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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/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         21st January 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
  32 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
  33 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
  34 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
  35 it, fetch the
  36 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
  37 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
  38 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
  39 autostart script.</p>
  40
  41 <p>The design is simple:</p>
  42
  43 <ul>
  44
  45 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
  46 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
  47
  48 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
  49 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
  50 initially did.</li>
  51
  52 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
  53 the APT database, a database
  54 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
  55 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
  56
  57 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
  58 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
  59 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
  60 package or packages.</li>
  61
  62 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
  63 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
  64
  65 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
  66 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
  67
  68 </ul>
  69
  70 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
  71 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
  72 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
  73 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
  74
  75 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
  76 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
  77 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
  78 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
  79 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
  80
  81 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
  82 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
  83 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
  84 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
  85 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
  86 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
  87 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
  88 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
  89
  90       </div>
  91       <div class="tags">
  92
  93
  94         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>.
  95
  96
  97       </div>
  98     </div>
  99     <div class="padding"></div>
 100
 101     <div class="entry">
 102       <div class="title">
 103         <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>
 104       </div>
 105       <div class="date">
 106         19th January 2013
 107       </div>
 108       <div class="body">
 109         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
 110 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
 111 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
 112 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
 113 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
 114 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
 115 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
 116 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
 117 not a durable solution.
 118
 119 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
 120 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
 121
 122 <ul>
 123
 124 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
 125   than A4).</li>
 126 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
 127 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
 128 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
 129 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
 130 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
 131 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
 132 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
 133 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
 134 size).</li>
 135 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
 136   X.org packages.</li>
 137 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
 138   the time).
 139
 140 </ul>
 141
 142 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
 143 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
 144 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
 145 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
 146 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
 147 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
 148 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
 149 still be useful.</p>
 150
 151 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
 152 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
 153 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
 154 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
 155 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
 156 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
 157
 158       </div>
 159       <div class="tags">
 160
 161
 162         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>.
 163
 164
 165       </div>
 166     </div>
 167     <div class="padding"></div>
 168
 169     <div class="entry">
 170       <div class="title">
 171         <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>
 172       </div>
 173       <div class="date">
 174         18th January 2013
 175       </div>
 176       <div class="body">
 177         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
 178 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
 179 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
 180 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
 181 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
 182 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
 183 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
 184
 185 <pre>
 186 #!/usr/bin/python
 187 import sys
 188 import apt
 189 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
 190     cache = apt.Cache()
 191     cache.open(None)
 192     thepkgs = []
 193     for pkg in cache:
 194         version = pkg.candidate
 195         if version is None:
 196             version = pkg.installed
 197         if version is None:
 198             continue
 199         record = version.record
 200         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
 201             continue
 202         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
 203         for t in mime_types:
 204             t = t.rstrip().strip()
 205             if t == mimetype:
 206                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
 207     return thepkgs
 208 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
 209 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
 210     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
 211 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
 212 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
 213     print "  %s" %pkg
 214 </pre>
 215
 216 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
 217
 218 <pre>
 219 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
 220 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
 221   gecko-mediaplayer
 222 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
 223 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
 224   browser-plugin-gnash
 225 %
 226 </pre>
 227
 228 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
 229 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
 230 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
 231 anyone working on adding it?</p>
 232
 233 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
 234 request for icweasel support for this feature is
 235 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
 236 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
 237 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
 238 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
 239
 240       </div>
 241       <div class="tags">
 242
 243
 244         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 245
