed map a week later. :)</p>
5098
5099       </div>
5100       <div class="tags">
5101
5102
5103         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>.
5104
5105
5106       </div>
5107     </div>
5108     <div class="padding"></div>
5109
5110     <div class="entry">
5111       <div class="title">
5112         <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>
5113       </div>
5114       <div class="date">
5115         12th February 2013
5116       </div>
5117       <div class="body">
5118         <p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
5119 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
5120 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
5121 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
5122 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
5123 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
5124 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
5125 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
5126 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
5127 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
5128 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
5129 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
5130 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
5131 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
5132 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
5133 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
5134
5135 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
5136 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
5137 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
5138 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
5139 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
5140 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
5141 fields:</p>
5142
5143 <p><pre>
5144 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
5145 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
5146 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
5147 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
5148 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
5149 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
5150 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
5151 </pre></p>
5152
5153 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
5154 answer regarding
5155 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
5156 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
5157 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
5158 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
5159
5160 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
5161
5162 <p><pre>
5163 BEGIN:VCARD
5164 VERSION:2.1
5165 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
5166 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
5167 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
5168 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
5169 REV:20130212T095000Z
5170 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
5171 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
5172 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
5173 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
5174 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
5175 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
5176 END:VCARD
5177 </pre></p>
5178
5179 <p>The resulting QR code created using
5180 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
5181 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
5182 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
5183 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
5184 system.</p>
5185
5186 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
5187
5188 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
5189 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
5190 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
5191 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
5192
5193 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
5194 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
5195
5196       </div>
5197       <div class="tags">
5198
5199
5200         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>.
5201
5202
5203       </div>
5204     </div>
5205     <div class="padding"></div>
5206
5207     <div class="entry">
5208       <div class="title">
5209         <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>
5210       </div>
5211       <div class="date">
5212         10th February 2013
5213       </div>
5214       <div class="body">
5215         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
5216
5217 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
5218 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
5219 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
5220 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
5221 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
5222 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
5223 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
5224 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
5225 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
5226 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
5227 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
5228
5229 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
5230 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
5231 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
5232 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
5233 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
5234 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
5235 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
5236 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
5237 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
5238 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
5239 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
5240 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
5241 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
5242 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
5243 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
5244 ones own
5245 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
5246 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
5247 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
5248 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
5249 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
5250 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
5251 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
5252 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
5253 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
5254 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
5255 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
5256
5257 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
5258 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
5259 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
5260 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
5261 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
5262 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
5263
5264 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
5265 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
5266 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
5267
5268       </div>
5269       <div class="tags">
5270
5271
5272         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5273
5274
5275       </div>
5276     </div>
5277     <div class="padding"></div>
5278
5279     <div class="entry">
5280       <div class="title">
5281         <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>
5282       </div>
5283       <div class="date">
5284          2nd February 2013
5285       </div>
5286       <div class="body">
5287         <p>My
5288 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
5289 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
5290 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
5291 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
5292 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
5293 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
5294 version too.</p>
5295
5296 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
5297 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
5298 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
5299 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
5300 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
5301 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
5302 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
5303 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
5304
5305 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
5306 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
5307 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
5308 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
5309 it. :)</p>
5310
5311 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5312 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5313 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5314
5315       </div>
5316       <div class="tags">
5317
5318
5319         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>.
5320
5321
5322       </div>
5323     </div>
5324     <div class="padding"></div>
5325
5326     <div class="entry">
5327       <div class="title">
5328         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
5329       </div>
5330       <div class="date">
5331         22nd January 2013
5332       </div>
5333       <div class="body">
5334         <p>Yesterday, I
5335 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
5336 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
5337 pluggable hardware devices, which I
5338 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
5339 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
5340 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
5341 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
5342 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
5343 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
5344 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
5345 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
5346 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
5347 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
5348
5349 <pre>
5350 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
5351 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
5352 </pre>
5353
5354 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
5355 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
5356 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
5357 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
5358
5359 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
5360 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
5361 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
5362 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
5363 word.</p>
5364
5365 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
5366 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
5367 process.</p>
5368
5369 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
5370 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
5371
5372       </div>
5373       <div class="tags">
5374
5375
5376         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>.
5377
5378
5379       </div>
5380     </div>
5381     <div class="padding"></div>
5382
5383     <div class="entry">
5384       <div class="title">
5385         <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>
5386       </div>
5387       <div class="date">
5388         21st January 2013
5389       </div>
5390       <div class="body">
5391         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
5392 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
5393 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
5394 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
5395 it, fetch the
5396 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
5397 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
5398 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
5399 autostart script.</p>
5400
5401 <p>The design is simple:</p>
5402
5403 <ul>
5404
5405 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
5406 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
5407
5408 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
5409 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
5410 initially did.</li>
5411
5412 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
5413 the APT database, a database
5414 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
5415 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
5416
5417 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
5418 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
5419 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
5420 package or packages.</li>
5421
5422 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
5423 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
5424
5425 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
5426 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
5427
5428 </ul>
5429
5430 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
5431 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
5432 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
5433 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
5434
5435 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
5436 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
5437 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
5438 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
5439 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
5440
5441 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
5442 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
5443 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
5444 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
5445 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
5446 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
5447 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
5448 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
5449
5450 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
5451 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
5452 '<tt>svn checkout
5453 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
5454 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
5455 devscripts package.</p>
5456
5457 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
5458 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
5459 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
5460 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
5461 instructions</a> for details.</p>
5462
5463       </div>
5464       <div class="tags">
5465
5466
5467         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>.
5468
5469
5470       </div>
5471     </div>
5472     <div class="padding"></div>
5473
5474     <div class="entry">
5475       <div class="title">
5476         <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>
5477       </div>
5478       <div class="date">
5479         19th January 2013
5480       </div>
5481       <div class="body">
5482         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
5483 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
5484 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
5485 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
5486 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
5487 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
5488 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
5489 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
5490 not a durable solution.
5491
5492 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
5493 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
5494
5495 <ul>
5496
5497 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
5498   than A4).</li>
5499 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
5500 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
5501 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
5502 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
5503 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
5504 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
5505 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
5506 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
5507 size).</li>
5508 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
5509   X.org packages.</li>
5510 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
5511   the time).
5512
5513 </ul>
5514
5515 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
5516 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
5517 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
5518 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
5519 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
5520 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
5521 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
5522 still be useful.</p>
5523
5524 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
5525 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
5526 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
5527 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
5528 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
5529 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
5530
5531       </div>
5532       <div class="tags">
5533
5534
5535         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>.
5536
5537
5538       </div>
5539     </div>
5540     <div class="padding"></div>
5541
5542     <div class="entry">
5543       <div class="title">
5544         <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>
5545       </div>
5546       <div class="date">
5547         18th January 2013
5548       </div>
5549       <div class="body">
5550         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
5551 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
5552 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
5553 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
5554 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
5555 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
5556 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
5557
5558 <pre>
5559 #!/usr/bin/python
5560 import sys
5561 import apt
5562 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
5563     cache = apt.Cache()
5564     cache.open(None)
5565     thepkgs = []
5566     for pkg in cache:
5567         version = pkg.candidate
5568         if version is None:
5569             version = pkg.installed
5570         if version is None:
5571             continue
5572         record = version.record
5573         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
5574             continue
5575         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
5576         for t in mime_types:
5577             t = t.rstrip().strip()
5578             if t == mimetype:
5579                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
5580     return thepkgs
5581 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
5582 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
5583     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
5584 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
5585 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
5586     print "  %s" %pkg
5587 </pre>
5588
5589 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
5590
5591 <pre>
5592 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
5593 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
5594   gecko-mediaplayer
5595 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
5596 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
5597   browser-plugin-gnash
5598 %
5599 </pre>
5600
5601 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
5602 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
5603 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
5604 anyone working on adding it?</p>
5605
5606 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
5607 request for icweasel support for this feature is
5608 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
5609 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
5610 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
5611 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
5612
5613       </div>
5614       <div class="tags">
5615
5616
5617         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>.
5618
5619
5620       </div>
5621     </div>
5622     <div class="padding"></div>
5623
5624     <div class="entry">
5625       <div class="title">
5626         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
5627       </div>
5628       <div class="date">
5629         16th January 2013
5630       </div>
5631       <div class="body">
5632         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
5633 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
5634 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
5635 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
5636 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
5637 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
5638 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
5639 downloaded by the browser.</p>
5640
5641 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
5642 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
5643 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
5644 can be found on the
5645 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
5646 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
5647 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
5648 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
5649 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
5650
5651 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
5652
5653 <pre>
5654   count MIME type
5655   ----- -----------------------
5656      32 text/plain
5657      30 audio/mpeg
5658      29 image/png
5659      28 image/jpeg
5660      27 application/ogg
5661      26 audio/x-mp3
5662      25 image/tiff
5663      25 image/gif
5664      22 image/bmp
5665      22 audio/x-wav
5666      20 audio/x-flac
5667      19 audio/x-mpegurl
5668      18 video/x-ms-asf
5669      18 audio/x-musepack
5670      18 audio/x-mpeg
5671      18 application/x-ogg
5672      17 video/mpeg
5673      17 audio/x-scpls
5674      17 audio/ogg
5675      16 video/x-ms-wmv
5676 </pre>
5677
5678 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
5679
5680 <pre>
5681   count MIME type
5682   ----- -----------------------
5683      33 text/plain
5684      32 image/png
5685      32 image/jpeg
5686      29 audio/mpeg
5687      27 image/gif
5688      26 image/tiff
5689      26 application/ogg
5690      25 audio/x-mp3
5691      22 image/bmp
5692      21 audio/x-wav
5693      19 audio/x-mpegurl
5694      19 audio/x-mpeg
5695      18 video/mpeg
5696      18 audio/x-scpls
5697      18 audio/x-flac
5698      18 application/x-ogg
5699      17 video/x-ms-asf
5700      17 text/html
5701      17 audio/x-musepack
5702      16 image/x-xbitmap
5703 </pre>
5704
5705 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
5706
5707 <pre>
5708   count MIME type
5709   ----- -----------------------
5710      31 text/plain
5711      31 image/png
5712      31 image/jpeg
5713      29 audio/mpeg
5714      28 application/ogg
5715      27 image/gif
5716      26 image/tiff
5717      26 audio/x-mp3
5718      23 audio/x-wav
5719      22 image/bmp
5720      21 audio/x-flac
5721      20 audio/x-mpegurl
5722      19 audio/x-mpeg
5723      18 video/x-ms-asf
5724      18 video/mpeg
5725      18 audio/x-scpls
5726      18 application/x-ogg
5727      17 audio/x-musepack
5728      16 video/x-ms-wmv
5729      16 video/x-msvideo
5730 </pre>
5731
5732 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
5733 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
5734 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
5735 issues.</p>
5736
5737 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
5738 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
5739
5740       </div>
5741       <div class="tags">
5742
5743
5744         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>.
5745
5746
5747       </div>
5748     </div>
5749     <div class="padding"></div>
5750
5751     <div class="entry">
5752       <div class="title">
5753         <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>
5754       </div>
5755       <div class="date">
5756         15th January 2013
5757       </div>
5758       <div class="body">
5759         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
5760 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
5761 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
5762 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
5763 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
5764 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
5765 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
5766 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
5767 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
5768 packages.</p>
5769
5770 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
5771 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
5772 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
5773 modalias.</p>
5774
5775 <p><blockquote>
5776 Package: package-name
5777 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
5778 </blockquote></p>
5779
5780 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
5781 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
5782
5783 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
5784 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
5785
5786 <p><blockquote>
5787 Package: cheese
5788 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
5789 </blockquote></p>
5790
5791 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
5792 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
5793
5794 <p><blockquote>
5795 Package: pcmciautils
5796 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
5797 </blockquote></p>
5798
5799 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
5800 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
5801
5802 <p><blockquote>
5803 Package: colorhug-client
5804 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
5805 </blockquote></p>
5806
5807 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
5808 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
5809 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
5810
5811 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
5812 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
5813 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
5814 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
5815 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
5816 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
5817 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
5818 Raring.</p>
5819
5820 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
5821 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
5822 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
5823 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
5824 try the
5825 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
5826 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
5827 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
5828 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
5829
5830 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
5831 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
5832
5833 <p><blockquote>
5834 % ./hw-support-lookup
5835 <br>yubikey-personalization
5836 <br>%
5837 </blockquote></p>
5838
5839 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
5840 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
5841
5842 <p><blockquote>
5843 % ./hw-support-lookup
5844 <br>pcmciautils
5845 <br>%
5846 </blockquote></p>
5847
5848 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
5849 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
5850 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
5851
5852 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
5853 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
5854 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
5855 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
5856 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
5857 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
5858 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
5859 see if it work.</p>
5860
5861 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
5862 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
5863 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
5864 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
5865
5866       </div>
5867       <div class="tags">
5868
5869
5870         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>.
5871
5872
5873       </div>
5874     </div>
5875     <div class="padding"></div>
5876
5877     <div class="entry">
5878       <div class="title">
5879         <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>
5880       </div>
5881       <div class="date">
5882         14th January 2013
5883       </div>
5884       <div class="body">
5885         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
5886 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
5887 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
5888 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
5889 in
5890 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
5891 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
5892
5893 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
5894
5895 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
5896 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
5897 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
5898 &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;,
5899 &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
5900 &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;.
5901
5902 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
5903 this shell script:</p>
5904
5905 <pre>
5906 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
5907 </pre>
5908
5909 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
5910 using modinfo:</p>
5911
5912 <pre>
5913 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
5914 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
5915 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
5916 %
5917 </pre>
5918
5919 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
5920
5921 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
5922 Bridge memory controller:</p>
5923
5924 <p><blockquote>
5925 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
5926 </blockquote></p>
5927
5928 <p>This represent these values:</p>
5929
5930 <pre>
5931  v   00008086  (vendor)
5932  d   00002770  (device)
5933  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
5934  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
5935  bc  06        (bus class)
5936  sc  00        (bus subclass)
5937  i   00        (interface)
5938 </pre>
5939
5940 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
5941 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
5942 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
5943 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
5944
5945 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
5946 means.</p>
5947
5948 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
5949
5950 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
5951 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
5952
5953 <p><blockquote>
5954 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
5955 </blockquote></p>
5956
5957 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
5958
5959 <pre>
5960  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
5961  p    0001  (device product)
5962  d    0206  (bcddevice)
5963  dc     09  (device class)
5964  dsc    00  (device subclass)
5965  dp     00  (device protocol)
5966  ic     09  (interface class)
5967  isc    00  (interface subclass)
5968  ip     00  (interface protocol)
5969 </pre>
5970
5971 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
5972 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
5973 these alias entries show up:</p>
5974
5975 <p><blockquote>
5976 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
5977 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
5978 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
5979 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
5980 </blockquote></p>
5981
5982 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
5983 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
5984 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
5985
5986 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
5987
5988 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
5989 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
5990
5991 <p><blockquote>
5992 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
5993 </blockquote></p>
5994
5995 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
5996
5997 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
5998
5999 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
6000 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
6001 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
6002
6003 <p><blockquote>
6004 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
6005 </blockquote></p>
6006
6007 <p>The values present are</p>
6008
6009 <pre>
6010  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
6011  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
6012  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
6013  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
6014  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
6015  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
6016  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
6017  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
6018  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
6019  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
6020  ct   10             (chassis type)
6021  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
6022 </pre>
6023
6024 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
6025 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
6026
6027 <pre>
6028   3 Desktop
6029   4 Low Profile Desktop
6030   5 Pizza Box
6031   6 Mini Tower
6032   7 Tower
6033   8 Portable
6034   9 Laptop
6035  10 Notebook
6036  11 Hand Held
6037  12 Docking Station
6038  13 All In One
6039  14 Sub Notebook
6040  15 Space-saving
6041  16 Lunch Box
6042  17 Main Server Chassis
6043  18 Expansion Chassis
6044  19 Sub Chassis
6045  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
6046  21 Peripheral Chassis
6047  22 RAID Chassis
6048  23 Rack Mount Chassis
6049  24 Sealed-case PC
6050  25 Multi-system
6051  26 CompactPCI
6052  27 AdvancedTCA
6053  28 Blade
6054  29 Blade Enclosing
6055 </pre>
6056
6057 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
6058 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
6059 claim it is a desktop.</p>
6060
6061 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
6062
6063 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
6064 test machine:</p>
6065
6066 <p><blockquote>
6067 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
6068 </blockquote></p>
6069
6070 <p>The values present are</p>
6071
6072 <pre>
6073   ty  01  (type)
6074   pr  00  (prototype)
6075   id  00  (id)
6076   ex  00  (extra)
6077 </pre>
6078
6079 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
6080 the valid values are.</p>
6081
6082 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
6083
6084 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
6085 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
6086 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
6087 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
6088 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
6089 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
6090 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
6091
6092 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
6093
6094 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
6095 one can use the following shell script:</p>
6096
6097 <pre>
6098   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
6099     echo "$id" ; \
6100     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
6101   done
6102 </pre>
6103
6104 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
6105 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
6106
6107 <pre>
6108   acpi:ACPI0003:
6109     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
6110   acpi:device:
6111   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
6112   acpi:IBM0068:
6113     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
6114     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
6115     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
6116     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
6117   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
6118     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
6119     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
6120     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
6121   [...]
6122 </pre>
6123
6124 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
6125 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
6126 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
6127 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
6128
6129 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
6130 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
6131 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
6132
6133       </div>
6134       <div class="tags">
6135
6136
6137         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>.
6138
6139
6140       </div>
6141     </div>
6142     <div class="padding"></div>
6143
6144     <div class="entry">
6145       <div class="title">
6146         <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>
6147       </div>
6148       <div class="date">
6149         10th January 2013
6150       </div>
6151       <div class="body">
6152         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
6153 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
6154 Launcher and updated the Debian package
6155 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
6156 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
6157 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
6158 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
6159 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
6160 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
6161 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
6162 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
6163 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
6164 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
6165 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
6166 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
6167 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
6168 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
6169 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
6170
6171       </div>
6172       <div class="tags">
6173
6174
6175         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>.
6176
6177
6178       </div>
6179     </div>
6180     <div class="padding"></div>
6181
6182     <div class="entry">
6183       <div class="title">
6184         <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>
6185       </div>
6186       <div class="date">
6187          9th January 2013
6188       </div>
6189       <div class="body">
6190         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
6191 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
6192 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
6193 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
6194 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
6195 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
6196 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
6197 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
6198 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
6199 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
6200 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
6201
6202 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
6203 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
6204 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
6205 simple:
6206
6207 <ul>
6208
6209 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
6210   starting when a user log in.</li>
6211
6212 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
6213   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
6214
6215 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
6216   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
6217   packages.</li>
6218
6219 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
6220   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
6221
6222 </ul>
6223
6224 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
6225 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
6226 discover database to find packages and
6227 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
6228 packages.</p>
6229
6230 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
6231 draft package is now checked into
6232 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
6233 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
6234 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
6235 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
6236 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
6237 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
6238 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
6239 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
6240 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
6241 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
6242 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
6243 because of the freeze).</p>
6244
6245 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
6246 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
6247 inserted):</p>
6248
6249 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
6250
6251 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
6252 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
6253 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
6254
6255 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
6256 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
6257 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
6258 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
6259 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
6260 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
6261 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
6262
6263 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
6264 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
6265 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
6266 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
6267 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
6268 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
6269 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
6270 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
6271 not be installed?</p>
6272
6273 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
6274 please send me an email. :)</p>
6275
6276       </div>
6277       <div class="tags">
6278
6279
6280         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>.
6281
6282
6283       </div>
6284     </div>
6285     <div class="padding"></div>
6286
6287     <div class="entry">
6288       <div class="title">
6289         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
6290       </div>
6291       <div class="date">
6292          2nd January 2013
6293       </div>
6294       <div class="body">
6295         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
6296 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
6297 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
6298 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
6299 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
6300 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
6301 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
6302 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
6303 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
6304 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
6305
6306 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
6307 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
6308 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
6309
6310       </div>
6311       <div class="tags">
6312
6313
6314         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>.
6315
6316
6317       </div>
6318     </div>
6319     <div class="padding"></div>
6320
6321     <div class="entry">
6322       <div class="title">
6323         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
6324       </div>
6325       <div class="date">
6326         28th December 2012
6327       </div>
6328       <div class="body">
6329         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
6330 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
6331 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
6332 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
6333 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
6334 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
6335 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
6336 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
6337 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
6338 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
6339 followed by many others. :)</p>
6340
6341 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
6342 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
6343 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
6344 you want to donate to the project.</p>
6345
6346       </div>
6347       <div class="tags">
6348
6349
6350         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6351
6352
6353       </div>
6354     </div>
6355     <div class="padding"></div>
6356
6357     <div class="entry">
6358       <div class="title">
6359         <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>
6360       </div>
6361       <div class="date">
6362         25th December 2012
6363       </div>
6364       <div class="body">
6365         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
6366 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
6367
6368 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
6369 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
6370 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
6371 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
6372 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
6373 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
6374 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
6375 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
6376 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
6377 name.</p>
6378
6379 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
6380 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
6381 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
6382
6383 <blockquote><pre>
6384 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
6385 cd bitcoin
6386 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
6387 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
6388 </pre></blockquote>
6389
6390 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
6391 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
6392 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
6393 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
6394 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
6395 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
6396 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
6397 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
6398 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
6399
6400 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6401 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6402 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6403
6404       </div>
6405       <div class="tags">
6406
6407
6408         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>.
6409
6410
6411       </div>
6412     </div>
6413     <div class="padding"></div>
6414
6415     <div class="entry">
6416       <div class="title">
6417         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
6418       </div>
6419       <div class="date">
6420         21st December 2012
6421       </div>
6422       <div class="body">
6423         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
6424 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
6425 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
6426 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
6427 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
6428 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
6429 is now maintained by a
6430 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
6431 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
6432 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
6433 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
6434 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
6435 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
6436 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
6437 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
6438 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
6439 Corallo in a
6440 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
6441 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
6442 Debian package.</p>
6443
6444 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
6445 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
6446 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
6447 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
6448 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
6449 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
6450 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
6451 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
6452 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
6453 new version to unstable.
6454
6455 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
6456 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
6457 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
6458 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
6459 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
6460 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
6461 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
6462 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
6463 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
6464 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
6465 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
6466 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
6467 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
6468 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
6469 have not tested them.</p>
6470
6471 <p>My
6472 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
6473 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
6474 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
6475 years ago, as can be
6476 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
6477 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
6478 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
6479 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
6480 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
6481 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
6482 the same address as last time,
6483 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6484
6485       </div>
6486       <div class="tags">
6487
6488
6489         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>.
6490
6491
6492       </div>
6493     </div>
6494     <div class="padding"></div>
6495
6496     <div class="entry">
6497       <div class="title">
6498         <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>
6499       </div>
6500       <div class="date">
6501         18th December 2012
6502       </div>
6503       <div class="body">
6504         <p>A few days ago I came across
6505 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
6506 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
6507 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
6508 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
6509 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
6510 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
6511 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
6512 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
6513 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
6514
6515 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
6516 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
6517 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
6518 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
6519
6520 <blockquote><pre>
6521 2004-05-27 Book Store
6522       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
6523       Liabilities:Visa
6524 </pre></blockquote>
6525
6526 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
6527 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
6528 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
6529 Spang</a>,
6530 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
6531 Keen</a>,
6532 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
6533 Cantino</a> and
6534 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
6535 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
6536 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
6537 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
6538 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
6539
6540 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
6541 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
6542 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
6543 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
6544 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
6545
6546 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
6547 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
6548 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
6549 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
6550 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
6551 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
6552 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
6553 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
6554 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
6555
6556       </div>
6557       <div class="tags">
6558
6559
6560         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6561
6562
6563       </div>
6564     </div>
6565     <div class="padding"></div>
6566
6567     <div class="entry">
6568       <div class="title">
6569         <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>
6570       </div>
6571       <div class="date">
6572          6th December 2012
6573       </div>
6574       <div class="body">
6575         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
6576 Oslo</a>, we use the
6577 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
6578 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
6579 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
6580 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
6581 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
6582 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
6583 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
6584 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
6585 Python.</p>
6586
6587 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
6588 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
6589 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
6590 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
6591 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
6592 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
6593
6594 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
6595 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
6596 user currently logged in:</p>
6597
6598 <blockquote><pre>
6599 #!/usr/bin/env python
6600 import getpass
6601 import xmlrpclib
6602 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
6603 username = getpass.getuser()
6604 password = getpass.getpass()
6605 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
6606 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
6607 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
6608 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
6609 result = server.logout(sessionid)
6610 print result
6611 </pre></blockquote>
6612
6613 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
6614 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
6615
6616       </div>
6617       <div class="tags">
6618
6619
6620         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>.
6621
6622
6623       </div>
6624     </div>
6625     <div class="padding"></div>
6626
6627     <div class="entry">
6628       <div class="title">
6629         <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>
6630       </div>
6631       <div class="date">
6632         17th November 2012
6633       </div>
6634       <div class="body">
6635         <p>While working on a
6636 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
6637 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
6638 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
6639 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
6640 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
6641 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
6642
6643 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
6644 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
6645 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
6646 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
6647 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
6648 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
6649 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
6650 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
6651 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
6652 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
6653 arguments.</p>
6654
6655 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
6656 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
6657 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
6658 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
6659 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
6660 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
6661 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
6662 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
6663
6664 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
6665 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
6666 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
6667 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
6668 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
6669 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
6670 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
6671 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
6672 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
6673 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
6674 correct right holder.</p>
6675
6676 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
6677 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
6678 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
6679 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
6680 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
6681 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
6682 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
6683 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
6684 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
6685 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
6686 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
6687 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
6688 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
6689 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
6690
6691 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
6692 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
6693 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
6694
6695 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
6696 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
6697
6698       </div>
6699       <div class="tags">
6700
6701
6702         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>.