 246
 247       </div>
 248     </div>
 249     <div class="padding"></div>
 250
 251     <div class="entry">
 252       <div class="title">
 253         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
 254       </div>
 255       <div class="date">
 256         16th January 2013
 257       </div>
 258       <div class="body">
 259         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
 260 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
 261 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
 262 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
 263 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
 264 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
 265 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
 266 downloaded by the browser.</p>
 267
 268 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
 269 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
 270 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
 271 can be found on the
 272 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
 273 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
 274 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
 275 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
 276 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
 277
 278 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
 279
 280 <pre>
 281   count MIME type
 282   ----- -----------------------
 283      32 text/plain
 284      30 audio/mpeg
 285      29 image/png
 286      28 image/jpeg
 287      27 application/ogg
 288      26 audio/x-mp3
 289      25 image/tiff
 290      25 image/gif
 291      22 image/bmp
 292      22 audio/x-wav
 293      20 audio/x-flac
 294      19 audio/x-mpegurl
 295      18 video/x-ms-asf
 296      18 audio/x-musepack
 297      18 audio/x-mpeg
 298      18 application/x-ogg
 299      17 video/mpeg
 300      17 audio/x-scpls
 301      17 audio/ogg
 302      16 video/x-ms-wmv
 303 </pre>
 304
 305 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
 306
 307 <pre>
 308   count MIME type
 309   ----- -----------------------
 310      33 text/plain
 311      32 image/png
 312      32 image/jpeg
 313      29 audio/mpeg
 314      27 image/gif
 315      26 image/tiff
 316      26 application/ogg
 317      25 audio/x-mp3
 318      22 image/bmp
 319      21 audio/x-wav
 320      19 audio/x-mpegurl
 321      19 audio/x-mpeg
 322      18 video/mpeg
 323      18 audio/x-scpls
 324      18 audio/x-flac
 325      18 application/x-ogg
 326      17 video/x-ms-asf
 327      17 text/html
 328      17 audio/x-musepack
 329      16 image/x-xbitmap
 330 </pre>
 331
 332 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
 333
 334 <pre>
 335   count MIME type
 336   ----- -----------------------
 337      31 text/plain
 338      31 image/png
 339      31 image/jpeg
 340      29 audio/mpeg
 341      28 application/ogg
 342      27 image/gif
 343      26 image/tiff
 344      26 audio/x-mp3
 345      23 audio/x-wav
 346      22 image/bmp
 347      21 audio/x-flac
 348      20 audio/x-mpegurl
 349      19 audio/x-mpeg
 350      18 video/x-ms-asf
 351      18 video/mpeg
 352      18 audio/x-scpls
 353      18 application/x-ogg
 354      17 audio/x-musepack
 355      16 video/x-ms-wmv
 356      16 video/x-msvideo
 357 </pre>
 358
 359 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
 360 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
 361 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
 362 issues.</p>
 363
 364 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
 365 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
 366
 367       </div>
 368       <div class="tags">
 369
 370
 371         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>.
 372
 373
 374       </div>
 375     </div>
 376     <div class="padding"></div>
 377
 378     <div class="entry">
 379       <div class="title">
 380         <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>
 381       </div>
 382       <div class="date">
 383         15th January 2013
 384       </div>
 385       <div class="body">
 386         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
 387 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
 388 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
 389 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
 390 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
 391 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
 392 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
 393 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
 394 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
 395 packages.</p>
 396
 397 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
 398 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
 399 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
 400 modalias.</p>
 401
 402 <p><blockquote>
 403 Package: package-name
 404 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
 405 </blockquote></p>
 406
 407 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
 408 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
 409
 410 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
 411 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
 412
 413 <p><blockquote>
 414 Package: cheese
 415 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
 416 </blockquote></p>
 417
 418 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
 419 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
 420
 421 <p><blockquote>
 422 Package: pcmciautils
 423 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
 424 </blockquote></p>
 425
 426 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
 427 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
 428
 429 <p><blockquote>
 430 Package: colorhug-client
 431 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
 432 </blockquote></p>
 433
 434 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
 435 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
 436 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
 437
 438 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
 439 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
 440 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
 441 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
 442 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
 443 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
 444 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
 445 Raring.</p>
 446
 447 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
 448 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
 449 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
 450 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
 451 try the
 452 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
 453 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
 454 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
 455 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
 456
 457 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
 458 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
 459
 460 <p><blockquote>
 461 % ./hw-support-lookup
 462 <br>yubikey-personalization
 463 <br>%
 464 </blockquote></p>
 465
 466 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
 467 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
 468
 469 <p><blockquote>
 470 % ./hw-support-lookup
 471 <br>pcmciautils
 472 <br>%
 473 </blockquote></p>
 474
 475 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
 476 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
 477 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
 478
 479 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
 480 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
 481 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
 482 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
 483 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
 484 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
 485 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
 486 see if it work.</p>
 487
 488 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
 489 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
 490 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
 491 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
 492
 493       </div>
 494       <div class="tags">
 495
 496
 497         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>.