6703
6704
6705       </div>
6706     </div>
6707     <div class="padding"></div>
6708
6709     <div class="entry">
6710       <div class="title">
6711         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
6712       </div>
6713       <div class="date">
6714         14th November 2012
6715       </div>
6716       <div class="body">
6717         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
6718 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
6719 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
6720 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
6721 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
6722 the people behind the German
6723 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
6724 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
6725 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
6726
6727 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6728
6729 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
6730 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
6731 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
6732
6733 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
6734 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
6735 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
6736 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
6737 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
6738 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
6739
6740 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
6741 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
6742 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
6743 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
6744 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
6745 relationship management and the communication processes in the
6746 project.</p>
6747
6748 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
6749 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
6750 and a yoga teacher.</p>
6751
6752 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
6753 project?</strong></p>
6754
6755 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
6756
6757 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
6758 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
6759 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
6760 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
6761 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
6762 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
6763 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
6764 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
6765 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
6766 parents.</p>
6767
6768 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
6769 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
6770 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
6771 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
6772 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
6773 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
6774 Germany.</p>
6775
6776 <p>For information about our school project you can read
6777 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
6778 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
6779
6780 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6781 Edu?</strong></p>
6782
6783 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
6784 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
6785
6786 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
6787 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
6788 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
6789 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
6790 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
6791 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
6792 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
6793 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
6794 teachers, parents...</p>
6795
6796 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
6797 Edu?</strong></p>
6798
6799 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
6800 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
6801
6802 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
6803 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
6804 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
6805 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
6806 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
6807
6808 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
6809 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
6810 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
6811 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
6812 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
6813 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
6814 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
6815
6816 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6817
6818 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
6819 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
6820 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
6821 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
6822
6823 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6824 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6825
6826 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
6827 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
6828 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
6829 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
6830 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
6831
6832 <ul>
6833
6834 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
6835 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
6836 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
6837
6838 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
6839 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
6840 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
6841 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
6842 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
6843 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
6844 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
6845
6846 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
6847 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
6848 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
6849 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
6850
6851 </ul>
6852
6853       </div>
6854       <div class="tags">
6855
6856
6857         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
6858
6859
6860       </div>
6861     </div>
6862     <div class="padding"></div>
6863
6864     <div class="entry">
6865       <div class="title">
6866         <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>
6867       </div>
6868       <div class="date">
6869          4th November 2012
6870       </div>
6871       <div class="body">
6872         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
6873 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
6874 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
6875 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
6876 see how a member of the bitcoin community
6877 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
6878 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
6879 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
6880 competition.  My thoughts go to the
6881 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
6882 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
6883 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
6884 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
6885 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
6886
6887 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
6888 that the community already seem to have
6889 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
6890 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
6891 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
6892 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
6893 wealth is available.</p>
6894
6895       </div>
6896       <div class="tags">
6897
6898
6899         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>.
6900
6901
6902       </div>
6903     </div>
6904     <div class="padding"></div>
6905
6906     <div class="entry">
6907       <div class="title">
6908         <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>
6909       </div>
6910       <div class="date">
6911         26th October 2012
6912       </div>
6913       <div class="body">
6914         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
6915 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
6916 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
6917 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
6918 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
6919 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
6920 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
6921 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
6922 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
6923 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
6924 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
6925 it every time.</p>
6926
6927 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
6928 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
6929 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
6930 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
6931 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
6932 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
6933 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
6934 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
6935 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
6936 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
6937 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
6938 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
6939
6940 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
6941 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
6942 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
6943 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
6944 article: First the unplanned outage:
6945
6946 <blockquote><pre>
6947 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
6948 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
6949 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
6950 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
6951 Duration:    40 minutes
6952 Scope:       Exchange 2003
6953 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
6954              a cluster failover.
6955
6956 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
6957              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
6958 Technician:  [xxx]
6959 </pre></blockquote>
6960
6961 Next the planned outage:
6962
6963 <blockquote><pre>
6964 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
6965 Severity:    Major (Planned)
6966 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
6967 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
6968 Duration:    10 hours
6969 Scope:       H2 Transport
6970 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
6971              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
6972              4510s.
6973 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
6974              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
6975              connectivity.
6976 Technician:  [xxx]
6977 </pre></blockquote>
6978
6979 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
6980 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
6981 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
6982 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
6983 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
6984 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
6985 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
6986
6987 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
6988 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
6989 university too.  We do register
6990 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
6991 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
6992 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
6993 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
6994 for other sites to consider too?</p>
6995
6996       </div>
6997       <div class="tags">
6998
6999
7000         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>.
7001
7002
7003       </div>
7004     </div>
7005     <div class="padding"></div>
7006
7007     <div class="entry">
7008       <div class="title">
7009         <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>
7010       </div>
7011       <div class="date">
7012         22nd October 2012
7013       </div>
7014       <div class="body">
7015         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
7016 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
7017 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
7018 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
7019 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
7020 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
7021 background information is available in Norwegian from
7022 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
7023 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
7024 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
7025 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
7026 willing to
7027 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
7028 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
7029 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
7030 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
7031 sounded like
7032 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
7033 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
7034 later.</p>
7035
7036 <p>And thought this action is
7037 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
7038 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
7039 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
7040 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
7041 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
7042 rights.</p>
7043
7044 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
7045 unacceptable terms.  For example
7046 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
7047 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
7048 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
7049 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
7050 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
7051
7052 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
7053 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
7054 restored the account of the user, as reported by
7055 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
7056 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
7057 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
7058 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
7059 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
7060 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
7061 reading two opinions from
7062 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
7063 Phipps</a> and
7064 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
7065 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
7066 details about the original story.</p>
7067
7068       </div>
7069       <div class="tags">
7070
7071
7072         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>.
7073
7074
7075       </div>
7076     </div>
7077     <div class="padding"></div>
7078
7079     <div class="entry">
7080       <div class="title">
7081         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
7082       </div>
7083       <div class="date">
7084         18th October 2012
7085       </div>
7086       <div class="body">
7087         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
7088 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
7089 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
7090 across a marvellous drawing by
7091 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
7092 visualising some of what is going on.
7093
7094 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
7095 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
7096
7097 <blockquote>
7098 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
7099 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
7100 </blockquote>
7101
7102 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
7103 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
7104 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
7105 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
7106 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
7107 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
7108
7109       </div>
7110       <div class="tags">
7111
7112
7113         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>.
7114
7115
7116       </div>
7117     </div>
7118     <div class="padding"></div>
7119
7120     <div class="entry">
7121       <div class="title">
7122         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
7123       </div>
7124       <div class="date">
7125         12th October 2012
7126       </div>
7127       <div class="body">
7128         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
7129 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
7130 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
7131 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
7132 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
7133 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
7134 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
7135 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
7136 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
7137 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
7138 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
7139 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
7140 matter".</p>
7141
7142 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
7143 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
7144 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
7145 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
7146 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
7147 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
7148 to argue its side.</p>
7149
7150 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
7151 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
7152 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
7153 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
7154
7155 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
7156 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
7157 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
7158
7159       </div>
7160       <div class="tags">
7161
7162
7163         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>.
7164
7165
7166       </div>
7167     </div>
7168     <div class="padding"></div>
7169
7170     <div class="entry">
7171       <div class="title">
7172         <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>
7173       </div>
7174       <div class="date">
7175          3rd October 2012
7176       </div>
7177       <div class="body">
7178         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
7179 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
7180 the computer science book collection available in his local
7181 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
7182 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
7183 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
7184 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
7185 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
7186 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
7187 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
7188 recently published books.</p>
7189
7190 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
7191 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
7192 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
7193 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
7194 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
7195 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
7196 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
7197 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
7198 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
7199 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
7200 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
7201 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
7202 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
7203 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
7204 for the library that evening.</p>
7205
7206 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
7207 going to know that for example
7208 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
7209 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
7210 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
7211 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
7212 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
7213 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
7214 book right away.</p>
7215
7216       </div>
7217       <div class="tags">
7218
7219
7220         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7221
7222
7223       </div>
7224     </div>
7225     <div class="padding"></div>
7226
7227     <div class="entry">
7228       <div class="title">
7229         <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>
7230       </div>
7231       <div class="date">
7232         23rd September 2012
7233       </div>
7234       <div class="body">
7235         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
7236 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
7237 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
7238 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
7239 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
7240 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
7241
7242 When I started, I
7243 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
7244 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
7245 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
7246 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
7247 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
7248 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
7249 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
7250
7251 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
7252
7253 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
7254 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
7255 the project files currently available from
7256 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
7257
7258 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
7259 the updated
7260 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
7261 and
7262 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
7263 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
7264 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
7265 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
7266
7267       </div>
7268       <div class="tags">
7269
7270
7271         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>.
7272
7273
7274       </div>
7275     </div>
7276     <div class="padding"></div>
7277
7278     <div class="entry">
7279       <div class="title">
7280         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
7281       </div>
7282       <div class="date">
7283         17th September 2012
7284       </div>
7285       <div class="body">
7286         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
7287 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
7288 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
7289 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
7290 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
7291 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
7292 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
7293
7294 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7295
7296 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
7297 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
7298 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
7299 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
7300 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
7301 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
7302 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
7303 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
7304 training is anyway very important</p>
7305
7306 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
7307 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
7308 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
7309 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
7310 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
7311
7312 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
7313 project?</strong></p>
7314
7315 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
7316 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
7317 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
7318 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
7319 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
7320 hole.</p>
7321
7322 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7323 Edu?</strong></p>
7324
7325 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
7326 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
7327 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
7328 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
7329 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
7330 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
7331 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
7332 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
7333 hassle.</p>
7334
7335 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7336 Edu?</strong></p>
7337
7338 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
7339 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
7340 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
7341 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
7342 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
7343 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
7344 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
7345 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
7346
7347 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7348
7349 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
7350 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
7351 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
7352 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
7353 has the same...</p>
7354
7355 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
7356 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
7357 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
7358 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
7359
7360 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7361 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7362
7363 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
7364 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
7365 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
7366
7367 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
7368 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
7369 don't.</p>
7370
7371 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
7372 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
7373 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
7374 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
7375 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
7376 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
7377 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
7378
7379       </div>
7380       <div class="tags">
7381
7382
7383         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
7384
7385
7386       </div>
7387     </div>
7388     <div class="padding"></div>
7389
7390     <div class="entry">
7391       <div class="title">
7392         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
7393       </div>
7394       <div class="date">
7395         15th September 2012
7396       </div>
7397       <div class="body">
7398         <p>After the
7399 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
7400 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
7401 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
7402 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
7403 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
7404 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
7405 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
7406 was
7407 <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
7408 formal working group should be formed.</p>
7409
7410 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
7411 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
7412 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
7413 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
7414 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
7415 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
7416 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
7417 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
7418
7419 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
7420 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
7421 IETF.</p>
7422
7423       </div>
7424       <div class="tags">
7425
7426
7427         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>.
7428
7429
7430       </div>
7431     </div>
7432     <div class="padding"></div>
7433
7434     <div class="entry">
7435       <div class="title">
7436         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
7437       </div>
7438       <div class="date">
7439         12th September 2012
7440       </div>
7441       <div class="body">
7442         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
7443 publication of of
7444 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
7445 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
7446 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
7447 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
7448 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
7449 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
7450 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
7451 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
7452 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
7453 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
7454
7455 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
7456 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
7457 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
7458 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
7459
7460 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
7461 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
7462
7463       </div>
7464       <div class="tags">
7465
7466
7467         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>.
7468
7469
7470       </div>
7471     </div>
7472     <div class="padding"></div>
7473
7474     <div class="entry">
7475       <div class="title">
7476         <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>
7477       </div>
7478       <div class="date">
7479          7th September 2012
7480       </div>
7481       <div class="body">
7482         <p>As I
7483 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
7484 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
7485 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
7486 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
7487 repository for the project</a>.</p>
7488
7489 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
7490 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
7491 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
7492 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
7493
7494 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
7495 PostScript formats at
7496 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
7497 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
7498
7499       </div>
7500       <div class="tags">
7501
7502
7503         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>.
7504
7505
7506       </div>
7507     </div>
7508     <div class="padding"></div>
7509
7510     <div class="entry">
7511       <div class="title">
7512         <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>
7513       </div>
7514       <div class="date">
7515         23rd August 2012
7516       </div>
7517       <div class="body">
7518         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
7519 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
7520 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
7521 revisit the great site
7522 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
7523 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
7524 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
7525
7526       </div>
7527       <div class="tags">
7528
7529
7530         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>.
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/Half_way_there_with_translated_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html">Half way there with translated docbook version of Free Culture</a>
7540       </div>
7541       <div class="date">
7542         17th August 2012
7543       </div>
7544       <div class="body">
7545         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
7546 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
7547 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
7548 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
7549 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
7550 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
7551 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
7552 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
7553 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
7554 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
7555 summer I
7556 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
7557 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
7558 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
7559
7560 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
7561 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
7562 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
7563 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
7564 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
7565 progress:</p>
7566
7567 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
7568
7569 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
7570 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
7571 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
7572 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
7573 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
7574 english version of the docbook source.</p>
7575
7576 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
7577 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
7578 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
7579 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
7580 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
7581 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
7582 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
7583 project files currently available from <a
7584 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
7585
7586 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
7587 the updated
7588 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
7589 and
7590 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
7591 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
7592 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
7593 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
7594
7595       </div>
7596       <div class="tags">
7597
7598
7599         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>.
7600
7601
7602       </div>
7603     </div>
7604     <div class="padding"></div>
7605
7606     <div class="entry">
7607       <div class="title">
7608         <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>
7609       </div>
7610       <div class="date">
7611         10th August 2012
7612       </div>
7613       <div class="body">
7614         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
7615 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
7616 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
7617 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
7618 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
7619 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
7620 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
7621 case for the language
7622 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
7623 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
7624
7625 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
7626 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
7627 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
7628 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
7629 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
7630
7631 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
7632 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
7633 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
7634 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
7635 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
7636 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
7637 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
7638 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
7639 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
7640 alias for 'nb'.</p>
7641
7642 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
7643 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
7644 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
7645 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
7646 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
7647 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
7648 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
7649 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
7650 at the same time. :(</p>
7651
7652 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
7653 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
7654 processors. :(</p>
7655
7656 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
7657
7658       </div>
7659       <div class="tags">
7660
7661
7662         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>.
7663
7664
7665       </div>
7666     </div>
7667     <div class="padding"></div>
7668
7669     <div class="entry">
7670       <div class="title">
7671         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
7672       </div>
7673       <div class="date">
7674         31st July 2012
7675       </div>
7676       <div class="body">
7677         <p>I tried to send this text to the
7678 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
7679 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
7680 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
7681 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
7682 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
7683 out.</p>
7684
7685 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
7686 learning curve at the moment.</p>
7687
7688 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
7689 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
7690 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
7691 available from
7692 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
7693 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
7694 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
7695 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
7696 Squeeze.</p>
7697
7698 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
7699 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
7700 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
7701 problems.</p>
7702
7703 <ul>
7704
7705 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
7706    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
7707    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
7708    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
7709    index references spanning several pages (See
7710    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
7711    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
7712    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
7713
7714 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
7715    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
7716    #683163</a>).</li>
7717
7718 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
7719    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
7720    footnote and text body, see
7721    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
7722    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
7723    refs listed are not right).</li>
7724
7725 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
7726
7727 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
7728    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
7729
7730 </ul>
7731
7732 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
7733 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
7734 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
7735
7736 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
7737
7738       </div>
7739       <div class="tags">
7740
7741
7742         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>.
7743
7744
7745       </div>
7746     </div>
7747     <div class="padding"></div>
7748
7749     <div class="entry">
7750       <div class="title">
7751         <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>
7752       </div>
7753       <div class="date">
7754         21st July 2012
7755       </div>
7756       <div class="body">
7757         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
7758 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
7759 norwegian version</a> of the book
7760 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
7761 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
7762 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
7763 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
7764 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
7765
7766 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
7767 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
7768 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
7769 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
7770 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
7771 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
7772 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
7773 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
7774 print. :)</p>
7775
7776 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
7777 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
7778 language.</p>
7779
7780       </div>
7781       <div class="tags">
7782
7783
7784         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>.
7785
7786
7787       </div>
7788     </div>
7789     <div class="padding"></div>
7790
7791     <div class="entry">
7792       <div class="title">
7793         <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>
7794       </div>
7795       <div class="date">
7796         16th July 2012
7797       </div>
7798       <div class="body">
7799         <p>I am currently working on a
7800 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
7801 to translate</a> the book
7802 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
7803 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
7804 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
7805 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
7806 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
7807 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
7808 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
7809
7810 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
7811 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
7812 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
7813 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
7814 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
7815 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
7816 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
7817 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
7818 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
7819
7820       </div>
7821       <div class="tags">
7822
7823
7824         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>.
7825
7826
7827       </div>
7828     </div>
7829     <div class="padding"></div>
7830
7831     <div class="entry">
7832       <div class="title">
7833         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
7834       </div>
7835       <div class="date">
7836          9th July 2012
7837       </div>
7838       <div class="body">
7839         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
7840 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
7841 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
7842 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
7843 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
7844 to adjust and scale the just released
7845 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
7846 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
7847 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
7848
7849 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7850
7851 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
7852 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
7853 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
7854 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
7855 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
7856 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
7857 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
7858 perspective when working with IT.</p>
7859
7860 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
7861 project?</strong></p>
7862
7863 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
7864 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
7865 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
7866 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
7867 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
7868 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
7869
7870 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7871 Edu?</strong></p>
7872
7873 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
7874 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
7875 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
7876 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
7877 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
7878 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
7879 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
7880 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
7881 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
7882 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
7883 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
7884 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
7885 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
7886 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
7887 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
7888 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
7889 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
7890 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
7891 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
7892 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
7893 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
7894 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
7895 quicker to update.
7896
7897 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7898 Edu?</strong></p>
7899
7900 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
7901 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
7902 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
7903 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
7904 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
7905 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
7906
7907 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
7908 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
7909 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
7910 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
7911 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
7912 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
7913 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
7914 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
7915 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
7916 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
7917 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
7918 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
7919 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
7920 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
7921 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
7922
7923 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
7924 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
7925 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
7926 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
7927 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
7928 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
7929 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
7930 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
7931
7932 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
7933 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
7934 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
7935 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
7936 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
7937 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
7938 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
7939 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
7940 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
7941 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
7942 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
7943 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
7944 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
7945 sound file.</p>
7946
7947 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
7948 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
7949 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
7950 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
7951 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
7952 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
7953 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
7954 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
7955 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
7956
7957 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7958
7959 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
7960 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
7961 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
7962 )</p>
7963
7964 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7965 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7966
7967 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
7968 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
7969 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
7970 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
7971 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
7972 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
7973 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
7974 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
7975 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
7976 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
7977 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
7978 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
7979 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
7980 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
7981 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
7982
7983 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
7984 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
7985 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
7986 management with Airtime</a>,
7987 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
7988 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
7989 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
7990 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
7991 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
7992
7993       </div>
7994       <div class="tags">
7995
7996
7997         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
7998
7999
8000       </div>
8001     </div>
8002     <div class="padding"></div>
8003
8004     <div class="entry">
8005       <div class="title">
8006         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
8007       </div>
8008       <div class="date">
8009          8th July 2012
8010       </div>
8011       <div class="body">
8012         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
8013 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
8014 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
8015 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
8016 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
8017 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
8018 Steinberg in his blog post
8019 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
8020 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
8021 spending of your tax money.</p>
8022
8023 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
8024 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
8025 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
8026 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
8027 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
8028 purchases.</p>
8029
8030       </div>
8031       <div class="tags">
8032
8033
8034         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8035
8036
8037       </div>
8038     </div>
8039     <div class="padding"></div>
8040
8041     <div class="entry">
8042       <div class="title">
8043         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
8044       </div>
8045       <div class="date">
8046          7th July 2012
8047       </div>
8048       <div class="body">
8049         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
8050 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
8051 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
8052 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
8053 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
8054 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
8055 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
8056 receive.  The software is
8057
8058 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
8059 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
8060 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
8061 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
8062 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
8063 Windows</a>.</p>
8064
8065 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
8066 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
8067
8068 <p><ul>
8069
8070   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
8071     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
8072
8073   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
8074     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
8075     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
8076     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
8077     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
8078     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
8079     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
8080     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
8081     </li>
8082
8083   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
8084     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
8085
8086   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
8087     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
8088
8089   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
8090     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
8091
8092   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
8093
8094   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
8095     formats </li>
8096
8097   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
8098     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
8099     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
8100     (as separate sets)</li>
8101
8102   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
8103     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
8104     percentage)</li>
8105
8106   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
8107     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
8108     memory):
8109     <ul>
8110       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
8111       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
8112       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
8113       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
8114       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
8115       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
8116       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
8117       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
8118       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
8119       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
8120           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
8121           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
8122           activity)</li>
8123       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
8124       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
8125     </ul></li>
8126
8127   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
8128     <ul>
8129       <li>Break periods</li>
8130       <li>For teacher(s):
8131         <ul>
8132           <li>Not available periods</li>
8133           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
8134           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
8135           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
8136           <li>Min hours daily</li>
8137           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
8138
8139           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
8140             days per week</li>
8141         </ul></li>
8142       <li>For students (sets):
8143         <ul>
8144           <li>Not available periods</li>
8145           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
8146           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
8147           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
8148           <li>Min hours daily</li>
8149           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
8150
8151           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
8152             days per week</li>
8153         </ul></li>
8154       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
8155         <ul>
8156           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
8157           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
8158           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
8159           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
8160           <li>End(s) students day</li>
8161           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
8162           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
8163             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
8164           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
8165           <li>Not overlapping</li>
8166           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
8167           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
8168         </ul></li>
8169     </ul></li>
8170
8171   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
8172     <ul>
8173       <li>Room not available periods</li>
8174       <li>For teacher(s):
8175         <ul>
8176           <li>Home room(s)</li>
8177           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
8178           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
8179         </ul>
8180       </li>
8181
8182       <li>For students (sets):
8183         <ul>
8184           <li>Home room(s)</li>
8185           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
8186           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
8187         </ul>
8188       </li>
8189       <li>Preferred room(s):
8190         <ul>
8191           <li>For a subject</li>
8192           <li>For an activity tag</li>
8193           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
8194           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
8195         </ul>
8196       </li>
8197
8198       <li>For a set of activities:
8199         <ul>
8200           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
8201         </ul>
8202       </li>
8203     </ul>
8204   </li>
8205 </ul></p>
8206
8207 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
8208 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
8209 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
8210 manually, check it out.
8211
8212 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
8213 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
8214 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
8215 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
8216 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
8217 section</a>.</p>
8218
8219       </div>
8220       <div class="tags">
8221
8222
8223         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8224
8225
8226       </div>
8227     </div>
8228     <div class="padding"></div>
8229
8230     <div class="entry">
8231       <div class="title">
8232         <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>
8233       </div>
8234       <div class="date">
8235          3rd July 2012
8236       </div>
8237       <div class="body">
8238         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
8239 project (Norwegian version of
8240 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
8241 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
8242 a problem with the municipalities using
8243 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
8244 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
8245 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
8246 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
8247 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
8248 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
8249 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
8250 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
8251 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
8252 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
8253 the From: header.</p>
8254
8255 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
8256 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
8257 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
8258 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
8259 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
8260 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
8261 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
8262 behaviour.</p>
8263
8264 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
8265 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
8266 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
8267 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
8268 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
8269 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
8270 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
8271
8272       </div>
8273       <div class="tags">
8274
8275
8276         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>.
8277
8278
8279       </div>
8280     </div>
8281     <div class="padding"></div>
8282
8283     <div class="entry">
8284       <div class="title">
8285         <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>
8286       </div>
8287       <div class="date">
8288         26th June 2012
8289       </div>
8290       <div class="body">
8291         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
8292 another interview with the people behind
8293 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
8294 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
8295 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
8296 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
8297 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
8298 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
8299 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
8300
8301 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8302
8303 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
8304 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
8305 ICT in schools</p>
8306
8307 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8308 project?</strong></p>
8309
8310 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
8311 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
8312 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
8313 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
8314
8315 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8316 Edu?</strong></p>
8317
8318 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
8319 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
8320 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
8321 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
8322
8323 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8324 Edu?</strong></p>
8325
8326 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
8327 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
8328 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
8329 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
8330 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
8331 technologies in school.</p>
8332
8333 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8334
8335 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
8336 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
8337 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
8338
8339 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8340 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8341
8342 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
8343 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
8344 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
8345 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
8346
8347 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
8348 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
8349 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
8350
8351 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
8352 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
8353 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
8354 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
8355 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
8356 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
8357 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
8358 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
8359 working there.</p>
8360
8361       </div>
8362       <div class="tags">
8363
8364
8365         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
8366
8367
8368       </div>
8369     </div>
8370     <div class="padding"></div>
8371
8372     <div class="entry">
8373       <div class="title">
8374         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
8375       </div>
8376       <div class="date">
8377         24th June 2012
8378       </div>
8379       <div class="body">
8380         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
8381 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
8382 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
8383 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
8384 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
8385 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
8386 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
8387 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
8388 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
8389 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
8390 missing in my book.</p>
8391
8392 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
8393 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
8394 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
8395 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
8396 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
8397 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
8398 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
8399
8400       </div>
8401       <div class="tags">
8402
8403
8404         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>.
8405
8406
8407       </div>
8408     </div>
8409     <div class="padding"></div>
8410
8411     <div class="entry">
8412       <div class="title">
8413         <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>
8414       </div>
8415       <div class="date">
8416         11th June 2012
8417       </div>
8418       <div class="body">
8419         <p>During my work on
8420 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
8421 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
8422 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
8423 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
8424 explanation.</p>
8425
8426 <p><ul>
8427
8428 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
8429 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
8430 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
8431 system depend on tasksel tasks in
8432 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
8433 installation.</li>
8434
8435 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
8436 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
8437 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
8438 at least try to enable it for these services:
8439 <ul>
8440
8441   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
8442     quotas.</li>
8443   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
8444   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
8445   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
8446   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
8447   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
8448
8449 </ul></li>
8450
8451 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
8452 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
8453 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
8454 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
8455
8456 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
8457 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
8458 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
8459
8460 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
8461 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
8462 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
8463 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
8464 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
8465 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
8466
8467 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
8468 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
8469 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
8470 in Wheezy.
8471
8472 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
8473 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
8474 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
8475
8476 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
8477 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
8478 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
8479 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
8480
8481 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
8482 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
8483 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
8484 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
8485
8486 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
8487 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
8488 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
8489
8490 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
8491 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
8492 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
8493
8494 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
8495 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
8496 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
8497 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
8498 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
8499
8500 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
8501 <ul>
8502
8503 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
8504 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
8505 <li>and probably more?</li>
8506 </ul></li>
8507
8508 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
8509 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
8510 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
8511 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
8512 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
8513 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
8514 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
8515 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
8516
8517
8518 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
8519 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
8520 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
8521 use.</li>
8522
8523 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
8524 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
8525 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
8526 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
8527 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
8528
8529 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
8530 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
8531 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
8532 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
8533 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
8534 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
8535
8536 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
8537 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
8538 There are at least three implementations,
8539 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
8540 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
8541 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
8542 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
8543 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
8544 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
8545 given room.</li>
8546
8547 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
8548 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
8549 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
8550 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
8551 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
8552 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
8553 investigated.</li>
8554
8555 </ul></p>
8556
8557 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
8558 version.</p>
8559
8560       </div>
8561       <div class="tags">
8562
8563
8564         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8565
8566
8567       </div>
8568     </div>
8569     <div class="padding"></div>
8570
8571     <div class="entry">
8572       <div class="title">
8573         <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>
8574       </div>
8575       <div class="date">
8576          9th June 2012
8577       </div>
8578       <div class="body">
8579         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
8580 <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
8581 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
8582 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
8583 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
8584 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
8585 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
8586 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
8587 be willing to pay for.</p>
8588
8589 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
8590 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
8591 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
8592 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
8593 Orwell</a>.</p>
8594
8595       </div>
8596       <div class="tags">
8597
8598
8599         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>.
8600
8601
8602       </div>
8603     </div>
8604     <div class="padding"></div>
8605
8606     <div class="entry">
8607       <div class="title">
8608         <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>
8609       </div>
8610       <div class="date">
8611          6th June 2012
8612       </div>
8613       <div class="body">
8614         <p>A few days ago
8615 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
8616 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
8617 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
8618 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
8619 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
8620 code for HP, Dell and IBM
8621 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
8622 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
8623 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
8624 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
8625 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
8626
8627 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
8628 output:
8629
8630 <blockquote><pre>
8631 % 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>
8632 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": ""})
8633 %
8634 </pre></blockquote>
8635
8636 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
8637 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
8638 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
8639
8640       </div>
8641       <div class="tags">
8642
8643
8644         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
8645
8646
8647       </div>
8648     </div>
8649     <div class="padding"></div>
8650
8651     <div class="entry">
8652       <div class="title">
8653         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
8654       </div>
8655       <div class="date">
8656          2nd June 2012
8657       </div>
8658       <div class="body">
8659         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
8660 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
8661 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
8662 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
8663 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
8664 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
8665
8666 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8667
8668 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
8669 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
8670 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
8671 by Angela).</p>
8672
8673 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
8674 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
8675 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
8676 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
8677 becoming an osteopath.</p>
8678
8679 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
8680 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
8681 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
8682 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
8683 skills with communication skills.</p>
8684
8685 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8686 project?</strong></p>
8687
8688 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
8689 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
8690 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
8691 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
8692 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
8693
8694 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
8695 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
8696 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
8697 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
8698 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
8699 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
8700 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
8701 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
8702 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
8703
8704 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
8705 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
8706 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
8707
8708 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
8709
8710 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
8711 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
8712 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
8713 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
8714 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
8715 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
8716 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
8717 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
8718 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
8719 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
8720 point.</p>
8721
8722 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
8723 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
8724 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
8725 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
8726 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
8727 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
8728
8729 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
8730 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
8731 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
8732 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
8733 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
8734 spare time.</p>
8735
8736 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
8737 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
8738 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
8739 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
8740 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
8741
8742 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
8743 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
8744 avoidance do exist.</p>
8745
8746 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
8747 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
8748 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
8749 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
8750 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
8751 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
8752 and probably a gain for all.</p>
8753
8754 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8755 Edu?</strong></p>
8756
8757 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
8758 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
8759 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
8760 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
8761 project communication, honest communication within the group of
8762 developers, etc.</p>
8763
8764 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8765 Edu?</strong></p>
8766
8767 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
8768
8769 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
8770 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
8771 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
8772 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
8773 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
8774 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
8775 contribute).</p>
8776
8777 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
8778 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
8779 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
8780 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
8781 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
8782 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
8783 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
8784 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
8785 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
8786 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
8787
8788 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8789
8790 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
8791
8792 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
8793 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
8794 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
8795
8796 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
8797 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
8798 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
8799 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
8800
8801 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
8802 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
8803 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
8804 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
8805 whiteboard.</p>
8806
8807 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
8808
8809 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8810 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8811
8812 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
8813 enrol people.</p>
8814
8815       </div>
8816       <div class="tags">
8817
8818
8819         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
8820
8821
8822       </div>
8823     </div>
8824     <div class="padding"></div>
8825
8826     <div class="entry">
8827       <div class="title">
8828         <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>
8829       </div>
8830       <div class="date">
8831          1st June 2012
8832       </div>
8833       <div class="body">
8834         <p>A few years ago I wrote
8835 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
8836 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
8837 I have learned from colleges here at the
8838 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
8839 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
8840 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
8841 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
8842 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
8843
8844 <p><pre>
8845 use strict;
8846 use warnings;
8847 use SOAP::Lite;
8848 use Data::Dumper;
8849 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
8850 my $App = 'test';
8851 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
8852 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
8853 my $s = SOAP::Lite
8854     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
8855     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
8856     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
8857     ;
8858 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
8859     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
8860     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
8861     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
8862 );
8863 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
8864 </pre></p>
8865
8866 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
8867
8868 <p><pre>
8869 $VAR1 = {
8870           'Asset' => {
8871                      'Entitlements' => {
8872                                        'EntitlementData' => [
8873                                                             {
8874                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
8875                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
8876                                                               'Provider' => '',
8877                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
8878                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
8879                                                             },
8880                                                             {
8881                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
8882                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
8883                                                               'Provider' => '',
8884                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
8885                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
8886                                                             },
8887                                                             {
8888                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
8889                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
8890                                                               'Provider' => '',
8891                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
8892                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
8893                                                             }
8894                                                           ]
8895                                      },
8896                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
8897                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
8898                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
8899                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
8900                                           'Buid' => '2323',
8901                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
8902                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
8903                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
8904                                         }
8905                    }
8906         };
8907 </pre></p>
8908
8909 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
8910 service outside the
8911 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
8912 documentation</a>, and according to
8913 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
8914 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
8915 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
8916
8917 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
8918 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
8919
8920       </div>
8921       <div class="tags">
8922
8923
8924         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>.
8925
8926
8927       </div>
8928     </div>
8929     <div class="padding"></div>
8930
8931     <div class="entry">
8932       <div class="title">
8933         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
8934       </div>
8935       <div class="date">
8936         31st May 2012
8937       </div>
8938       <div class="body">
8939         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
8940 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
8941 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
8942 running Debian Squeeze, where
8943 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
8944 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
8945 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
8946 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
8947 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
8948 another day.</p>
8949
8950 <p>After calibration, I get a
8951 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
8952 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
8953 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
8954 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
8955 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
8956 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
8957 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
8958 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
8959 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
8960 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
8961 and a simple</p>
8962
8963 <p><pre>
8964 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
8965 </pre></p>
8966
8967 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
8968 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
8969 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
8970 enough for now.</p>
8971
8972       </div>
8973       <div class="tags">
8974
8975
8976         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8977
8978
8979       </div>
8980     </div>
8981     <div class="padding"></div>
8982
8983     <div class="entry">
8984       <div class="title">
8985         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
8986       </div>
8987       <div class="date">
8988         27th May 2012
8989       </div>
8990       <div class="body">
8991         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
8992 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
8993 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
8994 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
8995 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
8996 since then, helping to make sure the
8997 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
8998 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
8999
9000 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9001
9002 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
9003 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
9004 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
9005 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
9006 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
9007 our computer network.</p>
9008
9009 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
9010 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
9011 (4 months).</p>
9012
9013 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9014 project?</strong></p>
9015
9016 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
9017 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
9018 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
9019 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
9020 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
9021 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
9022 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
9023 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
9024 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
9025 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
9026 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
9027 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
9028 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
9029 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
9030
9031 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9032 Edu?</strong></p>
9033
9034 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
9035 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
9036 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
9037 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
9038 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
9039 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
9040 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
9041 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
9042
9043 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9044 Edu?</strong></p>
9045
9046 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
9047 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
9048 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
9049 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
9050 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
9051 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
9052 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
9053 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
9054 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
9055 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
9056 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
9057 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
9058
9059 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9060
9061 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
9062 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
9063 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
9064
9065 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9066 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9067
9068 <p><ol>
9069
9070 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
9071 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
9072 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
9073 developing.</li>
9074
9075 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
9076 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
9077 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
9078 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
9079 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
9080
9081 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
9082 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
9083 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
9084
9085 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
9086 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
9087 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
9088 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
9089
9090 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
9091 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
9092 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
9093
9094 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
9095
9096 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
9097 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
9098 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
9099 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
9100
9101 </ol></p>
9102
9103       </div>
9104       <div class="tags">
9105
9106
9107         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9108
9109
9110       </div>
9111     </div>
9112     <div class="padding"></div>
9113
9114     <div class="entry">
9115       <div class="title">
9116         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
9117       </div>
9118       <div class="date">
9119         26th May 2012
9120       </div>
9121       <div class="body">
9122         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
9123 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
9124 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
9125 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
9126 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
9127
9128 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
9129 <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>
9130 comment:</p>
9131
9132 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
9133 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
9134 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
9135 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
9136 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
9137 </blockquote></p>
9138
9139 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
9140 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
9141 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
9142 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
9143 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
9144 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
9145 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
9146 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
9147 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
9148 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
9149 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
9150 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
9151 of wasted effort.</p>
9152
9153 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
9154 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
9155 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
9156
9157 <p>See
9158 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
9159 and
9160 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
9161 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
9162 </blockquote></p>
9163
9164       </div>
9165       <div class="tags">
9166
9167
9168         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>.
9169
9170
9171       </div>
9172     </div>
9173     <div class="padding"></div>
9174
9175     <div class="entry">
9176       <div class="title">
9177         <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>
9178       </div>
9179       <div class="date">
9180         18th May 2012
9181       </div>
9182       <div class="body">
9183         <p>In january, I
9184 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
9185 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
9186 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
9187 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
9188 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
9189 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
9190 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
9191 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
9192 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
9193 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
9194
9195 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
9196 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
9197 drivers. :)</p>
9198
9199       </div>
9200       <div class="tags">
9201
9202
9203         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9204
9205
9206       </div>
9207     </div>
9208     <div class="padding"></div>
9209
9210     <div class="entry">
9211       <div class="title">
9212         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
9213       </div>
9214       <div class="date">
9215         13th May 2012
9216       </div>
9217       <div class="body">
9218         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
9219 publish another interview with the people behind
9220 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
9221 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
9222 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
9223 details get right before release.
9224
9225 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9226
9227 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
9228 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
9229 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
9230 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
9231 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
9232 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
9233 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
9234 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
9235
9236 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
9237 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
9238 home since 2006.</p>
9239
9240 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9241 project?</strong></p>
9242
9243 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
9244 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
9245 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
9246 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
9247 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
9248 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
9249
9250 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
9251 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
9252 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
9253 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
9254 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
9255 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
9256 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
9257 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
9258 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
9259 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
9260 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
9261 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
9262 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
9263 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
9264 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
9265 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
9266
9267 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9268 Edu?</strong></p>
9269
9270 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
9271 for me as today.</p>
9272
9273 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
9274
9275 <p><ul>
9276
9277 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
9278 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
9279
9280 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
9281 cost.</li>
9282
9283 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
9284 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
9285 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
9286 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
9287 server</li>
9288
9289 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
9290 school.</li>
9291
9292 </ul></p>
9293
9294 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
9295 came up in this way:</p>
9296
9297 <p><ul>
9298
9299 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
9300 now.</li>
9301
9302 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
9303 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
9304 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
9305
9306 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
9307 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
9308 interfaces used in the past.</li>
9309
9310 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
9311 different needs.</li>
9312
9313 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
9314
9315 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
9316 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
9317 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
9318
9319 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
9320 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
9321
9322 </ul></p>
9323
9324 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9325 Edu?</strong></p>
9326
9327 <p><ul>
9328
9329 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
9330 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
9331 whole municipality areas.</li>
9332
9333 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
9334 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
9335 politicians.</li>
9336
9337 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
9338
9339 </ul></p>
9340
9341 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9342
9343 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
9344 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
9345 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
9346 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
9347 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
9348 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
9349
9350 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
9351 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
9352 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
9353 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
9354 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
9355
9356 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9357 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9358
9359 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
9360 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
9361 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
9362
9363       </div>
9364       <div class="tags">
9365
9366
9367         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9368
9369
9370       </div>
9371     </div>
9372     <div class="padding"></div>
9373
9374     <div class="entry">
9375       <div class="title">
9376         <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>
9377       </div>
9378       <div class="date">
9379         30th April 2012
9380       </div>
9381       <div class="body">
9382         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
9383 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
9384
9385 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
9386 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
9387 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
9388 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
9389 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
9390 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
9391 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
9392 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
9393 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
9394 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
9395 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
9396 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
9397 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
9398 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
9399 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
9400 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
9401
9402 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
9403 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
9404 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
9405 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
9406 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
9407 finally found a Danish supplier
9408 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
9409 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
9410 days ago.</p>
9411
9412 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
9413 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
9414 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
9415 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
9416 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
9417 toys.</p>
9418
9419       </div>
9420       <div class="tags">
9421
9422
9423         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9424
9425
9426       </div>
9427     </div>
9428     <div class="padding"></div>
9429
9430     <div class="entry">
9431       <div class="title">
9432         <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>
9433       </div>
9434       <div class="date">
9435         26th April 2012
9436       </div>
9437       <div class="body">
9438         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
9439 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
9440 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
9441 that the video editor application included with
9442 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
9443 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
9444 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
9445
9446 <p><blockquote>
9447 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
9448 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
9449 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
9450 </blockquote></p>
9451
9452 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
9453
9454 <p><blockquote>
9455 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
9456 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
9457 </blockquote></p>
9458
9459 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
9460 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
9461 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
9462 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
9463 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
9464 video.  AMR is
9465 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
9466 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
9467 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
9468 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
9469 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
9470 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
9471 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
9472
9473 <p>I know why I prefer
9474 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
9475 standards</a> also for video.</p>
9476
9477       </div>
9478       <div class="tags">
9479
9480
9481         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>.
9482
9483
9484       </div>
9485     </div>
9486     <div class="padding"></div>
9487
9488     <div class="entry">
9489       <div class="title">
9490         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
9491       </div>
9492       <div class="date">
9493         19th April 2012
9494       </div>
9495       <div class="body">
9496         <p>Here in Norway, the
9497 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
9498 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
9499 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
9500 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
9501 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
9502 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
9503 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
9504 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
9505 on the same level.</p>
9506
9507 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
9508 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
9509 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
9510 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
9511 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
9512 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
9513 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
9514 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
9515 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
9516 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
9517 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
9518 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
9519 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
9520 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
9521 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
9522 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
9523 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
9524 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
9525
9526 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
9527 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
9528 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
9529 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
9530 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
9531 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
9532 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
9533 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
9534
9535 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
9536 from Simon Phipps
9537 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
9538 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
9539
9540 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
9541 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
9542 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
9543 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
9544 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
9545 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
9546 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
9547 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
9548 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
9549
9550       </div>
9551       <div class="tags">
9552
9553
9554         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>.
9555
9556
9557       </div>
9558     </div>
9559     <div class="padding"></div>
9560
9561     <div class="entry">
9562       <div class="title">
9563         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
9564       </div>
9565       <div class="date">
9566         15th April 2012
9567       </div>
9568       <div class="body">
9569         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
9570 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
9571 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
9572 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
9573 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
9574 up in the recently released
9575 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
9576 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
9577
9578 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9579
9580 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
9581 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
9582 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
9583 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
9584 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
9585 information technology and science/technology.</p>
9586
9587 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9588 project?</strong></p>
9589
9590 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
9591 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
9592 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
9593 contributing.</p>
9594
9595 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9596 Edu?</strong></p>
9597
9598 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
9599 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
9600 Debian Project!</p>
9601
9602 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9603 Edu?</strong></p>
9604
9605 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
9606 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
9607 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
9608 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
9609 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
9610 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
9611 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
9612
9613 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
9614 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
9615
9616 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9617
9618 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
9619 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
9620 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
9621 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
9622
9623 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9624 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9625
9626 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
9627 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
9628 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
9629 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
9630 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
9631 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
9632 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
9633
9634 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
9635 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
9636 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
9637 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
9638 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
9639 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
9640 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
9641 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
9642
9643       </div>
9644       <div class="tags">
9645
9646
9647         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9648
9649
9650       </div>
9651     </div>
9652     <div class="padding"></div>
9653
9654     <div class="entry">
9655       <div class="title">
9656         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
9657       </div>
9658       <div class="date">
9659          8th April 2012
9660       </div>
9661       <div class="body">
9662         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
9663 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
9664 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
9665 contributor to the
9666 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
9667 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
9668
9669 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9670
9671 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
9672 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
9673
9674 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9675 project?</strong></p>
9676
9677 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
9678 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
9679 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
9680 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
9681 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
9682 "localisation".</p>
9683
9684 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9685 Edu?</strong></p>
9686
9687 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9688 Edu?</strong></p>
9689
9690 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
9691 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
9692 education system.</p>
9693
9694 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
9695 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
9696 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
9697 money on the latest hardware.</p>
9698
9699 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9700
9701 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
9702 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
9703 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
9704
9705 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9706 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9707
9708 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
9709 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
9710 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
9711
9712       </div>
9713       <div class="tags">
9714
9715
9716         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9717
9718
9719       </div>
9720     </div>
9721     <div class="padding"></div>
9722
9723     <div class="entry">
9724       <div class="title">
9725         <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>
9726       </div>
9727       <div class="date">
9728          6th April 2012
9729       </div>
9730       <div class="body">
9731         <p>Recently I have spent time with
9732 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
9733 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
9734 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
9735 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
9736 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
9737 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
9738 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
9739 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
9740
9741 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
9742 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
9743 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
9744 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
9745 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
9746 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
9747 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
9748 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
9749
9750 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
9751 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
9752 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
9753 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
9754 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
9755 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
9756 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
9757 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
9758
9759 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
9760 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
9761 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
9762 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
9763 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
9764 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
9765 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
9766 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
9767 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
9768 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
9769
9770 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
9771 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
9772 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
9773 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
9774
9775 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
9776 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
9777
9778       </div>
9779       <div class="tags">
9780
9781
9782         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9783
9784
9785       </div>
9786     </div>
9787     <div class="padding"></div>
9788
9789     <div class="entry">
9790       <div class="title">
9791         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
9792       </div>
9793       <div class="date">
9794          5th April 2012
9795       </div>
9796       <div class="body">
9797         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
9798 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
9799 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
9800 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
9801 for schools.  Check out his article
9802 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
9803 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
9804
9805       </div>
9806       <div class="tags">
9807
9808
9809         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9810
9811
9812       </div>
9813     </div>
9814     <div class="padding"></div>
9815
9816     <div class="entry">
9817       <div class="title">
9818         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
9819       </div>
9820       <div class="date">
9821          1st April 2012
9822       </div>
9823       <div class="body">
9824         <p>Germany is a core area for the
9825 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
9826 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
9827 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
9828
9829 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9830
9831 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
9832 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
9833 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
9834 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
9835 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
9836 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
9837 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
9838 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
9839
9840 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
9841 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
9842 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
9843 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
9844 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
9845 the end of April this year.</p>
9846
9847 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9848 project?</strong></p>
9849
9850 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
9851 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
9852 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
9853 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
9854 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
9855 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
9856 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
9857 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
9858 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
9859 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
9860 Skolelinux.</p>
9861
9862 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
9863 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
9864 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
9865 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
9866 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
9867 the admin teachers.</p>
9868
9869 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9870 Edu?</strong></p>
9871
9872 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
9873 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
9874 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
9875
9876 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
9877 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
9878 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
9879 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
9880 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
9881
9882 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9883 Edu?</strong></p>
9884
9885 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
9886
9887 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9888
9889 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
9890 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
9891 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
9892 LibreOffice.</p>
9893
9894 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9895 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9896
9897 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
9898 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
9899 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
9900
9901       </div>
9902       <div class="tags">
9903
9904
9905         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9906
9907
9908       </div>
9909     </div>
9910     <div class="padding"></div>
9911
9912     <div class="entry">
9913       <div class="title">
9914         <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>
9915       </div>
9916       <div class="date">
9917         25th March 2012
9918       </div>
9919       <div class="body">
9920         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
9921
9922 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
9923 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
9924 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
9925 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
9926 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
9927 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
9928 and download as a
9929 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
9930 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
9931
9932 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
9933   <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"' />
9934     <p>Download video as
9935       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
9936 </video></p>
9937
9938       </div>
9939       <div class="tags">
9940
9941
9942         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9943
9944
9945       </div>
9946     </div>
9947     <div class="padding"></div>
9948
9949     <div class="entry">
9950       <div class="title">
9951         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
9952       </div>
9953       <div class="date">
9954         19th March 2012
9955       </div>
9956       <div class="body">
9957         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
9958 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
9959 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
9960 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
9961 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
9962
9963 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9964
9965 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
9966 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
9967 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
9968 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
9969 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
9970 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
9971 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
9972 installations.</p>
9973
9974 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9975 project?</strong></p>
9976
9977 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
9978 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
9979 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
9980 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
9981 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
9982 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
9983 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
9984 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
9985 these things we decided to try it.</p>
9986
9987 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9988 Edu?</strong></p>
9989
9990 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
9991 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
9992 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
9993 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
9994 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
9995 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
9996 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
9997 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
9998
9999 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10000 Edu?</strong></p>
10001
10002 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
10003 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
10004 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
10005 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
10006 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
10007
10008 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10009
10010 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
10011 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
10012 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
10013 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
10014 that counts...)</p>
10015
10016 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10017 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10018
10019 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
10020 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
10021 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
10022 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
10023 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
10024 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
10025 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
10026 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
10027 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
10028 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
10029 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
10030
10031 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
10032 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
10033 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
10034
10035       </div>
10036       <div class="tags">
10037
10038
10039         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10040
10041
10042       </div>
10043     </div>
10044     <div class="padding"></div>
10045
10046     <div class="entry">
10047       <div class="title">
10048         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
10049       </div>
10050       <div class="date">
10051         16th March 2012
10052       </div>
10053       <div class="body">
10054         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
10055 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
10056 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
10057 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
10058
10059 <ol>
10060
10061 <li>The documentation is written in a
10062 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
10063 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
10064 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
10065 docbook XML.</li>
10066
10067 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
10068 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
10069 with the translated text.</li>
10070
10071 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
10072 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
10073 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
10074 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
10075 images.</li>
10076
10077 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
10078 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
10079
10080 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
10081 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
10082
10083 </ol>
10084
10085 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
10086 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
10087 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
10088 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
10089 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
10090
10091 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
10092 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
10093 package</a>.</p>
10094
10095       </div>
10096       <div class="tags">
10097
10098
10099         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10100
10101
10102       </div>
10103     </div>
10104     <div class="padding"></div>
10105
10106     <div class="entry">
10107       <div class="title">
10108         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
10109       </div>
10110       <div class="date">
10111         11th March 2012
10112       </div>
10113       <div class="body">
10114         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
10115 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
10116 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
10117 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
10118 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
10119 you have not done so already.</p>
10120
10121 <p>I plan to present the new version at
10122 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
10123 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
10124 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
10125
10126       </div>
10127       <div class="tags">
10128
10129
10130         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10131
10132
10133       </div>
10134     </div>
10135     <div class="padding"></div>
10136
10137     <div class="entry">
10138       <div class="title">
10139         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
10140       </div>
10141       <div class="date">
10142          9th March 2012
10143       </div>
10144       <div class="body">
10145         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
10146 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
10147 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
10148 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
10149 more international audience.</p>
10150
10151 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
10152 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
10153 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
10154 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
10155 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
10156 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
10157 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
10158
10159
10160 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
10161
10162 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
10163 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
10164 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
10165 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
10166 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
10167 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
10168 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
10169 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
10170 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
10171 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
10172 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
10173
10174 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
10175 project?</strong></p>
10176
10177 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
10178 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
10179 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
10180 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
10181 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
10182 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
10183 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
10184 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
10185 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
10186 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
10187 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
10188 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
10189 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
10190
10191 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10192 Edu?</strong></p>
10193
10194 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
10195 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
10196 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
10197 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
10198 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
10199 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
10200 Japan.</p>
10201
10202 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
10203 Edu?</strong></p>
10204
10205 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
10206 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
10207 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
10208 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
10209 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
10210 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
10211 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
10212 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
10213 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
10214 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
10215 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
10216 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
10217 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
10218 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
10219 help.</p>
10220
10221 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
10222
10223 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
10224 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
10225 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
10226 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
10227 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
10228 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
10229 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
10230 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
10231 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
10232 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
10233 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
10234
10235 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
10236 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
10237
10238 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
10239 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
10240 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
10241 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
10242 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
10243 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
10244 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
10245 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
10246 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
10247 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
10248 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
10249 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
10250
10251       </div>
10252       <div class="tags">
10253
10254
10255         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10256
10257
10258       </div>
10259     </div>
10260     <div class="padding"></div>
10261
10262     <div class="entry">
10263       <div class="title">
10264         <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>
10265       </div>
10266       <div class="date">
10267          7th March 2012
10268       </div>
10269       <div class="body">
10270         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
10271
10272 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
10273 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
10274 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
10275 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
10276 download as a
10277 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
10278 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
10279
10280 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
10281   <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"' />
10282     <p>Download video as
10283       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
10284 </video></p>
10285
10286       </div>
10287       <div class="tags">
10288
10289
10290         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10291
10292
10293       </div>
10294     </div>
10295     <div class="padding"></div>
10296
10297     <div class="entry">
10298       <div class="title">
10299         <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>
10300       </div>
10301       <div class="date">
10302          4th March 2012
10303       </div>
10304       <div class="body">
10305         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
10306 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
10307 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
10308 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
10309 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
10310 need a software solution for your school.</p>
10311
10312       </div>
10313       <div class="tags">
10314
10315
10316         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10317
10318
10319       </div>
10320     </div>
10321     <div class="padding"></div>
10322
10323     <div class="entry">
10324       <div class="title">
10325         <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>
10326       </div>
10327       <div class="date">
10328          3rd March 2012
10329       </div>
10330       <div class="body">
10331         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
10332 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
10333 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
10334 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
10335 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
10336 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
10337 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
10338 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
10339 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
10340 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
10341 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
10342 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
10343 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
10344 year...</p>
10345
10346 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
10347 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
10348 name,
10349 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
10350 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
10351 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
10352 mean). I've been following
10353 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
10354 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
10355 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
10356 Check it out. :)</p>
10357
10358       </div>
10359       <div class="tags">
10360
10361
10362         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10363
10364
10365       </div>
10366     </div>
10367     <div class="padding"></div>
10368
10369     <div class="entry">
10370       <div class="title">
10371         <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>
10372       </div>
10373       <div class="date">
10374         27th February 2012
10375       </div>
10376       <div class="body">
10377         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
10378 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
10379 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
10380 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
10381 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
10382 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
10383 need a software solution for your school.</p>
10384
10385       </div>
10386       <div class="tags">
10387
10388
10389         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10390
10391
10392       </div>
10393     </div>
10394     <div class="padding"></div>
10395
10396     <div class="entry">
10397       <div class="title">
10398         <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>
10399       </div>
10400       <div class="date">
10401         19th February 2012
10402       </div>
10403       <div class="body">
10404         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
10405 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
10406 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
10407 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
10408 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
10409 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
10410 solution for your school.</p>
10411
10412       </div>
10413       <div class="tags">
10414
10415
10416         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10417
10418
10419       </div>
10420     </div>
10421     <div class="padding"></div>
10422
10423     <div class="entry">
10424       <div class="title">
10425         <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>
10426       </div>
10427       <div class="date">
10428         14th February 2012
10429       </div>
10430       <div class="body">
10431         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
10432 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
10433 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
10434 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
10435 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
10436 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
10437 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
10438 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
10439 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
10440
10441 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
10442 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
10443 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
10444 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
10445 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
10446
10447 <blockquote><pre>
10448 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
10449 do
10450     printf "Failed disk $d: "
10451     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
10452 done
10453 </blockquote></pre>
10454
10455 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
10456 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
10457
10458 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
10459
10460 <blockquote><pre>
10461 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
10462 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
10463 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
10464 </blockquote></pre>
10465
10466 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
10467 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
10468 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
10469 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
10470 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
10471 mounted inside my box.</p>
10472
10473 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
10474 Software RAID in the
10475 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
10476 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
10477 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
10478 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
10479 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
10480 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
10481
10482       </div>
10483       <div class="tags">
10484
10485
10486         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>.
10487
10488
10489       </div>
10490     </div>
10491     <div class="padding"></div>
10492
10493     <div class="entry">
10494       <div class="title">
10495         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
10496       </div>
10497       <div class="date">
10498         13th February 2012
10499       </div>
10500       <div class="body">
10501         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
10502 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
10503 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
10504 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
10505 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
10506 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
10507 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
10508 change the global proxy setting by editing
10509 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
10510 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
10511
10512 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
10513 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
10514 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
10515
10516 <blockquote><pre>
10517 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
10518 {
10519    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
10520        isPlainHostName(host) ||
10521        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
10522       return "DIRECT";
10523    else
10524       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
10525 }
10526 </pre></blockquote>
10527
10528 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
10529
10530 <blockquote><pre>
10531 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
10532 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
10533 </pre></blockquote>
10534
10535 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
10536 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
10537 would be used for
10538 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
10539 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
10540 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
10541 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
10542 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
10543 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
10544 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
10545 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
10546 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
10547 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
10548
10549 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
10550 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
10551 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
10552 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
10553 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
10554 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
10555
10556 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
10557 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
10558 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
10559 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
10560 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
10561 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
10562 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
10563 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
10564 the network setup changes.</p>
10565
10566 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
10567 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
10568 draft</a> and a
10569 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
10570 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
10571
10572       </div>
10573       <div class="tags">
10574
10575
10576         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10577
10578
10579       </div>
10580     </div>
10581     <div class="padding"></div>
10582
10583     <div class="entry">
10584       <div class="title">
10585         <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>
10586       </div>
10587       <div class="date">
10588          5th February 2012
10589       </div>
10590       <div class="body">
10591         <p>Since the Lenny version of
10592 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
10593 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
10594 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
10595 in the morning.  This is done using the
10596 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
10597
10598 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
10599 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
10600 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
10601 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
10602 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
10603 the
10604 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
10605 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
10606 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
10607 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
10608 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
10609
10610 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
10611 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
10612 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
10613 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
10614 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
10615 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
10616 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
10617
10618 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
10619 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
10620 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
10621 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
10622 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
10623
10624       </div>
10625       <div class="tags">
10626
10627
10628         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10629
10630
10631       </div>
10632     </div>
10633     <div class="padding"></div>
10634
10635     <div class="entry">
10636       <div class="title">
10637         <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>
10638       </div>
10639       <div class="date">
10640          4th February 2012
10641       </div>
10642       <div class="body">
10643         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
10644 publish the third beta version of
10645 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
10646 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
10647 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
10648 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
10649 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
10650 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
10651 on the project announcement list.</p>
10652
10653 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
10654 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
10655
10656 <ul>
10657
10658 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
10659   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
10660   the installation.</li>
10661
10662 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
10663   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
10664
10665 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
10666   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
10667   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
10668
10669 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
10670   for the local system administrator is created during installation
10671   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
10672   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
10673   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
10674   up to date on the system.</li>
10675
10676 </ul>
10677
10678 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
10679 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
10680 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
10681 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
10682
10683 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
10684 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
10685 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
10686 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
10687 will see you there?</p>
10688
10689       </div>
10690       <div class="tags">
10691
10692
10693         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10694
10695
10696       </div>
10697     </div>
10698     <div class="padding"></div>
10699
10700     <div class="entry">
10701       <div class="title">
10702         <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>
10703       </div>
10704       <div class="date">
10705         27th January 2012
10706       </div>
10707       <div class="body">
10708         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
10709 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
10710 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
10711 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
10712 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
10713 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
10714 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
10715
10716 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
10717 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
10718 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
10719 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
10720 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
10721 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
10722 not taken care of by this.</p>
10723
10724 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
10725 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
10726 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
10727 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
10728 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
10729 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
10730 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
10731 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
10732 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
10733 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
10734 firmware packages.</p>
10735
10736 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
10737 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
10738 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
10739 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
10740 initrd with extra firmware, the
10741 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
10742 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
10743 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
10744
10745 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
10746 network cards working.  For this,
10747 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
10748 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
10749 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
10750
10751 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
10752 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
10753 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
10754
10755 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
10756 try.</p>
10757
10758       </div>
10759       <div class="tags">
10760
10761
10762         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10763
10764
10765       </div>
10766     </div>
10767     <div class="padding"></div>
10768
10769     <div class="entry">
10770       <div class="title">
10771         <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>
10772       </div>
10773       <div class="date">
10774         25th January 2012
10775       </div>
10776       <div class="body">
10777         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
10778 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
10779 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
10780 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
10781 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
10782
10783 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
10784 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
10785 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
10786 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
10787 this is done, log on to the central server and run
10788 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
10789 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
10790 will look similar to this:</p>
10791
10792 <p><blockquote><pre>
10793 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
10794 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
10795 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.
10796
10797 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
10798
10799 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10800 enter password: *******
10801 %
10802 </pre></blockquote></p>
10803
10804 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
10805 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
10806 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
10807 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
10808 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
10809 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
10810 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
10811 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
10812 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
10813 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
10814 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
10815 automatically.</p>
10816
10817 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
10818 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
10819
10820 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
10821 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
10822 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
10823
10824       </div>
10825       <div class="tags">
10826
10827
10828         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10829
10830
10831       </div>
10832     </div>
10833     <div class="padding"></div>
10834
10835     <div class="entry">
10836       <div class="title">
10837         <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>
10838       </div>
10839       <div class="date">
10840         10th January 2012
10841       </div>
10842       <div class="body">
10843         <p>In the Squeeze version of
10844 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
10845 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
10846 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
10847 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
10848 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
10849 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
10850 first time.</p>
10851
10852 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
10853 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
10854 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
10855 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
10856
10857 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
10858 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
10859 new setting.</p>
10860
10861 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
10862 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
10863 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
10864
10865       </div>
10866       <div class="tags">
10867
10868
10869         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10870
10871
10872       </div>
10873     </div>
10874     <div class="padding"></div>
10875
10876     <div class="entry">
10877       <div class="title">
10878         <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>
10879       </div>
10880       <div class="date">
10881          7th January 2012
10882       </div>
10883       <div class="body">
10884         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
10885 the second beta version of
10886 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
10887 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
10888 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
10889 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
10890 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
10891 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
10892 on the project announcement list.</p>
10893
10894       </div>
10895       <div class="tags">
10896
10897
10898         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10899
10900
10901       </div>
10902     </div>
10903     <div class="padding"></div>
10904
10905     <div class="entry">
10906       <div class="title">
10907         <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>
10908       </div>
10909       <div class="date">
10910          3rd January 2012
10911       </div>
10912       <div class="body">
10913         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
10914 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
10915 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
10916 interesting.</p>
10917
10918 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
10919 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
10920 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
10921 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
10922 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
10923 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
10924 wrap up its tasks.</p>
10925
10926 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
10927 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
10928 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
10929 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
10930 because I was typing.</P>
10931
10932 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
10933 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
10934 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
10935 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
10936 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
10937 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
10938 generate entropy.</p>
10939
10940 <p>The fix is in
10941 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
10942 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
10943 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
10944 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
10945
10946       </div>
10947       <div class="tags">
10948
10949
10950         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10951
10952
10953       </div>
10954     </div>
10955     <div class="padding"></div>
10956
10957     <div class="entry">
10958       <div class="title">
10959         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
10960       </div>
10961       <div class="date">
10962         21st November 2011
10963       </div>
10964       <div class="body">
10965         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
10966 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
10967 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
10968 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
10969 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
10970 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
10971 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
10972 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
10973 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
10974 the tools to do so.</p>
10975
10976 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
10977 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
10978 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
10979 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
10980
10981 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
10982 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
10983 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
10984 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
10985 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
10986 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
10987 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
10988 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
10989
10990 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
10991 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
10992 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
10993
10994 <p><pre>
10995 #!/usr/bin/perl
10996 use strict;
10997 use warnings;
10998 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
10999 BEGIN {
11000     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
11001     my %rhelmodules = (
11002         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
11003         );
11004     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
11005         eval "use $module;";
11006         if ($@) {
11007             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
11008             system("yum install -y $pkg");
11009             eval "use $module;";
11010         }
11011     }
11012 }
11013 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
11014
11015 upgrade_dell();
11016
11017 exit 0;
11018
11019 sub run_firmware_script {
11020     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
11021     unless ($script) {
11022         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
11023         exit 1
11024     }
11025     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
11026
11027     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
11028         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
11029     } else {
11030         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
11031     }
11032 }
11033
11034 sub run_firmware_scripts {
11035     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
11036     # Run firmware packages
11037     for my $dir (@dirs) {
11038         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
11039         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
11040         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
11041             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
11042             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
11043         }
11044         closedir $dh;
11045     }
11046 }
11047
11048 sub download {
11049     my $url = shift;
11050     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
11051     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
11052 }
11053
11054 sub upgrade_dell {
11055     my @dirs;
11056     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
11057     chomp $product;
11058
11059     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
11060
11061         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
11062         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
11063
11064         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
11065             CLEANUP => 1
11066             );
11067         chdir($tmpdir);
11068         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
11069         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
11070         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
11071         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
11072         my $fwopts = "-q";
11073         if (@paths) {
11074             for my $url (@paths) {
11075                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
11076             }
11077             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
11078         } else {
11079             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
11080             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
11081         }
11082         chdir('/');
11083     } else {
11084         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
11085         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
11086     }
11087 }
11088
11089 sub fetch_dell_fw {
11090     my $path = shift;
11091     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
11092     download($url);
11093 }
11094
11095 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
11096 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
11097 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
11098 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
11099     my $filename = shift;
11100
11101     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
11102     chomp $product;
11103     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
11104
11105     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
11106
11107     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
11108     my @paths;
11109     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
11110         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
11111         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
11112         my $oscode;
11113         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
11114             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
11115         } else {
11116             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
11117         }
11118         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
11119         {
11120             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
11121         }
11122     }
11123     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
11124         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
11125
11126         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
11127         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
11128
11129         my $cpath = $component->{path};
11130         for my $path (@paths) {
11131             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
11132                 push(@paths, $cpath);
11133             }
11134         }
11135     }
11136     return @paths;
11137 }
11138 </pre>
11139
11140 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
11141 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
11142 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
11143 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
11144 outdated.</p>
11145
11146       </div>
11147       <div class="tags">
11148
11149
11150         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>.
11151
11152
11153       </div>
11154     </div>
11155     <div class="padding"></div>
11156
11157     <div class="entry">
11158       <div class="title">
11159         <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>
11160       </div>
11161       <div class="date">
11162          7th October 2011
11163       </div>
11164       <div class="body">
11165         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
11166 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
11167 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
11168 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
11169 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
11170 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
11171 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
11172 models.</p>
11173
11174 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
11175 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
11176 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
11177 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
11178
11179 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
11180 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
11181 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
11182 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
11183 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
11184 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
11185 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
11186 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
11187 distributed.</p>
11188
11189 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
11190
11191 <ul>
11192
11193 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
11194   other relevant equipment.</li>
11195
11196 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
11197
11198 </ul>
11199
11200 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
11201 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
11202 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
11203 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
11204 books available.</p>
11205
11206 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
11207 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
11208 libraries. :)</p>
11209
11210       </div>
11211       <div class="tags">
11212
11213
11214         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>.
11215
11216
11217       </div>
11218     </div>
11219     <div class="padding"></div>
11220
11221     <div class="entry">
11222       <div class="title">
11223         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
11224       </div>
11225       <div class="date">
11226         17th September 2011
11227       </div>
11228       <div class="body">
11229         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
11230 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
11231 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
11232 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
11233 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
11234 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
11235 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
11236 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
11237
11238 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
11239
11240 <blockquote><pre>
11241 #!/bin/sh
11242 # apt-get install lsdvd
11243 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
11244 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
11245 </pre></blockquote>
11246
11247 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
11248 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
11249 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
11250 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
11251
11252 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
11253 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
11254 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
11255 back as an ISO.
11256
11257 <blockquote><pre>
11258 #!/bin/sh
11259 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
11260 set -e
11261 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
11262 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
11263 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
11264 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
11265 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
11266 </pre></blockquote>
11267
11268 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
11269
11270 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
11271 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
11272 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
11273 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
11274 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
11275
11276 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
11277 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
11278 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
11279 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
11280 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
11281 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
11282
11283       </div>
11284       <div class="tags">
11285
11286
11287         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>.
11288
11289
11290       </div>
11291     </div>
11292     <div class="padding"></div>
11293
11294     <div class="entry">
11295       <div class="title">
11296         <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>
11297       </div>
11298       <div class="date">
11299          4th August 2011
11300       </div>
11301       <div class="body">
11302         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
11303 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
11304 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
11305 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
11306 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
11307 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
11308 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
11309 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
11310 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
11311
11312 <p><blockquote>
11313 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
11314 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
11315 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
11316 </blockquote></p>
11317
11318 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
11319 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
11320 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
11321 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
11322 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
11323 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
11324 hard to explain.</p>
11325
11326 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
11327 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
11328 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
11329 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
11330 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
11331 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
11332 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
11333 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
11334 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
11335 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
11336 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
11337 mode).</p>
11338
11339 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
11340 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
11341 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
11342 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
11343 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
11344 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
11345 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
11346 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
11347 after visiting single user mode.</p>
11348
11349 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
11350 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
11351 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
11352 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
11353 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
11354 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
11355 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
11356 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
11357
11358 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
11359 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
11360 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
11361
11362       </div>
11363       <div class="tags">
11364
11365
11366         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>.
11367
11368
11369       </div>
11370     </div>
11371     <div class="padding"></div>
11372
11373     <div class="entry">
11374       <div class="title">
11375         <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>
11376       </div>
11377       <div class="date">
11378         30th July 2011
11379       </div>
11380       <div class="body">
11381         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
11382 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
11383 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
11384 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
11385 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
11386 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
11387 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
11388 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
11389 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
11390 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
11391 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
11392 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
11393 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
11394
11395 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
11396 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
11397 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
11398 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
11399 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
11400 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
11401 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
11402 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
11403 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
11404
11405 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
11406 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
11407 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
11408 is presented.</p>
11409
11410 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
11411 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
11412 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
11413 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
11414 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
11415 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
11416 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
11417 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
11418 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
11419 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
11420 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
11421 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
11422 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
11423 find time to push this forward.</p>
11424
11425       </div>
11426       <div class="tags">
11427
11428
11429         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>.
11430
11431
11432       </div>
11433     </div>
11434     <div class="padding"></div>
11435
11436     <div class="entry">
11437       <div class="title">
11438         <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>
11439       </div>
11440       <div class="date">
11441         29th July 2011
11442       </div>
11443       <div class="body">
11444         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
11445 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
11446 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
11447 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
11448 issues.</p>
11449
11450 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
11451 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
11452 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
11453
11454 <ol>
11455
11456 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
11457 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
11458 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
11459 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
11460 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
11461 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
11462 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
11463 Debian.</li>
11464
11465 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
11466 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
11467 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
11468 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
11469 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
11470 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
11471 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
11472 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
11473 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
11474 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
11475 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
11476 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
11477 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
11478
11479 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
11480 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
11481 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
11482 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
11483 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
11484 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
11485 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
11486 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
11487 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
11488 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
11489
11490 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
11491 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
11492 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
11493 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
11494 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
11495 latter behaviour.</li>
11496
11497 </ol>
11498
11499 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
11500 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
11501 it do not matter much.</p>
11502
11503 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
11504 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
11505 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
11506
11507       </div>
11508       <div class="tags">
11509
11510
11511         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>.
11512
11513
11514       </div>
11515     </div>
11516     <div class="padding"></div>
11517
11518     <div class="entry">
11519       <div class="title">
11520         <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>
11521       </div>
11522       <div class="date">
11523         26th July 2011
11524       </div>
11525       <div class="body">
11526         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
11527 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
11528 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
11529 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
11530 security support for a few years.</p>
11531
11532 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
11533 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
11534 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
11535 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
11536 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
11537 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
11538 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
11539 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
11540 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
11541 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
11542 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
11543 easier in the future.</p>
11544
11545 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
11546 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
11547 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
11548 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
11549 do not have time for.</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/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</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/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
11565       </div>
11566       <div class="date">
11567         20th June 2011
11568       </div>
11569       <div class="body">
11570         <p>Reading
11571 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
11572 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
11573 parts of the
11574 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
11575 and
11576 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
11577 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
11578 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
11579 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
11580
11581       </div>
11582       <div class="tags">
11583
11584
11585         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>.
11586
11587
11588       </div>
11589     </div>
11590     <div class="padding"></div>
11591
11592     <div class="entry">
11593       <div class="title">
11594         <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>
11595       </div>
11596       <div class="date">
11597         30th April 2011
11598       </div>
11599       <div class="body">
11600         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
11601 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
11602 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
11603 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
11604 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
11605 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
11606 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
11607 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
11608 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
11609 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
11610
11611 <p>Where is it?  Visit
11612 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
11613 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
11614 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
11615 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
11616
11617       </div>
11618       <div class="tags">
11619
11620
11621         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>.
11622
11623
11624       </div>
11625     </div>
11626     <div class="padding"></div>
11627
11628     <div class="entry">
11629       <div class="title">
11630         <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>
11631       </div>
11632       <div class="date">
11633         29th April 2011
11634       </div>
11635       <div class="body">
11636         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
11637 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
11638 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
11639 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
11640 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
11641 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
11642 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
11643 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
11644 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
11645 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
11646 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
11647 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
11648 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
11649
11650 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
11651 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
11652 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
11653 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
11654 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
11655 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
11656 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
11657 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
11658 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
11659 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
11660 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
11661 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
11662 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
11663
11664 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
11665 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
11666 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
11667 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
11668 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
11669 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
11670 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
11671 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
11672 it.</p>
11673
11674 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
11675 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
11676 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
11677 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
11678 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
11679 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
11680 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
11681
11682 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
11683 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
11684 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
11685 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
11686 and range= options.</p>
11687
11688 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
11689 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
11690 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
11691 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
11692 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
11693 to best handle this.  I've noticed
11694 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
11695 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
11696 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
11697 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
11698
11699 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
11700 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
11701 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
11702 discussions instead of only
11703 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
11704 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
11705 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
11706 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
11707 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
11708 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
11709
11710       </div>
11711       <div class="tags">
11712
11713
11714         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>.
11715
11716
11717       </div>
11718     </div>
11719     <div class="padding"></div>
11720
11721     <div class="entry">
11722       <div class="title">
11723         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
11724       </div>
11725       <div class="date">
11726          6th April 2011
11727       </div>
11728       <div class="body">
11729         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
11730 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
11731 A few days ago the project
11732 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
11733 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
11734 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
11735 into Gnash.</p>
11736
11737       </div>
11738       <div class="tags">
11739
11740
11741         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>.
11742
11743
11744       </div>
11745     </div>
11746     <div class="padding"></div>
11747
11748     <div class="entry">
11749       <div class="title">
11750         <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>
11751       </div>
11752       <div class="date">
11753          3rd April 2011
11754       </div>
11755       <div class="body">
11756         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
11757 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
11758 update in English.</p>
11759
11760 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
11761 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
11762 of the British service
11763 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
11764 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
11765 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
11766 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
11767 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
11768 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
11769 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
11770 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
11771 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
11772 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
11773 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
11774 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
11775 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
11776
11777 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
11778 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
11779 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
11780 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
11781 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
11782 public infrastructure.</p>
11783
11784 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
11785 such service?</p>
11786
11787       </div>
11788       <div class="tags">
11789
11790
11791         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>.
11792
11793
11794       </div>
11795     </div>
11796     <div class="padding"></div>
11797
11798     <div class="entry">
11799       <div class="title">
11800         <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>
11801       </div>
11802       <div class="date">
11803         28th January 2011
11804       </div>
11805       <div class="body">
11806         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
11807 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
11808 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
11809 available on the Internet, and check our locally
11810 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
11811 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
11812 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
11813 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
11814 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
11815 out which security holes were present in our free software
11816 collection.</p>
11817
11818 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
11819 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
11820 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
11821 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
11822 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
11823 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
11824 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
11825 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
11826 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
11827 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
11828 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
11829 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
11830 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
11831 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
11832 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
11833 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
11834
11835 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
11836 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
11837 check out, one could look up
11838 <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
11839 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
11840 The most recent one is
11841 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
11842 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
11843 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
11844
11845 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
11846 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
11847 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
11848 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
11849 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
11850 security issues out.</p>
11851
11852 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
11853 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
11854 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
11855 RHEL is providing
11856 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
11857 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
11858 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
11859
11860 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
11861 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
11862 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
11863 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
11864 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
11865 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
11866 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
11867 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
11868 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
11869 established soon.</p>
11870
11871 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
11872 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
11873 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
11874 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
11875 for their packages.</p>
11876
11877       </div>
11878       <div class="tags">
11879
11880
11881         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>.
11882
11883
11884       </div>
11885     </div>
11886     <div class="padding"></div>
11887
11888     <div class="entry">
11889       <div class="title">
11890         <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>
11891       </div>
11892       <div class="date">
11893         23rd January 2011
11894       </div>
11895       <div class="body">
11896         <p>In the
11897 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
11898 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
11899 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
11900 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
11901 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
11902 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
11903 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
11904 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
11905 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
11906 one of my machines like this:</p>
11907
11908 <pre>
11909 loaded modules:
11910 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
11911 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
11912 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
11913 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
11914 10de:03ec pata_amd
11915 10de:03f6 sata_nv
11916 1022:1103 k8temp
11917 109e:036e bttv
11918 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
11919 11ab:4364 sky2
11920 </pre>
11921
11922 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
11923 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
11924
11925 <pre>
11926 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
11927     echo loaded pci modules:
11928     (
11929         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
11930         for address in * ; do
11931             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
11932                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
11933                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
11934                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
11935                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
11936                     echo "$id $module"
11937                 fi
11938             fi
11939         done
11940     )
11941     echo
11942 fi
11943 </pre>
11944
11945 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
11946 mappings:</p>
11947
11948 <pre>
11949 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
11950     echo loaded usb modules:
11951     (
11952         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
11953         for address in * ; do
11954             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
11955                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
11956                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
11957                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
11958                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
11959                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
11960                         echo "$id $module"
11961                     fi
11962                 fi
11963             fi
11964         done
11965     )
11966     echo
11967 fi
11968 </pre>
11969
11970 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
11971 well.</p>
11972
11973       </div>
11974       <div class="tags">
11975
11976
11977         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>.
11978
11979
11980       </div>
11981     </div>
11982     <div class="padding"></div>
11983
11984     <div class="entry">
11985       <div class="title">
11986         <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>
11987       </div>
11988       <div class="date">
11989         16th January 2011
11990       </div>
11991       <div class="body">
11992         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
11993 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
11994 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
11995 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
11996 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
11997 the Wikipedia article on
11998 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
11999 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
12000 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
12001 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
12002 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
12003 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
12004 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
12005 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
12006 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
12007 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
12008 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
12009 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
12010
12011 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
12012 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
12013 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
12014 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
12015 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
12016 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
12017 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
12018 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
12019 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
12020 from last week</a>.</p>
12021
12022 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
12023 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
12024 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
12025 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
12026 was without royalties and license terms, check out
12027 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
12028 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
12029
12030 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
12031 available from
12032 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
12033 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
12034 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
12035
12036 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
12037 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
12038 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
12039 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
12040
12041       </div>
12042       <div class="tags">
12043
12044
12045         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>.
12046
12047
12048       </div>
12049     </div>
12050     <div class="padding"></div>
12051
12052     <div class="entry">
12053       <div class="title">
12054         <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>
12055       </div>
12056       <div class="date">
12057         12th January 2011
12058       </div>
12059       <div class="body">
12060         <p>Today I discovered
12061 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
12062 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
12063 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
12064 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
12065 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
12066 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
12067 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
12068 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
12069 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
12070 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
12071 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
12072 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
12073 on the Google announcement is available from
12074 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
12075 A good read. :)</p>
12076
12077 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
12078 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
12079 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
12080 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
12081 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
12082 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
12083 browsers support H.264, and others support
12084 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
12085 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
12086 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
12087 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
12088 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
12089 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
12090 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
12091 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
12092
12093 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
12094 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
12095 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
12096 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
12097 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
12098 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
12099 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
12100
12101 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
12102 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
12103 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
12104 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
12105 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
12106 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
12107 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
12108
12109 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
12110 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
12111 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
12112 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
12113 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
12114 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
12115 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
12116
12117 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
12118 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
12119 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
12120 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
12121 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
12122 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
12123 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
12124 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
12125 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
12126 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
12127 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
12128 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
12129 I guess time will tell.</p>
12130
12131 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
12132 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
12133 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
12134
12135       </div>
12136       <div class="tags">
12137
12138
12139         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>.
12140
12141
12142       </div>
12143     </div>
12144     <div class="padding"></div>
12145
12146     <div class="entry">
12147       <div class="title">
12148         <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>
12149       </div>
12150       <div class="date">
12151         30th December 2010
12152       </div>
12153       <div class="body">
12154         <p>After trying to
12155 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
12156 Ogg Theora</a> to
12157 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
12158 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
12159 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
12160 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
12161 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
12162 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
12163 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
12164
12165 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
12166 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
12167 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
12168 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
12169 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
12170 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
12171 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
12172
12173 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
12174 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
12175
12176       </div>
12177       <div class="tags">
12178
12179
12180         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>.
12181
12182
12183       </div>
12184     </div>
12185     <div class="padding"></div>
12186
12187     <div class="entry">
12188       <div class="title">
12189         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
12190       </div>
12191       <div class="date">
12192         27th December 2010
12193       </div>
12194       <div class="body">
12195         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
12196 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
12197 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
12198 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
12199 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
12200 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
12201 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
12202 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
12203
12204 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
12205 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
12206 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
12207 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
12208 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
12209 page</a>.</p>
12210
12211 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
12212 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
12213 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
12214 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
12215 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
12216 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
12217 specification on equal terms.</p>
12218
12219 <blockquote>
12220
12221 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
12222 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
12223 open standard:</p>
12224
12225 <ul>
12226
12227 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
12228 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
12229 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
12230 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
12231
12232 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
12233 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
12234 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
12235 nominal fee.</li>
12236
12237 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
12238 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
12239 free basis.</li>
12240
12241 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
12242
12243 </ul>
12244 </blockquote>
12245
12246 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
12247 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
12248 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
12249 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
12250 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
12251 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
12252 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
12253
12254 <blockquote>
12255
12256 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
12257
12258 <ol>
12259
12260 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
12261 tilgængelig.</li>
12262
12263 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
12264 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
12265
12266 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
12267 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
12268
12269 </ol>
12270
12271 </blockquote>
12272
12273 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
12274 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
12275
12276 <blockquote>
12277
12278 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
12279
12280 <ol>
12281
12282 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
12283 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
12284
12285 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
12286 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
12287 Standard themselves;</li>
12288
12289 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
12290 any party or in any business model;</li>
12291
12292 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
12293 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
12294 parties;</li>
12295
12296 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
12297 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
12298 parties.</li>
12299
12300 </ol>
12301
12302 </blockquote>
12303
12304 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
12305 its
12306 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
12307 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
12308
12309 <blockquote>
12310 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
12311
12312 <ul>
12313
12314 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
12315   democratic:
12316
12317          <ul>
12318
12319          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
12320             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
12321             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
12322             and managed.</li>
12323
12324          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
12325             method, can be changed through input from all
12326             participants.</li>
12327
12328          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
12329             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
12330
12331          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
12332             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
12333
12334          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
12335             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
12336             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
12337
12338          </ul>
12339
12340 </li>
12341
12342 </ul>
12343
12344 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
12345 <ul>
12346
12347 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
12348   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
12349   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
12350   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
12351   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
12352
12353 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
12354   a technical or economic barriers</li>
12355
12356 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
12357   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
12358   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
12359   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
12360   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
12361   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
12362   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
12363   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
12364   intended to function.</li>
12365
12366 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
12367   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
12368   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
12369
12370 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
12371   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
12372   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
12373   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
12374   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
12375   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
12376   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
12377   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
12378
12379       <ul>
12380
12381       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
12382         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
12383         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
12384
12385       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
12386         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
12387         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
12388         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
12389
12390       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
12391         licensor</li>
12392
12393       </ul>
12394 </li>
12395
12396 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
12397   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
12398   or restricted licensing terms</li>
12399
12400 </ul>
12401
12402 </blockquote>
12403
12404 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
12405 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
12406 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
12407 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
12408 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
12409 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
12410 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
12411 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
12412 Standards.</p>
12413
12414       </div>
12415       <div class="tags">
12416
12417
12418         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>.
12419
12420
12421       </div>
12422     </div>
12423     <div class="padding"></div>
12424
12425     <div class="entry">
12426       <div class="title">
12427         <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>
12428       </div>
12429       <div class="date">
12430         25th December 2010
12431       </div>
12432       <div class="body">
12433         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
12434 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
12435
12436 <blockquote>
12437
12438 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
12439 as follows:</p>
12440
12441 <ol>
12442
12443 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
12444 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
12445 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
12446
12447 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
12448 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
12449 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
12450 parties.</li>
12451
12452 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
12453 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
12454 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
12455
12456 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
12457 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
12458
12459 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
12460
12461 </ol>
12462
12463 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
12464 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
12465 products based on the standard.</p>
12466 </blockquote>
12467
12468 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
12469 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
12470 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
12471 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
12472 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
12473 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
12474 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
12475 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
12476
12477 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
12478
12479 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
12480 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
12481 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
12482 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
12483 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
12484 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
12485 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
12486 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
12487 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
12488 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
12489 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
12490 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
12491 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
12492 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
12493
12494 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
12495
12496 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
12497 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
12498 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
12499 documentation indicating this.</p>
12500
12501 <p>According to
12502 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
12503 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
12504 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
12505 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
12506 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
12507 report is correct.</p>
12508
12509 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
12510
12511 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
12512 container format</a> and both the
12513 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
12514 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
12515 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
12516
12517 <blockquote>
12518
12519 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
12520 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
12521 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
12522 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
12523 specification compliance.
12524
12525 </blockquote>
12526
12527 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
12528 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
12529 this is the term:<p>
12530
12531 <blockquote>
12532
12533 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
12534 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
12535 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
12536 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
12537 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
12538 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
12539 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
12540 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
12541 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
12542 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
12543 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
12544 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
12545
12546 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
12547 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
12548 </blockquote>
12549
12550 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
12551 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
12552 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
12553 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
12554 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
12555
12556 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
12557
12558 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
12559 Theora format.
12560 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
12561 and
12562 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
12563 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
12564 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
12565 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
12566 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
12567 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
12568 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
12569 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
12570
12571 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
12572
12573 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
12574
12575 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
12576
12577 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
12578 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
12579 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
12580 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
12581 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
12582 this.</p>
12583
12584 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
12585 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
12586
12587       </div>
12588       <div class="tags">
12589
12590
12591         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>.
12592
12593
12594       </div>
12595     </div>
12596     <div class="padding"></div>
12597
12598     <div class="entry">
12599       <div class="title">
12600         <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>
12601       </div>
12602       <div class="date">
12603         25th December 2010
12604       </div>
12605       <div class="body">
12606         <p>A few days ago
12607 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
12608 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
12609 2.0 of
12610 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
12611 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
12612 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
12613 Nothing very surprising there, given
12614 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
12615 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
12616 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
12617 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
12618 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
12619 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
12620 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
12621 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
12622 standard definition from its content.</p>
12623
12624 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
12625 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
12626 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
12627 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
12628 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
12629 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
12630 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
12631 background information about that story is available in
12632 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
12633 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
12634
12635 <blockquote>
12636 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
12637 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
12638 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
12639
12640 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
12641
12642 <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>
12643
12644 <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>
12645
12646 <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>
12647
12648 <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>
12649
12650 <p>
12651 <ul>
12652 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
12653 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
12654 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
12655 </ul>
12656 </p>
12657
12658 <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>
12659
12660 <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>
12661
12662 <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>
12663
12664 <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>
12665
12666 <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>
12667
12668
12669 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
12670 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
12671 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
12672 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
12673 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
12674 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
12675
12676 </p>
12677
12678 <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>
12679
12680 <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>
12681
12682 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
12683
12684 <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>
12685
12686 <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>
12687
12688 <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>
12689
12690 <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>
12691
12692 <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>
12693
12694 <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>
12695
12696 <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>
12697
12698 <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>
12699
12700 <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>
12701
12702 <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>
12703
12704 <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>
12705
12706 <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>
12707
12708 <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>
12709
12710 <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>
12711
12712 <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>
12713
12714 <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>
12715
12716 <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>
12717
12718 <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>
12719
12720 <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>
12721
12722 <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>
12723
12724 <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>
12725
12726 <p>On security:</p>
12727
12728 <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>
12729
12730 <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>
12731
12732 <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>
12733
12734 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
12735
12736 <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>
12737
12738 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
12739
12740 <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>
12741
12742 <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>
12743
12744 <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>
12745
12746 <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>
12747
12748 <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>
12749
12750 <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>
12751
12752 <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>
12753
12754 <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>
12755
12756 <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>
12757
12758 <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>
12759
12760 <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>
12761
12762 <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>
12763
12764 <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>
12765
12766 <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>
12767
12768 <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>
12769
12770 <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>
12771
12772 <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>
12773
12774 <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>
12775
12776 <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>
12777
12778 <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>
12779
12780 <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>
12781
12782 <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>
12783
12784 <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>
12785
12786 <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>
12787
12788 <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>
12789
12790 <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>
12791
12792 <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>
12793
12794 <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>
12795
12796 <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>
12797
12798 <p>Cordially,<br>
12799 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
12800 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
12801 </blockquote>
12802
12803       </div>
12804       <div class="tags">
12805
12806
12807         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>.
12808
12809
12810       </div>
12811     </div>
12812     <div class="padding"></div>
12813
12814     <div class="entry">
12815       <div class="title">
12816         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
12817       </div>
12818       <div class="date">
12819         25th December 2010
12820       </div>
12821       <div class="body">
12822         <p>Half a year ago I
12823 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
12824 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
12825 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
12826 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
12827
12828 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
12829 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
12830 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
12831 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
12832 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
12833 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
12834 got such a great test tool available.</p>
12835
12836       </div>
12837       <div class="tags">
12838
12839
12840         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>.
12841
12842
12843       </div>
12844     </div>
12845     <div class="padding"></div>
12846
12847     <div class="entry">
12848       <div class="title">
12849         <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>
12850       </div>
12851       <div class="date">
12852         22nd December 2010
12853       </div>
12854       <div class="body">
12855         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
12856 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
12857 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
12858 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
12859 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
12860 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
12861 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
12862 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
12863 university.</p>
12864
12865 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
12866 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
12867 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
12868 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
12869 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
12870 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
12871 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
12872 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
12873
12874 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
12875 I perform on a new model.</p>
12876
12877 <ul>
12878
12879 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
12880 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
12881 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
12882
12883 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
12884 installation, X.org is working.</li>
12885
12886 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
12887 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
12888 reported by the program.</li>
12889
12890 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
12891 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
12892 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
12893 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
12894 normally test this by playing
12895 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
12896 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
12897
12898 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
12899 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
12900
12901 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
12902 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
12903
12904 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
12905 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
12906
12907 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
12908 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
12909 few.</li>
12910
12911 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
12912 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
12913 notice this.</li>
12914
12915 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
12916 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
12917 resume.</li>
12918
12919 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
12920 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
12921 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
12922 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
12923 not.</li>
12924
12925 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
12926 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
12927 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
12928 existence.</li>
12929
12930 </ul>
12931
12932 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
12933 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
12934 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
12935 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
12936 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
12937 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
12938 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
12939 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
12940
12941       </div>
12942       <div class="tags">
12943
12944
12945         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>.
12946
12947
12948       </div>
12949     </div>
12950     <div class="padding"></div>
12951
12952     <div class="entry">
12953       <div class="title">
12954         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
12955       </div>
12956       <div class="date">
12957         11th December 2010
12958       </div>
12959       <div class="body">
12960         <p>As I continue to explore
12961 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
12962 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
12963 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
12964
12965 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
12966 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
12967 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
12968 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
12969 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
12970 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
12971 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
12972 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
12973 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
12974 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
12975 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
12976 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
12977 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
12978 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
12979 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
12980 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
12981 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
12982 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
12983 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
12984 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
12985
12986 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
12987 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
12988 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
12989 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
12990 If the Skolelinux foundation
12991 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
12992 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
12993 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
12994 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
12995 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
12996 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
12997 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
12998 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
12999
13000 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
13001 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
13002 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
13003 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
13004 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
13005 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
13006 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
13007 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
13008 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
13009 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
13010 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
13011 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
13012 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
13013 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
13014 currencies.</p>
13015
13016 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
13017 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
13018 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
13019 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
13020 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
13021 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
13022 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
13023 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
13024 BitCoins.  Check out
13025 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
13026 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
13027 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
13028 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
13029 yet.</p>
13030
13031 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
13032 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
13033 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
13034 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
13035 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
13036
13037       </div>
13038       <div class="tags">
13039
13040
13041         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>.
13042
13043
13044       </div>
13045     </div>
13046     <div class="padding"></div>
13047
13048     <div class="entry">
13049       <div class="title">
13050         <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>
13051       </div>
13052       <div class="date">
13053         10th December 2010
13054       </div>
13055       <div class="body">
13056         <p>With this weeks lawless
13057 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
13058 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
13059 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
13060 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
13061 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
13062 A blog post from
13063 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
13064 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
13065 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
13066 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
13067 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
13068 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
13069 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
13070
13071 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
13072 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
13073 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
13074 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
13075 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
13076 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
13077 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
13078 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
13079 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
13080 Debian</a> soon.</p>
13081
13082 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
13083 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
13084 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
13085 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
13086 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
13087 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
13088 you can even get
13089 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
13090 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
13091 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
13092 on the current exchange rates.</p>
13093
13094 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
13095 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
13096 donations to the address
13097 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
13098
13099       </div>
13100       <div class="tags">
13101
13102
13103         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>.
13104
13105
13106       </div>
13107     </div>
13108     <div class="padding"></div>
13109
13110     <div class="entry">
13111       <div class="title">
13112         <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>
13113       </div>
13114       <div class="date">
13115          9th December 2010
13116       </div>
13117       <div class="body">
13118         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
13119 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
13120 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
13121 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
13122 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
13123 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
13124 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
13125 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
13126 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
13127 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
13128 operational.</p>
13129
13130 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
13131 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
13132 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
13133 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
13134 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
13135 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
13136 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
13137
13138       </div>
13139       <div class="tags">
13140
13141
13142         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>.
13143
13144
13145       </div>
13146     </div>
13147     <div class="padding"></div>
13148
13149     <div class="entry">
13150       <div class="title">
13151         <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>
13152       </div>
13153       <div class="date">
13154         29th November 2010
13155       </div>
13156       <div class="body">
13157         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
13158 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
13159 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
13160 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
13161 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
13162 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
13163
13164 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
13165 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
13166 will hold its
13167 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
13168 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
13169 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
13170 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
13171 vote this year.</p>
13172
13173       </div>
13174       <div class="tags">
13175
13176
13177         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
13178
13179
13180       </div>
13181     </div>
13182     <div class="padding"></div>
13183
13184     <div class="entry">
13185       <div class="title">
13186         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
13187       </div>
13188       <div class="date">
13189         27th November 2010
13190       </div>
13191       <div class="body">
13192         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
13193 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
13194 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
13195 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
13196 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
13197 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
13198 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
13199 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
13200
13201 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
13202 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
13203 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
13204 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
13205 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
13206 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
13207 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
13208 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
13209 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
13210 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
13211 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
13212
13213 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
13214 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
13215 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
13216 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
13217 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
13218 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
13219 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
13220 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
13221 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
13222 what is going on.</p>
13223
13224       </div>
13225       <div class="tags">
13226
13227
13228         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>.
13229
13230
13231       </div>
13232     </div>
13233     <div class="padding"></div>
13234
13235     <div class="entry">
13236       <div class="title">
13237         <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>
13238       </div>
13239       <div class="date">
13240         22nd November 2010
13241       </div>
13242       <div class="body">
13243         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
13244 upgrade testing of the
13245 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
13246 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
13247 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
13248 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
13249
13250 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
13251
13252 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13253
13254 <blockquote><p>
13255   apache2.2-bin
13256   aptdaemon
13257   baobab
13258   binfmt-support
13259   browser-plugin-gnash
13260   cheese-common
13261   cli-common
13262   cups-pk-helper
13263   dmz-cursor-theme
13264   empathy
13265   empathy-common
13266   freedesktop-sound-theme
13267   freeglut3
13268   gconf-defaults-service
13269   gdm-themes
13270   gedit-plugins
13271   geoclue
13272   geoclue-hostip
13273   geoclue-localnet
13274   geoclue-manual
13275   geoclue-yahoo
13276   gnash
13277   gnash-common
13278   gnome
13279   gnome-backgrounds
13280   gnome-cards-data
13281   gnome-codec-install
13282   gnome-core
13283   gnome-desktop-environment
13284   gnome-disk-utility
13285   gnome-screenshot
13286   gnome-search-tool
13287   gnome-session-canberra
13288   gnome-system-log
13289   gnome-themes-extras
13290   gnome-themes-more
13291   gnome-user-share
13292   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
13293   gstreamer0.10-tools
13294   gtk2-engines
13295   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
13296   gtk2-engines-smooth
13297   hamster-applet
13298   libapache2-mod-dnssd
13299   libapr1
13300   libaprutil1
13301   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
13302   libaprutil1-ldap
13303   libart2.0-cil
13304   libboost-date-time1.42.0
13305   libboost-python1.42.0
13306   libboost-thread1.42.0
13307   libchamplain-0.4-0
13308   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
13309   libcheese-gtk18
13310   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
13311   libcryptui0
13312   libdiscid0
13313   libelf1
13314   libepc-1.0-2
13315   libepc-common
13316   libepc-ui-1.0-2
13317   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
13318   libfreerdp0
13319   libgconf2.0-cil
13320   libgdata-common
13321   libgdata7
13322   libgdu-gtk0
13323   libgee2
13324   libgeoclue0
13325   libgexiv2-0
13326   libgif4
13327   libglade2.0-cil
13328   libglib2.0-cil
13329   libgmime2.4-cil
13330   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
13331   libgnome2.24-cil
13332   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
13333   libgpod-common
13334   libgpod4
13335   libgtk2.0-cil
13336   libgtkglext1
13337   libgtksourceview2.0-common
13338   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
13339   libmono-addins0.2-cil
13340   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
13341   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
13342   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
13343   libmono-posix2.0-cil
13344   libmono-security2.0-cil
13345   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
13346   libmono-system2.0-cil
13347   libmtp8
13348   libmusicbrainz3-6
13349   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
13350   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
13351   libopal3.6.8
13352   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
13353   libpt2.6.7
13354   libpython2.6
13355   librpm1
13356   librpmio1
13357   libsdl1.2debian
13358   libsrtp0
13359   libssh-4
13360   libtelepathy-farsight0
13361   libtelepathy-glib0
13362   libtidy-0.99-0
13363   media-player-info
13364   mesa-utils
13365   mono-2.0-gac
13366   mono-gac
13367   mono-runtime
13368   nautilus-sendto
13369   nautilus-sendto-empathy
13370   p7zip-full
13371   pkg-config
13372   python-aptdaemon
13373   python-aptdaemon-gtk
13374   python-axiom
13375   python-beautifulsoup
13376   python-bugbuddy
13377   python-clientform
13378   python-coherence
13379   python-configobj
13380   python-crypto
13381   python-cupshelpers
13382   python-elementtree
13383   python-epsilon
13384   python-evolution
13385   python-feedparser
13386   python-gdata
13387   python-gdbm
13388   python-gst0.10
13389   python-gtkglext1
13390   python-gtksourceview2
13391   python-httplib2
13392   python-louie
13393   python-mako
13394   python-markupsafe
13395   python-mechanize
13396   python-nevow
13397   python-notify
13398   python-opengl
13399   python-openssl
13400   python-pam
13401   python-pkg-resources
13402   python-pyasn1
13403   python-pysqlite2
13404   python-rdflib
13405   python-serial
13406   python-tagpy
13407   python-twisted-bin
13408   python-twisted-conch
13409   python-twisted-core
13410   python-twisted-web
13411   python-utidylib
13412   python-webkit
13413   python-xdg
13414   python-zope.interface
13415   remmina
13416   remmina-plugin-data
13417   remmina-plugin-rdp
13418   remmina-plugin-vnc
13419   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
13420   rhythmbox-plugins
13421   rpm-common
13422   rpm2cpio
13423   seahorse-plugins
13424   shotwell
13425   software-center
13426   system-config-printer-udev
13427   telepathy-gabble
13428   telepathy-mission-control-5
13429   telepathy-salut
13430   tomboy
13431   totem
13432   totem-coherence
13433   totem-mozilla
13434   totem-plugins
13435   transmission-common
13436   xdg-user-dirs
13437   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
13438   xserver-xephyr
13439 </p></blockquote>
13440
13441 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
13442
13443 <blockquote><p>
13444   cheese
13445   ekiga
13446   eog
13447   epiphany-extensions
13448   evolution-exchange
13449   fast-user-switch-applet
13450   file-roller
13451   gcalctool
13452   gconf-editor
13453   gdm
13454   gedit
13455   gedit-common
13456   gnome-games
13457   gnome-games-data
13458   gnome-nettool
13459   gnome-system-tools
13460   gnome-themes
13461   gnuchess
13462   gucharmap
13463   guile-1.8-libs
13464   libavahi-ui0
13465   libdmx1
13466   libgalago3
13467   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
13468   libgtksourceview2.0-0
13469   liblircclient0
13470   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
13471   libspeexdsp1
13472   libsvga1
13473   rhythmbox
13474   seahorse
13475   sound-juicer
13476   system-config-printer
13477   totem-common
13478   transmission-gtk
13479   vinagre
13480   vino
13481 </p></blockquote>
13482
13483 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13484
13485 <blockquote><p>
13486   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
13487 </p></blockquote>
13488
13489 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13490
13491 <blockquote><p>
13492 [nothing]
13493 </p></blockquote>
13494
13495 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
13496
13497 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13498
13499 <blockquote><p>
13500   ksmserver
13501 </p></blockquote>
13502
13503 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
13504
13505 <blockquote><p>
13506   kwin
13507   network-manager-kde
13508 </p></blockquote>
13509
13510 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13511
13512 <blockquote><p>
13513   arts
13514   dolphin
13515   freespacenotifier
13516   google-gadgets-gst
13517   google-gadgets-xul
13518   kappfinder
13519   kcalc
13520   kcharselect
13521   kde-core
13522   kde-plasma-desktop
13523   kde-standard
13524   kde-window-manager
13525   kdeartwork
13526   kdeartwork-emoticons
13527   kdeartwork-style
13528   kdeartwork-theme-icon
13529   kdebase
13530   kdebase-apps
13531   kdebase-workspace
13532   kdebase-workspace-bin
13533   kdebase-workspace-data
13534   kdeeject
13535   kdelibs
13536   kdeplasma-addons
13537   kdeutils
13538   kdewallpapers
13539   kdf
13540   kfloppy
13541   kgpg
13542   khelpcenter4
13543   kinfocenter
13544   konq-plugins-l10n
13545   konqueror-nsplugins
13546   kscreensaver
13547   kscreensaver-xsavers
13548   ktimer
13549   kwrite
13550   libgle3
13551   libkde4-ruby1.8
13552   libkonq5
13553   libkonq5-templates
13554   libnetpbm10
13555   libplasma-ruby
13556   libplasma-ruby1.8
13557   libqt4-ruby1.8
13558   marble-data
13559   marble-plugins
13560   netpbm
13561   nuvola-icon-theme
13562   plasma-dataengines-workspace
13563   plasma-desktop
13564   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
13565   plasma-runners-addons
13566   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
13567   plasma-scriptengine-python
13568   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
13569   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
13570   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
13571   plasma-scriptengines
13572   plasma-wallpapers-addons
13573   plasma-widget-folderview
13574   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
13575   ruby
13576   sweeper
13577   update-notifier-kde
13578   xscreensaver-data-extra
13579   xscreensaver-gl
13580   xscreensaver-gl-extra
13581   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
13582 </p></blockquote>
13583
13584 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13585
13586 <blockquote><p>
13587   ark
13588   google-gadgets-common
13589   google-gadgets-qt
13590   htdig
13591   kate
13592   kdebase-bin
13593   kdebase-data
13594   kdepasswd
13595   kfind
13596   klipper
13597   konq-plugins
13598   konqueror
13599   ksysguard
13600   ksysguardd
13601   libarchive1
13602   libcln6
13603   libeet1
13604   libeina-svn-06
13605   libggadget-1.0-0b
13606   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
13607   libgps19
13608   libkdecorations4
13609   libkephal4
13610   libkonq4
13611   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
13612   libkscreensaver5
13613   libksgrd4
13614   libksignalplotter4
13615   libkunitconversion4
13616   libkwineffects1a
13617   libmarblewidget4
13618   libntrack-qt4-1
13619   libntrack0
13620   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
13621   libplasmaclock4a
13622   libplasmagenericshell4
13623   libprocesscore4a
13624   libprocessui4a
13625   libqalculate5
13626   libqedje0a
13627   libqtruby4shared2
13628   libqzion0a
13629   libruby1.8
13630   libscim8c2a
13631   libsmokekdecore4-3
13632   libsmokekdeui4-3
13633   libsmokekfile3
13634   libsmokekhtml3
13635   libsmokekio3
13636   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
13637   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
13638   libsmokekparts3
13639   libsmokektexteditor3
13640   libsmokekutils3
13641   libsmokenepomuk3
13642   libsmokephonon3
13643   libsmokeplasma3
13644   libsmokeqtcore4-3
13645   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
13646   libsmokeqtgui4-3
13647   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
13648   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
13649   libsmokeqtscript4-3
13650   libsmokeqtsql4-3
13651   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
13652   libsmokeqttest4-3
13653   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
13654   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
13655   libsmokeqtxml4-3
13656   libsmokesolid3
13657   libsmokesoprano3
13658   libtaskmanager4a
13659   libtidy-0.99-0
13660   libweather-ion4a
13661   libxklavier16
13662   libxxf86misc1
13663   okteta
13664   oxygencursors
13665   plasma-dataengines-addons
13666   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
13667   plasma-widget-lancelot
13668   plasma-widgets-addons
13669   plasma-widgets-workspace
13670   polkit-kde-1
13671   ruby1.8
13672   systemsettings
13673   update-notifier-common
13674 </p></blockquote>
13675
13676 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
13677 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
13678 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
13679 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
13680
13681       </div>
13682       <div class="tags">
13683
13684
13685         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>.
13686
13687
13688       </div>
13689     </div>
13690     <div class="padding"></div>
13691
13692     <div class="entry">
13693       <div class="title">
13694         <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>
13695       </div>
13696       <div class="date">
13697         22nd November 2010
13698       </div>
13699       <div class="body">
13700         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
13701 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
13702 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
13703 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
13704 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
13705 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
13706 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
13707 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
13708 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
13709
13710 <p>I found
13711 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
13712 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
13713 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
13714 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
13715 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
13716 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
13717
13718 <pre>
13719 #!/bin/sh
13720
13721 # Based on
13722 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
13723
13724 set -e
13725 set -x
13726
13727 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
13728     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
13729     exit 1
13730 else
13731     host="$1"
13732 fi
13733
13734 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
13735     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
13736     exit 1
13737 fi
13738
13739 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
13740 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
13741 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
13742 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
13743
13744 img=$host.img
13745 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
13746 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
13747
13748 parted $img mklabel msdos
13749 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
13750 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
13751 parted $img set 1 boot on
13752
13753 modprobe dm-mod
13754 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
13755 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
13756
13757 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
13758 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
13759 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
13760
13761 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
13762 losetup -d /dev/loop0
13763 </pre>
13764
13765 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
13766 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
13767
13768 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
13769 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
13770 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
13771 seem to work just fine.</p>
13772
13773       </div>
13774       <div class="tags">
13775
13776
13777         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>.
13778
13779
13780       </div>
13781     </div>
13782     <div class="padding"></div>
13783
13784     <div class="entry">
13785       <div class="title">
13786         <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>
13787       </div>
13788       <div class="date">
13789         20th November 2010
13790       </div>
13791       <div class="body">
13792         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
13793 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
13794 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
13795 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
13796
13797 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
13798 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
13799 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
13800
13801 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
13802
13803 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13804
13805 <blockquote><p>
13806   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
13807   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
13808   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
13809   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
13810   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
13811   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
13812   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
13813   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
13814   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
13815   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
13816   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
13817   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
13818   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
13819   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
13820   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
13821   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
13822   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
13823   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
13824   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
13825   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
13826   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
13827   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
13828   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
13829   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
13830   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
13831   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
13832   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
13833   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
13834   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
13835   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
13836   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
13837   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
13838   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
13839   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
13840   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
13841   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
13842   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
13843   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
13844   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
13845   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
13846   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
13847   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
13848   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
13849   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
13850   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
13851   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
13852   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
13853   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
13854   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
13855   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
13856   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
13857   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
13858   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
13859   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
13860   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
13861   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
13862   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
13863   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
13864   zip
13865 </p></blockquote>
13866
13867 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
13868
13869 <blockquote><p>
13870   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
13871   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
13872   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
13873   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
13874   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
13875   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
13876   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
13877   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
13878   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
13879   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
13880   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
13881   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
13882   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
13883   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
13884   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
13885   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
13886   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
13887   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
13888   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
13889   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
13890   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
13891   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
13892   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
13893   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
13894   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
13895   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
13896   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
13897   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
13898   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
13899 </p></blockquote>
13900
13901 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13902
13903 <blockquote><p>
13904   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
13905 </p></blockquote>
13906
13907 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13908
13909 <blockquote><p>
13910 [nothing]
13911 </p></blockquote>
13912
13913 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
13914
13915 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13916
13917 <blockquote><p>
13918   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
13919   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
13920   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
13921   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
13922   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
13923   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
13924   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
13925   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
13926   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
13927   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
13928   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
13929   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
13930   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
13931   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
13932   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
13933   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
13934   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
13935   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
13936   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
13937   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
13938   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
13939   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
13940   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
13941   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
13942   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
13943   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
13944   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
13945   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
13946   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
13947   ttf-sazanami-gothic
13948 </p></blockquote>
13949
13950 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
13951
13952 <blockquote><p>
13953   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
13954   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
13955   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
13956   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
13957   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
13958   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
13959   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
13960   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
13961   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
13962   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
13963   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
13964   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
13965   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
13966   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
13967   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
13968   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
13969   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
13970   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
13971   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
13972   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
13973   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
13974   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
13975   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
13976   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
13977   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
13978   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
13979   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
13980   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
13981   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
13982   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
13983   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
13984   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
13985   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
13986 </p></blockquote>
13987
13988 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13989
13990 <blockquote><p>
13991   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
13992   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
13993   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
13994   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
13995   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
13996   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
13997   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
13998 </p></blockquote>
13999
14000 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
14001
14002 <blockquote><p>
14003   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
14004 </p></blockquote>
14005
14006       </div>
14007       <div class="tags">
14008
14009
14010         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14011
14012
14013       </div>
14014     </div>
14015     <div class="padding"></div>
14016
14017     <div class="entry">
14018       <div class="title">
14019         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
14020       </div>
14021       <div class="date">
14022         20th November 2010
14023       </div>
14024       <div class="body">
14025         <p>Answering
14026 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
14027 call from the Gnash project</a> for
14028 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
14029 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
14030 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
14031 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
14032 releases out more often.</p>
14033
14034 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
14035 I have considered setting up a <a
14036 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
14037 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
14038 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
14039 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
14040 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
14041 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
14042 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
14043 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
14044 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
14045 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
14046 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
14047 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
14048
14049       </div>
14050       <div class="tags">
14051
14052
14053         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>.
14054
14055
14056       </div>
14057     </div>
14058     <div class="padding"></div>
14059
14060     <div class="entry">
14061       <div class="title">
14062         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
14063       </div>
14064       <div class="date">
14065          9th November 2010
14066       </div>
14067       <div class="body">
14068         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
14069
14070 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
14071 3D linked in from
14072 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
14073 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
14074
14075       </div>
14076       <div class="tags">
14077
14078
14079         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>.
14080
14081
14082       </div>
14083     </div>
14084     <div class="padding"></div>
14085
14086     <div class="entry">
14087       <div class="title">
14088         <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>
14089       </div>
14090       <div class="date">
14091          7th November 2010
14092       </div>
14093       <div class="body">
14094         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
14095 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
14096 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
14097 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
14098 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
14099 working using this DVD.</p>
14100
14101 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
14102 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
14103 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
14104 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
14105 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
14106 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
14107 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
14108
14109 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
14110 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
14111 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
14112 Debian archive.</p>
14113
14114 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
14115 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
14116 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
14117 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
14118 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
14119 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
14120 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
14121 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
14122 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
14123 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
14124 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
14125 free X driver should work.</p>
14126
14127 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
14128 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
14129 DVD more useful again.</p>
14130
14131       </div>
14132       <div class="tags">
14133
14134
14135         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
14136
14137
14138       </div>
14139     </div>
14140     <div class="padding"></div>
14141
14142     <div class="entry">
14143       <div class="title">
14144         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
14145       </div>
14146       <div class="date">
14147         24th October 2010
14148       </div>
14149       <div class="body">
14150         <p>Some updates.</p>
14151
14152 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
14153 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
14154 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
14155 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
14156 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
14157 :)</p>
14158
14159 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
14160 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
14161 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
14162 It is called
14163 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
14164 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
14165 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
14166 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
14167 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
14168 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
14169
14170 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
14171 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
14172 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
14173 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
14174 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
14175 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
14176 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
14177 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
14178 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
14179 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
14180
14181       </div>
14182       <div class="tags">
14183
14184
14185         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>.
14186
14187
14188       </div>
14189     </div>
14190     <div class="padding"></div>
14191
14192     <div class="entry">
14193       <div class="title">
14194         <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>
14195       </div>
14196       <div class="date">
14197         19th October 2010
14198       </div>
14199       <div class="body">
14200         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
14201 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
14202 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
14203 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
14204 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
14205 AVM2 flash files.</p>
14206
14207 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
14208 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
14209 following text:</P>
14210
14211 <p><blockquote>
14212
14213   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
14214   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
14215
14216   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
14217
14218   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
14219
14220   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
14221   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
14222   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
14223   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
14224   days. The project web page is available from
14225   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
14226   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
14227   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
14228
14229   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
14230   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
14231   to get this to happen.</p>
14232
14233   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
14234   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
14235
14236 </blockquote></p>
14237
14238 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
14239 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
14240 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
14241 :)</p>
14242
14243       </div>
14244       <div class="tags">
14245
14246
14247         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>.
14248
14249
14250       </div>
14251     </div>
14252     <div class="padding"></div>
14253
14254     <div class="entry">
14255       <div class="title">
14256         <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>
14257       </div>
14258       <div class="date">
14259          9th October 2010
14260       </div>
14261       <div class="body">
14262         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
14263 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
14264 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
14265 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
14266 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
14267 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
14268 robots.</p>
14269
14270 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
14271 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
14272 a few less important features too.</p>
14273
14274 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
14275 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
14276 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
14277 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
14278
14279 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
14280 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
14281 source or binary package:</p>
14282
14283 <p><ul>
14284 <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>
14285 <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>
14286 <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>
14287 </ul></p>
14288
14289 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
14290 please let me know.</p>
14291
14292       </div>
14293       <div class="tags">
14294
14295
14296         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>.
14297
14298
14299       </div>
14300     </div>
14301     <div class="padding"></div>
14302
14303     <div class="entry">
14304       <div class="title">
14305         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
14306       </div>
14307       <div class="date">
14308          3rd October 2010
14309       </div>
14310       <div class="body">
14311         <p><ul>
14312
14313 <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
14314 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
14315
14316 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
14317 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
14318 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
14319
14320 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
14321 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
14322 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
14323 simple setup.
14324
14325 </ul></p>
14326
14327       </div>
14328       <div class="tags">
14329
14330
14331         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>.
14332
14333
14334       </div>
14335     </div>
14336     <div class="padding"></div>
14337
14338     <div class="entry">
14339       <div class="title">
14340         <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>
14341       </div>
14342       <div class="date">
14343          9th September 2010
14344       </div>
14345       <div class="body">
14346         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
14347 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
14348 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
14349 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
14350 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
14351 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
14352 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
14353 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
14354 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
14355
14356 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
14357 written:</p>
14358
14359 <blockquote>
14360 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
14361 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
14362 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
14363 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
14364 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
14365
14366 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
14367 standard.</p>
14368 </blockquote>
14369
14370 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
14371 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
14372 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
14373 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
14374
14375 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
14376 read
14377 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
14378 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
14379 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
14380 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
14381 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
14382 the issue.  The solution is to support the
14383 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
14384 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
14385 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
14386
14387       </div>
14388       <div class="tags">
14389
14390
14391         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>.
14392
14393
14394       </div>
14395     </div>
14396     <div class="padding"></div>
14397
14398     <div class="entry">
14399       <div class="title">
14400         <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>
14401       </div>
14402       <div class="date">
14403          4th September 2010
14404       </div>
14405       <div class="body">
14406         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
14407 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
14408 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
14409 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
14410 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
14411 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
14412 installed.</p>
14413
14414 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
14415 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
14416 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
14417 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
14418 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
14419 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
14420 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
14421 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
14422 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
14423
14424 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
14425 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
14426 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
14427 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
14428 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
14429 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
14430 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
14431 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
14432 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
14433 pages they want to visit.</p>
14434
14435 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
14436 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
14437 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
14438 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
14439 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
14440 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
14441 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
14442 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
14443 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
14444 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
14445 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
14446
14447       </div>
14448       <div class="tags">
14449
14450
14451         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>.
14452
14453
14454       </div>
14455     </div>
14456     <div class="padding"></div>
14457
14458     <div class="entry">
14459       <div class="title">
14460         <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>
14461       </div>
14462       <div class="date">
14463          1st September 2010
14464       </div>
14465       <div class="body">
14466         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
14467 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
14468 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
14469 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
14470 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
14471 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
14472 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
14473 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
14474 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
14475 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
14476 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
14477 drive around.</p>
14478
14479 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
14480 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
14481
14482 <p><pre>
14483 use Spykee;
14484 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
14485 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
14486 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
14487 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
14488 $spykee->left();
14489 sleep 2;
14490 $spykee->right();
14491 sleep 2;
14492 $spykee->forward();
14493 sleep 2;
14494 $spykee->back();
14495 sleep 2;
14496 $spykee->stop();
14497 </pre></p>
14498
14499 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
14500 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
14501 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
14502 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
14503 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
14504 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
14505 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
14506 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
14507 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
14508 going. :).</p>
14509
14510 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
14511 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
14512 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
14513 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
14514
14515       </div>
14516       <div class="tags">
14517
14518
14519         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>.
14520
14521
14522       </div>
14523     </div>
14524     <div class="padding"></div>
14525
14526     <div class="entry">
14527       <div class="title">
14528         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
14529       </div>
14530       <div class="date">
14531         30th August 2010
14532       </div>
14533       <div class="body">
14534         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
14535 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
14536 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
14537 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
14538 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
14539 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
14540 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
14541
14542 <pre>
14543 % ln foo bar
14544 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
14545 %
14546 </pre>
14547
14548 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
14549 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
14550 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
14551 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
14552 nevertheless. :)</p>
14553
14554 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
14555 git from
14556 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
14557
14558       </div>
14559       <div class="tags">
14560
14561
14562         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
14563
14564
14565       </div>
14566     </div>
14567     <div class="padding"></div>
14568
14569     <div class="entry">
14570       <div class="title">
14571         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
14572       </div>
14573       <div class="date">
14574         26th August 2010
14575       </div>
14576       <div class="body">
14577         <p>My file system sematics program
14578 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
14579 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
14580 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
14581 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
14582 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
14583 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
14584 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
14585 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
14586 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
14587 script:</p>
14588
14589 <pre>
14590 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
14591   mode_t retval = 0;
14592   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
14593   if (-1 != fd) {
14594     unlink(name);
14595     struct stat statbuf;
14596     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
14597       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
14598     }
14599     close(fd);
14600   }
14601   return retval;
14602 }
14603
14604 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
14605 int test_umask(void) {
14606   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
14607
14608   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
14609   mode_t newmode;
14610   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
14611     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
14612            newmode);
14613   }
14614   umask(007);
14615   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
14616     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
14617            newmode);
14618   }
14619
14620   umask (orig_umask);
14621   return 0;
14622 }
14623
14624 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
14625   [...]
14626   test_umask();
14627   return 0;
14628 }
14629 </pre>
14630
14631 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
14632
14633 <pre>
14634 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
14635 info: testing symlink creation
14636 info: testing subdirectory creation
14637 info: testing fcntl locking
14638   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
14639   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
14640   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
14641   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
14642   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
14643   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
14644 info: testing umask effect on file creation
14645 </pre>
14646
14647 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
14648 result:</p>
14649
14650 <pre>
14651 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
14652 info: testing symlink creation
14653 info: testing subdirectory creation
14654 info: testing fcntl locking
14655   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
14656   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
14657   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
14658   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
14659   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
14660   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
14661 info: testing umask effect on file creation
14662   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
14663   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
14664 </pre>
14665
14666 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
14667 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
14668 directory.</p>
14669
14670 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
14671 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
14672
14673 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
14674 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
14675 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
14676
14677       </div>
14678       <div class="tags">
14679
14680
14681         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
14682
14683
14684       </div>
14685     </div>
14686     <div class="padding"></div>
14687
14688     <div class="entry">
14689       <div class="title">
14690         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
14691       </div>
14692       <div class="date">
14693         15th August 2010
14694       </div>
14695       <div class="body">
14696         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
14697 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
14698 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
14699 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
14700 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
14701 long time.</p>
14702
14703       </div>
14704       <div class="tags">
14705
14706
14707         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>.
14708
14709
14710       </div>
14711     </div>
14712     <div class="padding"></div>
14713
14714     <div class="entry">
14715       <div class="title">
14716         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
14717       </div>
14718       <div class="date">
14719          9th August 2010
14720       </div>
14721       <div class="body">
14722         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
14723 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
14724 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
14725 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
14726 generated configuration.</p>
14727
14728 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
14729 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
14730 without any manual configuration.</p>
14731
14732 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
14733 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
14734 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
14735 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
14736 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
14737 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
14738 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
14739 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
14740 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
14741 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
14742 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
14743 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
14744 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
14745 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
14746 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
14747 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
14748 use.</p>
14749
14750 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
14751 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
14752 working properly out of the box:</p>
14753
14754 <ul>
14755 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
14756 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
14757 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
14758 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
14759 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
14760 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
14761 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
14762 </ul>
14763
14764 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
14765
14766 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
14767 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
14768 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
14769 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
14770 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
14771
14772 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
14773 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
14774 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
14775 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
14776 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
14777 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
14778 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
14779 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
14780
14781 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
14782 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
14783 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
14784 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
14785 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
14786 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
14787 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
14788 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
14789 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
14790 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
14791 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
14792 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
14793 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
14794 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
14795 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
14796 current DNS domain is used.</p>
14797
14798 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
14799 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
14800 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
14801 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
14802 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
14803 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
14804 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
14805 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
14806 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
14807 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
14808 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
14809 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
14810 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
14811
14812 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
14813 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
14814 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
14815 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
14816 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
14817 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
14818 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
14819 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
14820 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
14821 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
14822 do for now. :)</p>
14823
14824 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
14825 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
14826 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
14827 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
14828 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
14829 yet.</p>
14830
14831 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
14832 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14833
14834 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
14835 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
14836 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
14837 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
14838
14839       </div>
14840       <div class="tags">
14841
14842
14843         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
14844
14845
14846       </div>
14847     </div>
14848     <div class="padding"></div>
14849
14850     <div class="entry">
14851       <div class="title">
14852         <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>
14853       </div>
14854       <div class="date">
14855          8th August 2010
14856       </div>
14857       <div class="body">
14858         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
14859 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
14860 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
14861 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
14862 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
14863 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
14864 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
14865
14866 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
14867 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
14868 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
14869 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
14870 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
14871 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
14872 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
14873
14874 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
14875 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
14876 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
14877 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
14878 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
14879
14880 <pre>
14881 /*
14882  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
14883  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
14884  * directory.
14885  * License: GPL v2 or later
14886  *
14887  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
14888  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
14889 */
14890
14891 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
14892 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
14893 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
14894
14895 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
14896
14897 #include &lt;errno.h>
14898 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
14899 #include &lt;stdio.h>
14900 #include &lt;string.h>
14901 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
14902 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
14903 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
14904 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
14905 #include &lt;unistd.h>
14906
14907 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
14908 /*
14909  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
14910  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
14911  * below.
14912  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
14913  */
14914 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
14915 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
14916   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
14917 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
14918   char *zErrMsg;
14919   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
14920   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
14921   unlink(name);
14922   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
14923   if( rc ){
14924     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
14925     sqlite3_close(db);
14926     return -1;
14927   }
14928
14929   /* create tables */
14930   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
14931   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
14932     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
14933     sqlite3_close(db);
14934     return -1;
14935   }
14936   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
14937   sqlite3_close(db);
14938   return 0;
14939 }
14940 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
14941
14942 /*
14943  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
14944  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
14945  * done in the sqlite3 library.
14946  * See also
14947  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
14948  * POSIX specification
14949  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
14950  */
14951 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
14952   struct flock fl;
14953   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
14954   unlink(name);
14955   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
14956   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
14957
14958   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
14959   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
14960   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
14961   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
14962   fl.l_len    = 1;
14963   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
14964   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
14965
14966   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
14967   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
14968   fl.l_len    = 510;
14969   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
14970   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
14971
14972   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
14973   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
14974   fl.l_len    = 1;
14975   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
14976   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
14977
14978   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
14979   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
14980   fl.l_len    = 1;
14981   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
14982   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
14983
14984   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
14985   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
14986   fl.l_len    = 510;
14987   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
14988
14989   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
14990   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
14991   fl.l_len    = 2;
14992   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
14993   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
14994
14995   close(fd);
14996   return 0;
14997 }
14998
14999 /*
15000  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
15001  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
15002  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
15003  * slowing down file operations.
15004  */
15005 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
15006 #define LEVELS 5
15007   char *path = strdup("test");
15008   char *dirs[LEVELS];
15009   int level;
15010   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
15011   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
15012     char *newpath = NULL;
15013     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
15014       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
15015              path, strerror(errno));
15016       break;
15017     }
15018     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
15019     free(path);
15020     path = newpath;
15021   }
15022   return 0;
15023 }
15024
15025 /*
15026  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
15027  * KDE.
15028  */
15029 int test_symlinks(void) {
15030   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
15031   unlink("symlink");
15032   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
15033     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
15034   return 0;
15035 }
15036
15037 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
15038   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
15039   test_symlinks();
15040   test_subdirectory_creation();
15041 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
15042   test_sqlite_open();
15043 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
15044   test_gcompris_locking();
15045   return 0;
15046 }
15047 </pre>
15048
15049 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
15050 this:</p>
15051
15052 <pre>
15053 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
15054 info: testing symlink creation
15055 info: testing subdirectory creation
15056 info: sqlite worked
15057 info: testing fcntl locking
15058   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
15059   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
15060   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
15061   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
15062   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
15063   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
15064 </pre>
15065
15066 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
15067 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
15068 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
15069 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
15070 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
15071 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
15072 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
15073 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
15074
15075 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
15076 it. :)</p>
15077
15078 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
15079 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
15080 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
15081
15082       </div>
15083       <div class="tags">
15084
15085
15086         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
15087
15088
15089       </div>
15090     </div>
15091     <div class="padding"></div>
15092
15093     <div class="entry">
15094       <div class="title">
15095         <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>
15096       </div>
15097       <div class="date">
15098          7th August 2010
15099       </div>
15100       <div class="body">
15101         <p>A few days ago, I
15102 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
15103 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
15104 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
15105 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
15106 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
15107 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
15108 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
15109 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
15110 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
15111
15112 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
15113 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
15114 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
15115 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
15116 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
15117 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
15118 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
15119 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
15120 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
15121 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
15122 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
15123 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
15124 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
15125 gave it a IP address.</p>
15126
15127 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
15128 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
15129 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
15130 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
15131 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
15132 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
15133 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
15134 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
15135
15136 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
15137 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
15138 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
15139 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
15140 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
15141 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
15142
15143 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
15144 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
15145 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
15146 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
15147 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
15148 with UID and GID values.</p>
15149
15150 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
15151 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15152
15153       </div>
15154       <div class="tags">
15155
15156
15157         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
15158
15159
15160       </div>
15161     </div>
15162     <div class="padding"></div>
15163
15164     <div class="entry">
15165       <div class="title">
15166         <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>
15167       </div>
15168       <div class="date">
15169          3rd August 2010
15170       </div>
15171       <div class="body">
15172         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
15173 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
15174 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
15175 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
15176 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
15177 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
15178 servers.</p>
15179
15180 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
15181 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
15182 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
15183 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
15184 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
15185 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
15186 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
15187 .uio.no.</p>
15188
15189 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
15190 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
15191 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
15192 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
15193 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
15194 university servers.</p>
15195
15196 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
15197 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
15198 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
15199 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
15200 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
15201 uses.</p>
15202
15203       </div>
15204       <div class="tags">
15205
15206
15207         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
15208
15209
15210       </div>
15211     </div>
15212     <div class="padding"></div>
15213
15214     <div class="entry">
15215       <div class="title">
15216         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
15217       </div>
15218       <div class="date">
15219         27th July 2010
15220       </div>
15221       <div class="body">
15222         <p>I discovered this while doing
15223 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
15224 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
15225 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
15226 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
15227 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
15228
15229 <p>An example is from todays
15230 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
15231 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
15232 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
15233 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
15234 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
15235 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
15236 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
15237
15238 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
15239
15240 <blockquote><pre>
15241 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
15242  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
15243   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
15244 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
15245  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
15246 </pre></blockquote>
15247
15248 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
15249 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
15250 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
15251 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
15252 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
15253 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
15254 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
15255 of dependency loops.</p>
15256
15257 <p>Thanks to
15258 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
15259 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
15260 dependencies
15261 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
15262 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
15263
15264 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
15265 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
15266 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
15267 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
15268 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
15269 it.</p>
15270
15271       </div>
15272       <div class="tags">
15273
15274
15275         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>.
15276
15277
15278       </div>
15279     </div>
15280     <div class="padding"></div>
15281
15282     <div class="entry">
15283       <div class="title">
15284         <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>
15285       </div>
15286       <div class="date">
15287         27th July 2010
15288       </div>
15289       <div class="body">
15290         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
15291 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
15292 completed.</p>
15293
15294 <blockquote>
15295 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
15296 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
15297 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
15298 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
15299 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
15300 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
15301 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
15302 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
15303
15304 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
15305 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
15306 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
15307
15308 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
15309 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
15310 much.</p>
15311
15312 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
15313
15314 <ul>
15315 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
15316 <ul>
15317   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
15318          combination with some new artwork
15319   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
15320   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
15321   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
15322   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
15323   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
15324   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
15325   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
15326   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
15327   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
15328 </ul></li>
15329 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
15330     Enabled for:
15331 <ul>
15332   <li>PAM
15333   <li>LDAP
15334   <li>IMAP
15335   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
15336 </ul>
15337 </li>
15338 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
15339 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
15340     fetched from LDAP.</li>
15341 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
15342 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
15343 </ul>
15344 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
15345
15346 <ul>
15347 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
15348     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
15349     for testing.</li>
15350 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
15351     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
15352     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
15353 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
15354 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
15355 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
15356 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
15357     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
15358 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
15359     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
15360     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
15361 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
15362     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
15363     and help out with translations.</li>
15364 </ul>
15365
15366 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
15367
15368 <ul>
15369 <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>
15370 <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>
15371 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
15372 </ul>
15373 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
15374
15375 <ul>
15376 <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>
15377 <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>
15378 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
15379 </ul>
15380
15381 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
15382 get closer to the final release.</p>
15383
15384 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
15385
15386 <ul>
15387 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
15388 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
15389 </ul>
15390
15391 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
15392 <ul>
15393 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
15394 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
15395 </ul>
15396 <p>How to report bugs:
15397 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
15398
15399 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
15400 </blockquote>
15401
15402       </div>
15403       <div class="tags">
15404
15405
15406         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
15407
15408
15409       </div>
15410     </div>
15411     <div class="padding"></div>
15412
15413     <div class="entry">
15414       <div class="title">
15415         <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>
15416       </div>
15417       <div class="date">
15418         25th July 2010
15419       </div>
15420       <div class="body">
15421         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
15422 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
15423 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
15424 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
15425 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
15426
15427 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
15428 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
15429 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
15430 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
15431 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
15432 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
15433 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
15434
15435 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
15436 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
15437 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
15438 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
15439 up. :)</p>
15440
15441 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
15442 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
15443 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
15444
15445 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
15446 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
15447 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
15448 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
15449 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
15450 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
15451 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
15452 release another day.</p>
15453
15454 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
15455 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15456
15457       </div>
15458       <div class="tags">
15459
15460
15461         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
15462
15463
15464       </div>
15465     </div>
15466     <div class="padding"></div>
15467
15468     <div class="entry">
15469       <div class="title">
15470         <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>
15471       </div>
15472       <div class="date">
15473         18th July 2010
15474       </div>
15475       <div class="body">
15476         <p>Thanks to
15477 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
15478 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
15479 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
15480 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
15481 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
15482 only available from the development server, until more experience is
15483 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
15484
15485 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
15486 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
15487 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
15488 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
15489 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
15490 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
15491 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
15492
15493       </div>
15494       <div class="tags">
15495
15496
15497         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>.
15498
15499
15500       </div>
15501     </div>
15502     <div class="padding"></div>
15503
15504     <div class="entry">
15505       <div class="title">
15506         <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>
15507       </div>
15508       <div class="date">
15509         17th July 2010
15510       </div>
15511       <div class="body">
15512         <p>This is a
15513 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
15514 on my
15515 <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
15516 work</a> on
15517 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
15518 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
15519
15520 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
15521 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
15522 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
15523 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
15524
15525 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
15526 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
15527 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
15528
15529 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
15530
15531 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
15532 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
15533 the web.
15534
15535 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
15536 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
15537 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
15538 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
15539 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
15540 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
15541
15542 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
15543 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
15544 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
15545 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
15546 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
15547 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
15548 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
15549 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
15550 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
15551 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
15552 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
15553 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
15554 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
15555 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
15556 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
15557 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
15558
15559 <blockquote><pre>
15560 ldapsearch -h ldap \
15561   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
15562   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
15563   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
15564   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
15565   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
15566   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
15567
15568 ldapsearch -h ldap \
15569   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
15570   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
15571   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
15572   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
15573   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
15574 </pre></blockquote>
15575
15576 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
15577 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
15578 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
15579 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15580 also exist.</p>
15581
15582 <blockquote><pre>
15583 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15584 objectclass: top
15585 objectclass: dnsdomain
15586 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
15587 dc: tjener
15588 arecord: 10.0.2.2
15589 associateddomain: tjener.intern
15590
15591 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15592 objectclass: top
15593 objectclass: dnsdomain2
15594 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
15595 dc: 2
15596 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
15597 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
15598 </pre></blockquote>
15599
15600 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
15601 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
15602 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
15603 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
15604 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
15605 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
15606 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
15607 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
15608 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
15609 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
15610 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
15611 instead.</p>
15612
15613 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
15614 like this:</p>
15615
15616 <blockquote><pre>
15617 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
15618   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
15619   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
15620   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
15621   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
15622   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
15623
15624 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
15625   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
15626 </pre></blockquote>
15627
15628 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
15629 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
15630 reverse lookups.</p>
15631
15632 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
15633 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
15634 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
15635 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
15636
15637 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
15638 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
15639 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
15640
15641 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
15642 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
15643 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
15644 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
15645 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
15646
15647 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
15648 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
15649 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
15650 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
15651 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
15652
15653 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
15654 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
15655 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
15656 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
15657 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
15658 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
15659
15660 <blockquote><pre>
15661 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
15662     SUP top
15663     AUXILIARY
15664     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
15665           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
15666           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
15667           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
15668           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
15669     ))
15670 </pre></blockquote>
15671
15672 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
15673 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
15674 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
15675 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
15676 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
15677 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
15678
15679 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
15680
15681 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
15682 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
15683 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
15684 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
15685 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
15686
15687 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
15688 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
15689 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
15690 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
15691
15692 <blockquote><pre>
15693 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
15694 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
15695 </pre></blockquote>
15696
15697 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
15698 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
15699 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
15700 search result is this entry:</p>
15701
15702 <blockquote><pre>
15703 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15704 cn: dhcp
15705 objectClass: top
15706 objectClass: dhcpServer
15707 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15708 </pre></blockquote>
15709
15710 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
15711 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
15712 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
15713 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
15714 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
15715 The search result is this entry:</p>
15716
15717 <blockquote><pre>
15718 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15719 cn: DHCP Config
15720 objectClass: top
15721 objectClass: dhcpService
15722 objectClass: dhcpOptions
15723 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15724 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
15725 dhcpStatements: authoritative
15726 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
15727 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
15728 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
15729 </pre></blockquote>
15730
15731 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
15732 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
15733 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
15734 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
15735 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
15736 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
15737 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
15738 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
15739 related computer objects.</p>
15740
15741 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
15742 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
15743 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
15744 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
15745 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
15746 like:</p>
15747
15748 <blockquote><pre>
15749 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15750 cn: hostname
15751 objectClass: top
15752 objectClass: dhcpHost
15753 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
15754 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
15755 </pre></blockquote>
15756
15757 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
15758 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
15759 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
15760 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
15761 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
15762 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
15763 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
15764 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
15765 structural object class.
15766
15767 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
15768
15769 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
15770 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
15771 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
15772 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
15773 in the configuration.</p>
15774
15775 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
15776 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
15777 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
15778 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
15779 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
15780 structure.</p>
15781
15782 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
15783 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
15784
15785 <blockquote><pre>
15786 ou=services
15787   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
15788     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
15789     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
15790       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
15791         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
15792     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
15793       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
15794         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
15795     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
15796       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
15797 </pre></blockquote>
15798
15799 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
15800 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
15801 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
15802 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
15803
15804 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
15805 like this:</p>
15806
15807 <blockquote><pre>
15808 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15809 dc: hostname
15810 objectClass: top
15811 objectClass: dhcpHost
15812 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
15813 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
15814 associateddomain: hostname.intern
15815 arecord: 10.11.12.13
15816 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
15817 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
15818 </pre></blockquote>
15819
15820 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
15821 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
15822 auxiliary object class.</p>
15823
15824       </div>
15825       <div class="tags">
15826
15827
15828         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>.
15829
15830
15831       </div>
15832     </div>
15833     <div class="padding"></div>
15834
15835     <div class="entry">
15836       <div class="title">
15837         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
15838       </div>
15839       <div class="date">
15840         14th July 2010
15841       </div>
15842       <div class="body">
15843         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
15844 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
15845 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
15846 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
15847 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
15848
15849 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
15850 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
15851
15852 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
15853 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
15854 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
15855 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
15856 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
15857 to a slave DNS server.</p>
15858
15859 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
15860 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
15861 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
15862 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
15863 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
15864 seem to work.</p>
15865
15866 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
15867 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
15868 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
15869 this:</p>
15870
15871 <blockquote><pre>
15872   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15873   cn: hostname
15874   objectClass: dhcphost
15875   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
15876   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
15877   associateddomain: hostname.intern
15878   arecord: 10.11.12.13
15879   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
15880   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
15881   ldapconfigsound: Y
15882 </pre></blockquote>
15883
15884 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
15885 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
15886 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
15887 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
15888
15889 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
15890 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
15891 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
15892 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
15893 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
15894 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
15895 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
15896 might be a good place to put it.</p>
15897
15898 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
15899 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15900
15901       </div>
15902       <div class="tags">
15903
15904
15905         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>.
15906
15907
15908       </div>
15909     </div>
15910     <div class="padding"></div>
15911
15912     <div class="entry">
15913       <div class="title">
15914         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
15915       </div>
15916       <div class="date">
15917         11th July 2010
15918       </div>
15919       <div class="body">
15920         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
15921 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
15922 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
15923 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
15924
15925 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
15926 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
15927 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
15928 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
15929 LTSP clients.</p>
15930
15931 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
15932 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
15933 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
15934
15935 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
15936 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
15937 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
15938
15939 <blockquote><pre>
15940 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
15941 #
15942 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
15943 #
15944 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
15945 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
15946 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
15947 #
15948 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
15949 # existence of attribute names.
15950 #
15951 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
15952 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
15953 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
15954 #
15955 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
15956 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
15957 #
15958 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
15959 #     SUP top
15960 #     AUXILIARY
15961 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
15962
15963 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
15964 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
15965     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
15966     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
15967         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
15968         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
15969             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
15970             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
15971             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
15972             # bass value on to clients
15973             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
15974         done
15975     done
15976 fi
15977 </pre></blockquote>
15978
15979 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
15980 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
15981 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
15982 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
15983 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
15984
15985 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
15986 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15987
15988 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
15989 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
15990 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
15991 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
15992 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
15993 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
15994
15995       </div>
15996       <div class="tags">
15997
15998
15999         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>.
16000
16001
16002       </div>
16003     </div>
16004     <div class="padding"></div>
16005
16006     <div class="entry">
16007       <div class="title">
16008         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
16009       </div>
16010       <div class="date">
16011          9th July 2010
16012       </div>
16013       <div class="body">
16014         <p>Since
16015 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
16016 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
16017 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
16018 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
16019 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
16020 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
16021 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
16022 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
16023 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
16024 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
16025 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
16026 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
16027 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
16028
16029       </div>
16030       <div class="tags">
16031
16032
16033         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>.
16034
16035
16036       </div>
16037     </div>
16038     <div class="padding"></div>
16039
16040     <div class="entry">
16041       <div class="title">
16042         <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>
16043       </div>
16044       <div class="date">
16045          3rd July 2010
16046       </div>
16047       <div class="body">
16048         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
16049 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
16050 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
16051 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
16052 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
16053 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
16054 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
16055 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
16056
16057 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
16058 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
16059 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
16060 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
16061 publish the difference.</p>
16062
16063 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
16064
16065 <blockquote><p>
16066   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
16067   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
16068   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
16069   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
16070   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
16071   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
16072   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
16073   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
16074 </p></blockquote>
16075
16076 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
16077
16078 <blockquote><p>
16079   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
16080   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
16081   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
16082   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
16083   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
16084   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
16085   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
16086   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
16087   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
16088   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
16089   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
16090   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
16091   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
16092   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
16093   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
16094   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
16095   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
16096   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
16097   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
16098   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
16099 </p></blockquote>
16100
16101 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
16102
16103 <blockquote><p>
16104   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
16105   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
16106   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
16107   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
16108   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
16109   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
16110   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
16111   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
16112   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
16113   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
16114   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
16115   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
16116   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
16117   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
16118   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
16119   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
16120   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
16121   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
16122   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
16123   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
16124   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
16125 </p></blockquote>
16126
16127 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
16128
16129 <blockquote><p>
16130   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
16131   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
16132   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
16133 </p></blockquote>
16134
16135 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
16136 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
16137 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
16138 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
16139 the difference somewhat.
16140
16141       </div>
16142       <div class="tags">
16143
16144
16145         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>.
16146
16147
16148       </div>
16149     </div>
16150     <div class="padding"></div>
16151
16152     <div class="entry">
16153       <div class="title">
16154         <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>
16155       </div>
16156       <div class="date">
16157          1st July 2010
16158       </div>
16159       <div class="body">
16160         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
16161 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
16162 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
16163 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
16164 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
16165 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
16166 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
16167 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
16168 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
16169
16170 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
16171
16172 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
16173 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
16174 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
16175 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
16176 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
16177 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
16178 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
16179 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
16180 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
16181 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
16182 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
16183 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
16184 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
16185 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
16186 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
16187
16188 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
16189
16190 <blockquote><pre>
16191 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
16192 </pre></blockquote>
16193
16194 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
16195 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
16196 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
16197 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
16198 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
16199 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
16200 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
16201 on how to get this working.</p>
16202
16203 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
16204 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
16205 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
16206 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
16207 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
16208 instructions I found in the
16209 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
16210 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
16211
16212 <blockquote><pre>
16213         debug-level             0
16214         reload-count            unlimited
16215         paranoia                no
16216
16217         enable-cache            passwd          yes
16218         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
16219         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
16220         suggested-size          passwd          211
16221         check-files             passwd          yes
16222         persistent              passwd          yes
16223         shared                  passwd          yes
16224         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
16225         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
16226
16227         enable-cache            group           yes
16228         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
16229         negative-time-to-live   group           20
16230         suggested-size          group           211
16231         check-files             group           yes
16232         persistent              group           yes
16233         shared                  group           yes
16234         max-db-size             group           33554432
16235         auto-propagate          group           yes
16236
16237         enable-cache            hosts           no
16238         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
16239         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
16240         suggested-size          hosts           211
16241         check-files             hosts           yes
16242         persistent              hosts           yes
16243         shared                  hosts           yes
16244         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
16245
16246         enable-cache            services        yes
16247         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
16248         negative-time-to-live   services        20
16249         suggested-size          services        211
16250         check-files             services        yes
16251         persistent              services        yes
16252         shared                  services        yes
16253         max-db-size             services        33554432
16254 </pre></blockquote>
16255
16256 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
16257 automatically like the one provided in
16258 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
16259 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
16260 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
16261 look like this:</p>
16262
16263 <blockquote><pre>
16264 passwd:         files ldap
16265 group:          files ldap
16266 shadow:         files ldap
16267 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
16268 networks:       files
16269 protocols:      files
16270 services:       files
16271 ethers:         files
16272 rpc:            files
16273 netgroup:       files ldap
16274 </pre></blockquote>
16275
16276 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
16277 shadow and netgroup.</p>
16278
16279 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
16280 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
16281 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
16282 attributes cached.
16283
16284 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
16285   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
16286
16287 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
16288 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
16289 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
16290 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
16291 discovered sssd.</p>
16292
16293 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
16294
16295 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
16296 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
16297 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
16298 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
16299 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
16300 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
16301 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
16302 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
16303 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
16304 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
16305 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
16306 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
16307 version 1.2 is now in testing.
16308
16309 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
16310 roaming setup I want</p>
16311
16312 <blockquote><pre>
16313 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
16314 </pre></blockquote>
16315
16316 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
16317 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
16318
16319 <blockquote><pre>
16320 [sssd]
16321 config_file_version = 2
16322 reconnection_retries = 3
16323 sbus_timeout = 30
16324 services = nss, pam
16325 domains = INTERN
16326
16327 [nss]
16328 filter_groups = root
16329 filter_users = root
16330 reconnection_retries = 3
16331
16332 [pam]
16333 reconnection_retries = 3
16334
16335 [domain/INTERN]
16336 enumerate = false
16337 cache_credentials = true
16338
16339 id_provider = ldap
16340 auth_provider = ldap
16341 chpass_provider = ldap
16342
16343 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
16344 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
16345 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
16346 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
16347 </pre></blockquote>
16348
16349 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
16350 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
16351
16352 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
16353 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
16354 modify it manually.</p>
16355
16356 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
16357 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16358
16359       </div>
16360       <div class="tags">
16361
16362
16363         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
16364
16365
16366       </div>
16367     </div>
16368     <div class="padding"></div>
16369
16370     <div class="entry">
16371       <div class="title">
16372         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
16373       </div>
16374       <div class="date">
16375         28th June 2010
16376       </div>
16377       <div class="body">
16378         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
16379 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
16380 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
16381 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
16382 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
16383 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
16384 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
16385 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
16386 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
16387 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
16388
16389 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
16390 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
16391 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
16392 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
16393 released.</p>
16394
16395 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
16396 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
16397 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
16398 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
16399
16400 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
16401 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16402
16403 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
16404 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
16405 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
16406 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
16407 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
16408
16409       </div>
16410       <div class="tags">
16411
16412
16413         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>.
16414
16415
16416       </div>
16417     </div>
16418     <div class="padding"></div>
16419
16420     <div class="entry">
16421       <div class="title">
16422         <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>
16423       </div>
16424       <div class="date">
16425         24th June 2010
16426       </div>
16427       <div class="body">
16428         <p>A while back, I
16429 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
16430 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
16431 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
16432 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
16433
16434 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
16435 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
16436 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
16437 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
16438
16439 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
16440 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
16441 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
16442 Debian Edu.</p>
16443
16444 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
16445 the
16446 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
16447 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
16448 available today from IETF.</p>
16449
16450 <pre>
16451 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
16452 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
16453 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
16454  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
16455         NAME 'dhcpHost'
16456         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
16457 -       SUP top
16458 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
16459         MUST cn
16460         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
16461         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
16462 </pre>
16463
16464 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
16465 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
16466 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
16467
16468 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
16469 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16470
16471       </div>
16472       <div class="tags">
16473
16474
16475         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>.
16476
16477
16478       </div>
16479     </div>
16480     <div class="padding"></div>
16481
16482     <div class="entry">
16483       <div class="title">
16484         <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>
16485       </div>
16486       <div class="date">
16487         16th June 2010
16488       </div>
16489       <div class="body">
16490         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
16491 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
16492 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
16493 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
16494 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
16495 this:
16496
16497 <blockquote><pre>
16498 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
16499 tasksel --new-install
16500 </pre></blockquote>
16501
16502 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
16503 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
16504 any output what so ever.
16505
16506 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
16507 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
16508 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
16509 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
16510 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
16511 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
16512 code like this:
16513
16514 <blockquote><pre>
16515 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
16516 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
16517 $cmd
16518 </pre></blockquote>
16519
16520 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
16521 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
16522 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
16523 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
16524 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
16525 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
16526 installation.</p>
16527
16528 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
16529 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
16530 like this.</p>
16531
16532       </div>
16533       <div class="tags">
16534
16535
16536         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>.
16537
16538
16539       </div>
16540     </div>
16541     <div class="padding"></div>
16542
16543     <div class="entry">
16544       <div class="title">
16545         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
16546       </div>
16547       <div class="date">
16548         13th June 2010
16549       </div>
16550       <div class="body">
16551         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
16552 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
16553 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
16554 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
16555 pages.</p>
16556
16557 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
16558 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
16559 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
16560 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
16561 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
16562 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
16563 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
16564 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
16565 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
16566 see how the project is doing.</p>
16567
16568 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
16569 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
16570 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
16571 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
16572 Windows.  This is great.</p>
16573
16574       </div>
16575       <div class="tags">
16576
16577
16578         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>.
16579
16580
16581       </div>
16582     </div>
16583     <div class="padding"></div>
16584
16585     <div class="entry">
16586       <div class="title">
16587         <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>
16588       </div>
16589       <div class="date">
16590         13th June 2010
16591       </div>
16592       <div class="body">
16593         <p>My
16594 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
16595 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
16596 finally made the upgrade logs available from
16597 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
16598 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
16599 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
16600 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
16601
16602 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
16603 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
16604 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
16605 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
16606 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
16607 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
16608 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
16609 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
16610
16611 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
16612 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
16613 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
16614 too surprising.</p>
16615
16616 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
16617 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
16618 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
16619 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
16620 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
16621 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
16622 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
16623 continue.</p>
16624
16625 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
16626 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
16627   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
16628   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
16629   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
16630   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
16631   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
16632   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
16633   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
16634   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
16635   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
16636   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
16637   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
16638   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
16639   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
16640   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
16641   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
16642   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
16643   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
16644   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
16645   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
16646   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
16647   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
16648   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
16649   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
16650   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
16651   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
16652   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
16653   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
16654   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
16655
16656 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
16657
16658 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
16659   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
16660   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
16661   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
16662   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
16663   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
16664   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
16665   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
16666   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
16667   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
16668   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
16669   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
16670   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
16671   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
16672   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
16673   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
16674   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
16675   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
16676   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
16677   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
16678   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
16679   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
16680   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
16681   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
16682   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
16683   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
16684   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
16685   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
16686   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
16687   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
16688   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
16689   zip</p>
16690
16691 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
16692
16693 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
16694   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
16695   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
16696   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
16697   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
16698   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
16699   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
16700   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
16701   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
16702   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
16703   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
16704   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
16705   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
16706   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
16707   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
16708   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
16709   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
16710   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
16711   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
16712   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
16713   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
16714   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
16715   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
16716   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
16717   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
16718   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
16719   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
16720   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
16721
16722 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
16723 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
16724   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
16725   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
16726   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
16727   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
16728   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
16729   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
16730   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
16731   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
16732   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
16733   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
16734   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
16735   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
16736   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
16737   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
16738   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
16739   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
16740   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
16741   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
16742   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
16743   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
16744   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
16745   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
16746   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
16747   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
16748   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
16749   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
16750   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
16751   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
16752   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
16753   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
16754   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
16755   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
16756   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
16757   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
16758   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
16759   xulrunner-1.9</p>
16760
16761
16762       </div>
16763       <div class="tags">
16764
16765
16766         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>.
16767
16768
16769       </div>
16770     </div>
16771     <div class="padding"></div>
16772
16773     <div class="entry">
16774       <div class="title">
16775         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
16776       </div>
16777       <div class="date">
16778         11th June 2010
16779       </div>
16780       <div class="body">
16781         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
16782 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
16783 have been discovered and reported in the process
16784 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
16785 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
16786 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
16787 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
16788 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
16789
16790 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
16791 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
16792 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
16793 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
16794 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
16795 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
16796
16797 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
16798 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
16799 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
16800 is created.  The bug report
16801 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
16802 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
16803 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
16804 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
16805 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
16806 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
16807 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
16808 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
16809 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
16810 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
16811 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
16812 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
16813 Debian Squeeze.</p>
16814
16815 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
16816 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
16817 trick:</p>
16818
16819 <blockquote><pre>
16820 #!/bin/sh
16821 set -ex
16822
16823 if [ "$1" ] ; then
16824     desktop=$1
16825 else
16826     desktop=gnome
16827 fi
16828
16829 from=lenny
16830 to=squeeze
16831
16832 exec &lt; /dev/null
16833 unset LANG
16834 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
16835 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
16836 fuser -mv .
16837 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
16838 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
16839 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
16840 #!/bin/sh
16841 exit 101
16842 EOF
16843 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
16844 exit_cleanup() {
16845     umount $tmpdir/proc
16846 }
16847 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
16848 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
16849 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
16850
16851 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
16852
16853 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
16854 # to return the correct answers.
16855 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
16856     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
16857
16858 # Include the desktop and laptop task
16859 for test in desktop laptop ; do
16860     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
16861 #!/bin/sh
16862 exit 2
16863 EOF
16864     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
16865 done
16866
16867 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
16868 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
16869 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
16870 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
16871
16872 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
16873 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
16874 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
16875 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
16876 fuser -mv
16877 </pre></blockquote>
16878
16879 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
16880 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
16881 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
16882 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
16883 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
16884 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
16885
16886 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
16887 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
16888 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
16889 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
16890 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
16891 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
16892 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
16893
16894 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
16895 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
16896 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
16897 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
16898 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
16899 packages.</p>
16900
16901       </div>
16902       <div class="tags">
16903
16904
16905         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>.
16906
16907
16908       </div>
16909     </div>
16910     <div class="padding"></div>
16911
16912     <div class="entry">
16913       <div class="title">
16914         <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>
16915       </div>
16916       <div class="date">
16917          6th June 2010
16918       </div>
16919       <div class="body">
16920         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
16921 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
16922 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
16923 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
16924 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
16925 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
16926 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
16927
16928 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
16929 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
16930 COLUMNS):</p>
16931
16932 <blockquote><pre>
16933 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
16934 previous=N
16935 PREVLEVEL=
16936 RUNLEVEL=
16937 runlevel=S
16938 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
16939 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
16940 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
16941 </pre></blockquote>
16942
16943 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
16944 script.</p>
16945
16946 <blockquote><pre>
16947 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
16948 previous=N
16949 PREVLEVEL=N
16950 RUNLEVEL=S
16951 runlevel=S
16952 </pre></blockquote>
16953
16954 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
16955 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
16956 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
16957
16958 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
16959 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
16960 choice.</p>
16961
16962       </div>
16963       <div class="tags">
16964
16965
16966         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>.
16967
16968
16969       </div>
16970     </div>
16971     <div class="padding"></div>
16972
16973     <div class="entry">
16974       <div class="title">
16975         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
16976       </div>
16977       <div class="date">
16978          6th June 2010
16979       </div>
16980       <div class="body">
16981         <p>Via the
16982 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
16983 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
16984 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
16985 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
16986 following the standards wars of today.</p>
16987
16988       </div>
16989       <div class="tags">
16990
16991
16992         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>.
16993
16994
16995       </div>
16996     </div>
16997     <div class="padding"></div>
16998
16999     <div class="entry">
17000       <div class="title">
17001         <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>
17002       </div>
17003       <div class="date">
17004          3rd June 2010
17005       </div>
17006       <div class="body">
17007         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
17008 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
17009 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
17010 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
17011 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
17012
17013 <blockquote><pre>
17014 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
17015   vendor                    count
17016   Dell Computer Corporation     1
17017     PowerEdge 1750              1
17018   IBM                           1
17019     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
17020   Intel                         2
17021   [no-dmi-info]                 3
17022 maintainer:~#
17023 </pre></blockquote>
17024
17025 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
17026 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
17027 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
17028 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
17029 option to list the individual machines.</p>
17030
17031 <p>A larger list is
17032 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
17033 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
17034 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
17035 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
17036 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
17037 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
17038 collector.</p>
17039
17040       </div>
17041       <div class="tags">
17042
17043
17044         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>.
17045
17046
17047       </div>
17048     </div>
17049     <div class="padding"></div>
17050
17051     <div class="entry">
17052       <div class="title">
17053         <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>
17054       </div>
17055       <div class="date">
17056          1st June 2010
17057       </div>
17058       <div class="body">
17059         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
17060 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
17061 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
17062 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
17063 wait.</p>
17064
17065 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
17066 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
17067 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
17068 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
17069 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
17070 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
17071
17072 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
17073 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
17074 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
17075 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
17076 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
17077 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
17078 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
17079 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
17080
17081 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
17082
17083       </div>
17084       <div class="tags">
17085
17086
17087         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>.
17088
17089
17090       </div>
17091     </div>
17092     <div class="padding"></div>
17093
17094     <div class="entry">
17095       <div class="title">
17096         <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>
17097       </div>
17098       <div class="date">
17099         27th May 2010
17100       </div>
17101       <div class="body">
17102         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
17103 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
17104 issues are known and should be solved:
17105
17106 <p><ul>
17107
17108 <li>The wicd package seen to
17109 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
17110 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
17111 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
17112 seem to be on the case.</li>
17113
17114 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
17115 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
17116 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
17117 maintainer is on the case.</li>
17118
17119 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
17120 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
17121 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
17122 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
17123 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
17124 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
17125 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
17126 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
17127
17128 </ul></p>
17129
17130 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
17131 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
17132 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
17133 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
17134
17135 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
17136 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
17137 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
17138 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
17139
17140 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
17141
17142       </div>
17143       <div class="tags">
17144
17145
17146         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>.
17147
17148
17149       </div>
17150     </div>
17151     <div class="padding"></div>
17152
17153     <div class="entry">
17154       <div class="title">
17155         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
17156       </div>
17157       <div class="date">
17158         22nd May 2010
17159       </div>
17160       <div class="body">
17161         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
17162 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
17163 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
17164 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
17165
17166 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
17167 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
17168 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
17169 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
17170 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
17171 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
17172 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
17173 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
17174 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
17175 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
17176 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
17177 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
17178 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
17179 going to work.</p>
17180
17181 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
17182 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
17183 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
17184 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
17185 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
17186 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
17187 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
17188 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
17189 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
17190 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
17191 Edu.</p>
17192
17193 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
17194 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
17195 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
17196 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
17197 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
17198 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
17199
17200 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
17201 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
17202
17203       </div>
17204       <div class="tags">
17205
17206
17207         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>.
17208
17209
17210       </div>
17211     </div>
17212     <div class="padding"></div>
17213
17214     <div class="entry">
17215       <div class="title">
17216         <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>
17217       </div>
17218       <div class="date">
17219         19th May 2010
17220       </div>
17221       <div class="body">
17222         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
17223 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
17224 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
17225 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
17226 into unstable.  The
17227 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
17228 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
17229 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
17230 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
17231 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
17232 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
17233 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
17234
17235 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
17236 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
17237 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
17238 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
17239 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
17240 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
17241 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
17242 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
17243
17244 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
17245 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
17246 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
17247 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
17248 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
17249 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
17250 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
17251
17252 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
17253 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
17254 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
17255 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
17256 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
17257 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
17258 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
17259 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
17260 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
17261 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
17262 on the home directory servers.</p>
17263
17264 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
17265 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
17266 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
17267 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
17268 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
17269 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
17270
17271 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
17272 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17273
17274       </div>
17275       <div class="tags">
17276
17277
17278         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
17279
17280
17281       </div>
17282     </div>
17283     <div class="padding"></div>
17284
17285     <div class="entry">
17286       <div class="title">
17287         <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>
17288       </div>
17289       <div class="date">
17290         14th May 2010
17291       </div>
17292       <div class="body">
17293         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
17294 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
17295 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
17296 expected, if I am to believe the
17297 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
17298 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
17299 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
17300 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
17301 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
17302 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
17303 version.</p>
17304
17305 More information about
17306 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
17307 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
17308 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
17309 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
17310
17311 <blockquote><pre>
17312 CONCURRENCY=none
17313 </pre></blockquote>
17314
17315 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
17316 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
17317 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
17318 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
17319
17320       </div>
17321       <div class="tags">
17322
17323
17324         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>.
17325
17326
17327       </div>
17328     </div>
17329     <div class="padding"></div>
17330
17331     <div class="entry">
17332       <div class="title">
17333         <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>
17334       </div>
17335       <div class="date">
17336         14th May 2010
17337       </div>
17338       <div class="body">
17339         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
17340 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
17341 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
17342 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
17343 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
17344 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
17345 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
17346 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
17347
17348 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
17349 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
17350 this on the collector host:</p>
17351
17352 <blockquote><pre>
17353 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
17354 </pre></blockquote>
17355
17356 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
17357 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
17358
17359 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
17360 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
17361 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
17362 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
17363 written yet.</p>
17364
17365       </div>
17366       <div class="tags">
17367
17368
17369         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>.
17370
17371
17372       </div>
17373     </div>
17374     <div class="padding"></div>
17375
17376     <div class="entry">
17377       <div class="title">
17378         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
17379       </div>
17380       <div class="date">
17381         13th May 2010
17382       </div>
17383       <div class="body">
17384         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
17385 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
17386 has been
17387 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
17388
17389 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
17390 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
17391 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
17392 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
17393 based boot system.  Tollef is
17394 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
17395 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
17396 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
17397 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
17398 at the moment do not.</p>
17399
17400 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
17401 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
17402 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
17403 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
17404 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
17405 way forward.</p>
17406
17407 <p>In the mean time, based on the
17408 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
17409 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
17410 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
17411 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
17412 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
17413 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
17414 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
17415 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
17416
17417       </div>
17418       <div class="tags">
17419
17420
17421         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>.
17422
17423
17424       </div>
17425     </div>
17426     <div class="padding"></div>
17427
17428     <div class="entry">
17429       <div class="title">
17430         <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>
17431       </div>
17432       <div class="date">
17433          6th May 2010
17434       </div>
17435       <div class="body">
17436         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
17437 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
17438 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
17439 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
17440 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
17441 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
17442 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
17443
17444 <blockquote><pre>
17445 CONCURRENCY=makefile
17446 </pre></blockquote>
17447
17448 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
17449 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
17450 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
17451 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
17452 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
17453 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
17454 make this happen.</p>
17455
17456 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
17457 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
17458 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
17459 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
17460 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
17461
17462 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
17463 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
17464 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
17465 fix the remaining issues.</p>
17466
17467 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
17468 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
17469 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
17470 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
17471
17472       </div>
17473       <div class="tags">
17474
17475
17476         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>.
17477
17478
17479       </div>
17480     </div>
17481     <div class="padding"></div>
17482
17483     <div class="entry">
17484       <div class="title">
17485         <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>
17486       </div>
17487       <div class="date">
17488          2nd May 2010
17489       </div>
17490       <div class="body">
17491         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
17492 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
17493 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
17494
17495 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
17496 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
17497 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
17498 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
17499 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
17500
17501 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
17502 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
17503
17504 <blockquote><pre>
17505 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
17506 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
17507 Password expires                                        : never
17508 Password inactive                                       : never
17509 Account expires                                         : never
17510 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
17511 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
17512 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
17513 root@tjener:~#
17514 </pre></blockquote>
17515
17516 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
17517 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
17518 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
17519 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
17520 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
17521 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
17522
17523 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
17524 intended:</p>
17525
17526 <blockquote><pre>
17527 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
17528 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
17529 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
17530 Password expires                                        : never
17531 Password inactive                                       : never
17532 Account expires                                         : never
17533 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
17534 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
17535 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
17536 root@tjener:~#
17537 </pre></blockquote>
17538
17539 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
17540 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
17541 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
17542
17543 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
17544 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
17545
17546 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
17547 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17548
17549 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
17550 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
17551 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
17552 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
17553 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
17554 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
17555 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
17556
17557 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
17558 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
17559 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
17560 change.</p>
17561
17562       </div>
17563       <div class="tags">
17564
17565
17566         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
17567
17568
17569       </div>
17570     </div>
17571     <div class="padding"></div>
17572
17573     <div class="entry">
17574       <div class="title">
17575         <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>
17576       </div>
17577       <div class="date">
17578         28th April 2010
17579       </div>
17580       <div class="body">
17581         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
17582 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
17583 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
17584 and go.</p>
17585
17586 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
17587 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
17588 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
17589 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
17590
17591 <ul>
17592
17593  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
17594    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
17595    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
17596    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
17597    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
17598    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
17599    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
17600    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
17601    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
17602    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
17603    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
17604    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
17605
17606  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
17607    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
17608    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
17609    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
17610    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
17611    or the Fedora developed
17612    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
17613    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
17614
17615  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
17616    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
17617    directory, using unison.</li>
17618
17619  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
17620    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
17621    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
17622    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
17623    implemented.</li>
17624
17625  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
17626    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
17627
17628  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
17629    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
17630    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
17631
17632 </ul>
17633
17634 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
17635 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
17636 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
17637 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
17638 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
17639 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
17640 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
17641 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
17642 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
17643
17644 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
17645 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
17646
17647       </div>
17648       <div class="tags">
17649
17650
17651         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
17652
17653
17654       </div>
17655     </div>
17656     <div class="padding"></div>
17657
17658     <div class="entry">
17659       <div class="title">
17660         <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>
17661       </div>
17662       <div class="date">
17663         19th April 2010
17664       </div>
17665       <div class="body">
17666         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
17667 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
17668 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
17669 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
17670 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
17671 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
17672 restrictions on the web, for example from
17673 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
17674 epub-version from
17675 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
17676 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
17677 strongly recommend this book.</p>
17678
17679       </div>
17680       <div class="tags">
17681
17682
17683         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>.
17684
17685
17686       </div>
17687     </div>
17688     <div class="padding"></div>
17689
17690     <div class="entry">
17691       <div class="title">
17692         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
17693       </div>
17694       <div class="date">
17695         14th April 2010
17696       </div>
17697       <div class="body">
17698         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
17699 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
17700 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
17701 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
17702 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
17703 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
17704 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
17705 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
17706 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
17707
17708 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
17709 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
17710 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
17711 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
17712 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
17713
17714 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
17715 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
17716
17717 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
17718 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
17719 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
17720 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
17721 to work properly.</p>
17722
17723 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
17724 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
17725 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
17726 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
17727 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
17728 time.</p>
17729
17730 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
17731 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
17732 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
17733 up in a few days.</p>
17734
17735       </div>
17736       <div class="tags">
17737
17738
17739         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
17740
17741
17742       </div>
17743     </div>
17744     <div class="padding"></div>
17745
17746     <div class="entry">
17747       <div class="title">
17748         <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>
17749       </div>
17750       <div class="date">
17751          6th March 2010
17752       </div>
17753       <div class="body">
17754         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
17755 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
17756 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
17757 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
17758 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
17759 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
17760
17761 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
17762 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
17763 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
17764 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
17765
17766 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
17767 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
17768 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
17769 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
17770 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
17771 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
17772
17773       </div>
17774       <div class="tags">
17775
17776
17777         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
17778
17779
17780       </div>
17781     </div>
17782     <div class="padding"></div>
17783
17784     <div class="entry">
17785       <div class="title">
17786         <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>
17787       </div>
17788       <div class="date">
17789         11th February 2010
17790       </div>
17791       <div class="body">
17792         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
17793 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
17794 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
17795 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
17796 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
17797 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
17798 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
17799
17800 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
17801
17802 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
17803 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
17804 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
17805 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
17806
17807       </div>
17808       <div class="tags">
17809
17810
17811         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
17812
17813
17814       </div>
17815     </div>
17816     <div class="padding"></div>
17817
17818     <div class="entry">
17819       <div class="title">
17820         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
17821       </div>
17822       <div class="date">
17823         27th January 2010
17824       </div>
17825       <div class="body">
17826         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
17827 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
17828 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
17829 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
17830 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
17831 further.</p>
17832
17833 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
17834 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
17835 configured to be a server for the
17836 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
17837 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
17838 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
17839 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
17840 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
17841 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
17842 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
17843 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
17844 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
17845 and Nagios configuration.</p>
17846
17847 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
17848 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
17849 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
17850 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
17851
17852 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
17853 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
17854 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
17855 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
17856 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
17857 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
17858 the machine.</p>
17859
17860 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
17861 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
17862 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
17863 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
17864
17865 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
17866 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
17867 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
17868 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
17869 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
17870 everything is taken care of.</p>
17871
17872       </div>
17873       <div class="tags">
17874
17875
17876         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
17877
17878
17879       </div>
17880     </div>
17881     <div class="padding"></div>
17882
17883     <div class="entry">
17884       <div class="title">
17885         <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>
17886       </div>
17887       <div class="date">
17888         12th August 2009
17889       </div>
17890       <div class="body">
17891         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
17892 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
17893 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
17894 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
17895
17896 <table>
17897 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
17898 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
17899 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
17900 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
17901 </table>
17902
17903 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
17904 got these numbers:</p>
17905
17906 <table>
17907 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
17908 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
17909 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
17910 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
17911 </table>
17912
17913 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
17914
17915 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
17916 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
17917 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
17918 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
17919 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
17920
17921
17922 <table>
17923 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
17924 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
17925 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
17926 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
17927 </table>
17928
17929 <p>And with 'site:no':
17930
17931 <table>
17932 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
17933 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
17934 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
17935 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
17936 </table>
17937
17938 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
17939 numbers.</p>
17940
17941       </div>
17942       <div class="tags">
17943
17944
17945         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>.
17946
17947
17948       </div>
17949     </div>
17950     <div class="padding"></div>
17951
17952     <div class="entry">
17953       <div class="title">
17954         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
17955       </div>
17956       <div class="date">
17957          8th August 2009
17958       </div>
17959       <div class="body">
17960         <p>According to <a
17961 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
17962 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
17963 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
17964 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
17965 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
17966 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
17967 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
17968 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
17969 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
17970 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
17971
17972 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
17973 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
17974 seminar this autumn.</p>
17975
17976       </div>
17977       <div class="tags">
17978
17979
17980         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>.
17981
17982
17983       </div>
17984     </div>
17985     <div class="padding"></div>
17986
17987     <div class="entry">
17988       <div class="title">
17989         <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>
17990       </div>
17991       <div class="date">
17992         27th July 2009
17993       </div>
17994       <div class="body">
17995         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
17996 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
17997 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
17998 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
17999 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
18000 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
18001 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
18002
18003 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
18004 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
18005 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
18006
18007       </div>
18008       <div class="tags">
18009
18010
18011         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>.
18012
18013
18014       </div>
18015     </div>
18016     <div class="padding"></div>
18017
18018     <div class="entry">
18019       <div class="title">
18020         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
18021       </div>
18022       <div class="date">
18023         22nd July 2009
18024       </div>
18025       <div class="body">
18026         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
18027 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
18028 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
18029 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
18030 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
18031 the package up to date.</p>
18032
18033 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
18034 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
18035 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
18036 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
18037 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
18038 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
18039 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
18040 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
18041 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
18042 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
18043 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
18044 working on the future release.</p>
18045
18046 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
18047 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
18048
18049       </div>
18050       <div class="tags">
18051
18052
18053         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>.
18054
18055
18056       </div>
18057     </div>
18058     <div class="padding"></div>
18059
18060     <div class="entry">
18061       <div class="title">
18062         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
18063       </div>
18064       <div class="date">
18065         24th June 2009
18066       </div>
18067       <div class="body">
18068         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
18069 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
18070 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
18071 funded
18072 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
18073 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
18074 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
18075 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
18076 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
18077 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
18078
18079 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
18080 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
18081 boot:</p>
18082
18083 <ul>
18084
18085 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
18086
18087 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
18088    clock is in UTC.</li>
18089
18090 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
18091    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
18092    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
18093
18094 </ul>
18095
18096 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
18097 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
18098 Villegas</a>.
18099
18100 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
18101 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
18102 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
18103 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
18104 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
18105 using this.</p>
18106
18107 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
18108 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
18109 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
18110 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
18111 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
18112 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
18113 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
18114
18115       </div>
18116       <div class="tags">
18117
18118
18119         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>.
18120
18121
18122       </div>
18123     </div>
18124     <div class="padding"></div>
18125
18126     <div class="entry">
18127       <div class="title">
18128         <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>
18129       </div>
18130       <div class="date">
18131          2nd May 2009
18132       </div>
18133       <div class="body">
18134         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
18135 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
18136 do not yet know them.</p>
18137
18138 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
18139 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
18140 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
18141 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
18142 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
18143 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
18144 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
18145 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
18146 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
18147 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
18148 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
18149
18150 <p>The second one is
18151 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
18152 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
18153 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
18154 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
18155 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
18156 and the company behind it is running
18157 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
18158 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
18159 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
18160 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
18161 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
18162 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
18163 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
18164 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
18165
18166 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
18167 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
18168 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
18169 surrounded by today.</p>
18170
18171       </div>
18172       <div class="tags">
18173
18174
18175         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>.
18176
18177
18178       </div>
18179     </div>
18180     <div class="padding"></div>
18181
18182     <div class="entry">
18183       <div class="title">
18184         <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>
18185       </div>
18186       <div class="date">
18187         28th April 2009
18188       </div>
18189       <div class="body">
18190         <p>Julien Blache
18191 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
18192 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
18193 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
18194 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
18195 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
18196 properties.</p>
18197
18198       </div>
18199       <div class="tags">
18200
18201
18202         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>.
18203
18204
18205       </div>
18206     </div>
18207     <div class="padding"></div>
18208
18209     <div class="entry">
18210       <div class="title">
18211         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
18212       </div>
18213       <div class="date">
18214          5th April 2009
18215       </div>
18216       <div class="body">
18217         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
18218 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
18219 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
18220 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
18221 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
18222 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
18223 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
18224 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
18225
18226 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
18227 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
18228 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
18229   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
18230   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
18231
18232 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
18233 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
18234 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
18235 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
18236
18237 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
18238 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
18239 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
18240 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
18241
18242 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
18243 set -e
18244 URL="$1"
18245 SAVEFILE="$2"
18246 DURATION="$3"
18247 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
18248   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
18249   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
18250 pid=$!
18251 sleep $DURATION
18252 kill $pid
18253 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
18254
18255       </div>
18256       <div class="tags">
18257
18258
18259         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>.
18260
18261
18262       </div>
18263     </div>
18264     <div class="padding"></div>
18265
18266     <div class="entry">
18267       <div class="title">
18268         <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>
18269       </div>
18270       <div class="date">
18271         30th March 2009
18272       </div>
18273       <div class="body">
18274         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
18275 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
18276 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
18277 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
18278 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
18279 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
18280 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
18281 application.</p>
18282
18283 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
18284 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
18285 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
18286 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
18287 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
18288 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
18289 blocked from doing so.</p>
18290
18291 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
18292 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
18293 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
18294 requirements change.</p>
18295
18296 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
18297 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
18298 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
18299
18300       </div>
18301       <div class="tags">
18302
18303
18304         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>.
18305
18306
18307       </div>
18308     </div>
18309     <div class="padding"></div>
18310
18311     <div class="entry">
18312       <div class="title">
18313         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
18314       </div>
18315       <div class="date">
18316         29th March 2009
18317       </div>
18318       <div class="body">
18319         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
18320 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
18321 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
18322 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
18323 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
18324 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
18325 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
18326 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
18327 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
18328 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
18329 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
18330 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
18331 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
18332 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
18333 now. :)</p>
18334
18335       </div>
18336       <div class="tags">
18337
18338
18339         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>.
18340
18341
18342       </div>
18343     </div>
18344     <div class="padding"></div>
18345
18346     <div class="entry">
18347       <div class="title">
18348         <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>
18349       </div>
18350       <div class="date">
18351         29th March 2009
18352       </div>
18353       <div class="body">
18354         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
18355 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
18356 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
18357 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
18358 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
18359 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
18360
18361 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
18362 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
18363 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
18364 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
18365 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
18366 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
18367 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
18368 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
18369 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
18370 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
18371 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
18372 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
18373 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
18374
18375 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
18376 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
18377 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
18378 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
18379
18380 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
18381 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
18382
18383 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
18384 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
18385 new IETF work group?</p>
18386
18387       </div>
18388       <div class="tags">
18389
18390
18391         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>.
18392
18393
18394       </div>
18395     </div>
18396     <div class="padding"></div>
18397
18398     <div class="entry">
18399       <div class="title">
18400         <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>
18401       </div>
18402       <div class="date">
18403         28th February 2009
18404       </div>
18405       <div class="body">
18406         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
18407 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
18408 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
18409 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
18410 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
18411 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
18412 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
18413 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
18414 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
18415 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
18416 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
18417 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
18418 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
18419 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
18420 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
18421 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
18422 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
18423 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
18424 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
18425 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
18426 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
18427 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
18428 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
18429 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
18430 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
18431 machine.</p>
18432
18433 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
18434 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
18435 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
18436 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
18437 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
18438 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
18439 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
18440
18441 <pre>
18442 use LWP::Simple;
18443 use POSIX;
18444 use WWW::Mechanize;
18445 use Date::Parse;
18446 [...]
18447 sub get_support_info {
18448     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
18449     my $str;
18450
18451     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
18452         # fetch website from Dell support
18453         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";
18454         my $webpage = get($url);
18455         return undef unless ($webpage);
18456
18457         my $daysleft = -1;
18458         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
18459         foreach my $line (@lines) {
18460             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
18461             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
18462             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
18463
18464             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
18465             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
18466             my $lastend = "";
18467             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
18468                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
18469
18470                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
18471                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
18472                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
18473                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
18474                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
18475                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
18476                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
18477             }
18478             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
18479             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
18480                 if ($lastend lt $today);
18481         }
18482     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
18483         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
18484         my $url =
18485             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
18486         $mech->get($url);
18487         my $fields = {
18488             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
18489             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
18490             'country' => 'NO',
18491             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
18492             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
18493         };
18494         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
18495                             fields      => $fields );
18496         # Next step is screen scraping
18497         my $content = $mech->content();
18498
18499         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
18500         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
18501         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
18502         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
18503
18504         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
18505
18506         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
18507             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
18508                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
18509             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
18510             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
18511                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
18512             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
18513                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
18514
18515             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
18516
18517             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
18518                 if ($end lt $today);
18519         }
18520     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
18521         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
18522         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
18523         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
18524             my $content =
18525                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
18526             if ($content) {
18527                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
18528                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
18529                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
18530                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
18531
18532                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
18533                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
18534
18535                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
18536
18537                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
18538                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
18539                     if ($end lt $today);
18540             }
18541         }
18542     }
18543     return $str;
18544 }
18545 </pre>
18546
18547 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
18548 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
18549 from dmidecode.</p>
18550
18551 <pre>
18552 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
18553                        "447707-B21");
18554 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
18555 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
18556                        "1234567");
18557 </pre>
18558
18559 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
18560 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
18561
18562 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
18563 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
18564 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
18565 do so.</p>
18566
18567       </div>
18568       <div class="tags">
18569
18570
18571         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>.
18572
18573
18574       </div>
18575     </div>
18576     <div class="padding"></div>
18577
18578     <div class="entry">
18579       <div class="title">
18580         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
18581       </div>
18582       <div class="date">
18583         20th February 2009
18584       </div>
18585       <div class="body">
18586         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
18587 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
18588 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
18589 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
18590 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
18591 the "missing" computer.</p>
18592
18593 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
18594 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
18595 code blocks as defined in the
18596 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
18597 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
18598 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
18599 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
18600 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
18601 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
18602 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
18603 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
18604 codes.</p>
18605
18606 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
18607 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
18608 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
18609 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
18610 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
18611 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
18612
18613 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
18614 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
18615 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
18616 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
18617 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
18618 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
18619 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
18620 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
18621 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
18622 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
18623
18624 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
18625 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
18626 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
18627
18628       </div>
18629       <div class="tags">
18630
18631
18632         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>.
18633
18634
18635       </div>
18636     </div>
18637     <div class="padding"></div>
18638
18639     <div class="entry">
18640       <div class="title">
18641         <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>
18642       </div>
18643       <div class="date">
18644         17th January 2009
18645       </div>
18646       <div class="body">
18647         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
18648 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
18649 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
18650 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
18651 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
18652 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
18653 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
18654 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
18655 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
18656 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
18657 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
18658 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
18659 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
18660 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
18661
18662 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
18663 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
18664 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
18665 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
18666 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
18667 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
18668 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
18669 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
18670 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
18671 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
18672 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
18673 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
18674 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
18675 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
18676 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
18677 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
18678 playing when the download is done.</p>
18679
18680 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
18681 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
18682 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
18683 too.</p>
18684
18685 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
18686 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
18687 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
18688 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
18689
18690       </div>
18691       <div class="tags">
18692
18693
18694         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>.
18695
18696
18697       </div>
18698     </div>
18699     <div class="padding"></div>
18700
18701     <div class="entry">
18702       <div class="title">
18703         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
18704       </div>
18705       <div class="date">
18706         28th December 2008
18707       </div>
18708       <div class="body">
18709         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
18710 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
18711 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
18712 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
18713 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
18714 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
18715 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
18716 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
18717 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
18718 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
18719 source, sink and mixer applications and
18720 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
18721 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
18722 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
18723 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
18724 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
18725 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
18726 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
18727 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
18728 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
18729
18730 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
18731 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
18732 larger stick as well.</p>
18733
18734       </div>
18735       <div class="tags">
18736
18737
18738         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>.
18739
18740
18741       </div>
18742     </div>
18743     <div class="padding"></div>
18744
18745     <div class="entry">
18746       <div class="title">
18747         <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>
18748       </div>
18749       <div class="date">
18750          7th December 2008
18751       </div>
18752       <div class="body">
18753         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
18754 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
18755 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
18756 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
18757 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
18758 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
18759 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
18760 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
18761
18762 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
18763 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
18764 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
18765 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
18766 of these cards.</p>
18767
18768       </div>
18769       <div class="tags">
18770
18771
18772         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>.
18773
18774
18775       </div>
18776     </div>
18777     <div class="padding"></div>
18778
18779     <div class="entry">
18780       <div class="title">
18781         <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>
18782       </div>
18783       <div class="date">
18784         25th November 2008
18785       </div>
18786       <div class="body">
18787         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
18788 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
18789 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
18790 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
18791 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
18792 notes are available on
18793 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
18794 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
18795 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
18796 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
18797 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
18798 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
18799 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
18800 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
18801 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
18802
18803 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
18804 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
18805
18806       </div>
18807       <div class="tags">
18808
18809
18810         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>.
18811
18812
18813       </div>
18814     </div>
18815     <div class="padding"></div>
18816
18817     <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>
18818     <div id="sidebar">
18819
18820
18821
18822 <h2>Archive</h2>
18823 <ul>
18824
18825 <li>2014
18826 <ul>
18827
18828 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
18829
18830 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (1)</a></li>
18831
18832 </ul></li>
18833
18834 <li>2013
18835 <ul>
18836
18837 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
18838
18839 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
18840
18841 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
18842
18843 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
18844
18845 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
18846
18847 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
18848
18849 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
18850
18851 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
18852
18853 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
18854
18855 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
18856
18857 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
18858
18859 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
18860
18861 </ul></li>
18862
18863 <li>2012
18864 <ul>
18865
18866 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
18867
18868 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
18869
18870 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
18871
18872 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
18873
18874 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
18875
18876 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
18877
18878 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
18879
18880 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
18881
18882 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
18883
18884 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
18885
18886 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
18887
18888 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
18889
18890 </ul></li>
18891
18892 <li>2011
18893 <ul>
18894
18895 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
18896
18897 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
18898
18899 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
18900
18901 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
18902
18903 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
18904
18905 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
18906
18907 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
18908
18909 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
18910
18911 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
18912
18913 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
18914
18915 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
18916
18917 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
18918
18919 </ul></li>
18920
18921 <li>2010
18922 <ul>
18923
18924 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
18925
18926 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
18927
18928 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
18929
18930 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
18931
18932 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
18933
18934 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
18935
18936 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
18937
18938 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
18939
18940 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
18941
18942 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
18943
18944 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
18945
18946 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
18947
18948 </ul></li>
18949
18950 <li>2009
18951 <ul>
18952
18953 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
18954
18955 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
18956
18957 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
18958
18959 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
18960
18961 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
18962
18963 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
18964
18965 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
18966
18967 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
18968
18969 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
18970
18971 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
18972
18973 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
18974
18975 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
18976
18977 </ul></li>
18978
18979 <li>2008
18980 <ul>
18981
18982 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
18983
18984 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
18985
18986 </ul></li>
18987
18988 </ul>
18989
18990
18991
18992 <h2>Tags</h2>
18993 <ul>
18994
18995  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
18996
18997  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
18998
18999  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
19000
19001  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
19002
19003  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
19004
19005  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (14)</a></li>
19006
19007  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
19008
19009  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
19010
19011  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (93)</a></li>
19012
19013  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (144)</a></li>
19014
19015  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
19016
19017  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
19018
19019  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
19020
19021  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (235)</a></li>
19022
19023  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
19024
19025  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
19026
19027  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
19028
19029  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (5)</a></li>
19030
19031  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
19032
19033  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (39)</a></li>
19034
19035  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
19036
19037  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
19038
19039  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
19040
19041  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
19042
19043  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
19044
19045  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (7)</a></li>
19046
19047  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
19048
19049  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (239)</a></li>
19050
19051  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (161)</a></li>
19052
19053  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (9)</a></li>
19054
19055  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
19056
19057  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (45)</a></li>
19058
19059  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (68)</a></li>
19060
19061  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
19062
19063  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
19064
19065  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
19066
19067  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
19068
19069  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
19070
19071  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
19072
19073  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
19074
19075  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (34)</a></li>
19076
19077  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
19078
19079  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
19080
19081  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (44)</a></li>
19082
19083  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
19084
19085  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
19086
19087  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (21)</a></li>
19088
19089  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
19090
19091  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
19092
19093  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (39)</a></li>
19094
19095  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
19096
19097  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (28)</a></li>
19098
19099 </ul>
19100
19101
19102     </div>
19103     <p style="text-align: right">
19104  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
19105 </p>
19106
19107   </body>
19108 </html>