 498
 499
 500       </div>
 501     </div>
 502     <div class="padding"></div>
 503
 504     <div class="entry">
 505       <div class="title">
 506         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware</a>
 507       </div>
 508       <div class="date">
 509         14th January 2013
 510       </div>
 511       <div class="body">
 512         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
 513 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
 514 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
 515 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
 516 in
 517 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
 518 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
 519
 520 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
 521
 522 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
 523 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
 524 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
 525 &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;,
 526 &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
 527 &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;.
 528
 529 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
 530 this shell script:</p>
 531
 532 <pre>
 533 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
 534 </pre>
 535
 536 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
 537 using modinfo:</p>
 538
 539 <pre>
 540 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
 541 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
 542 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
 543 %
 544 </pre>
 545
 546 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
 547
 548 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
 549 Bridge memory controller:</p>
 550
 551 <p><blockquote>
 552 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
 553 </blockquote></p>
 554
 555 <p>This represent these values:</p>
 556
 557 <pre>
 558  v   00008086  (vendor)
 559  d   00002770  (device)
 560  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
 561  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
 562  bc  06        (bus class)
 563  sc  00        (bus subclass)
 564  i   00        (interface)
 565 </pre>
 566
 567 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
 568 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
 569 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
 570 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
 571
 572 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
 573 means.</p>
 574
 575 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
 576
 577 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
 578 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
 579
 580 <p><blockquote>
 581 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
 582 </blockquote></p>
 583
 584 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
 585
 586 <pre>
 587  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
 588  p    0001  (device product)
 589  d    0206  (bcddevice)
 590  dc     09  (device class)
 591  dsc    00  (device subclass)
 592  dp     00  (device protocol)
 593  ic     09  (interface class)
 594  isc    00  (interface subclass)
 595  ip     00  (interface protocol)
 596 </pre>
 597
 598 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
 599 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
 600 these alias entries show up:</p>
 601
 602 <p><blockquote>
 603 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
 604 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
 605 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
 606 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
 607 </blockquote></p>
 608
 609 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
 610 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
 611 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
 612
 613 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
 614
 615 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
 616 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
 617
 618 <p><blockquote>
 619 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
 620 </blockquote></p>
 621
 622 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
 623
 624 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
 625
 626 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
 627 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
 628 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
 629
 630 <p><blockquote>
 631 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
 632 </blockquote></p>
 633
 634 <p>The values present are</p>
 635
 636 <pre>
 637  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
 638  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
 639  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
 640  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
 641  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
 642  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
 643  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
 644  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
 645  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
 646  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
 647  ct   10             (chassis type)
 648  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
 649 </pre>
 650
 651 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
 652 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
 653
 654 <pre>
 655   3 Desktop
 656   4 Low Profile Desktop
 657   5 Pizza Box
 658   6 Mini Tower
 659   7 Tower
 660   8 Portable
 661   9 Laptop
 662  10 Notebook
 663  11 Hand Held
 664  12 Docking Station
 665  13 All In One
 666  14 Sub Notebook
 667  15 Space-saving
 668  16 Lunch Box
 669  17 Main Server Chassis
 670  18 Expansion Chassis
 671  19 Sub Chassis
 672  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
 673  21 Peripheral Chassis
 674  22 RAID Chassis
 675  23 Rack Mount Chassis
 676  24 Sealed-case PC
 677  25 Multi-system
 678  26 CompactPCI
 679  27 AdvancedTCA
 680  28 Blade
 681  29 Blade Enclosing
 682 </pre>
 683
 684 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
 685 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
 686 claim it is a desktop.</p>
 687
 688 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
 689
 690 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
 691 test machine:</p>
 692
 693 <p><blockquote>
 694 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
 695 </blockquote></p>
 696
 697 <p>The values present are</p>
 698
 699 <pre>
 700   ty  01  (type)
 701   pr  00  (prototype)
 702   id  00  (id)
 703   ex  00  (extra)
 704 </pre>
 705
 706 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
 707 the valid values are.</p>
 708
 709 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
 710
 711 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
 712 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
 713 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
 714 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
 715 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
 716 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
 717 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
 718
 719 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
 720
 721 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
 722 one can use the following shell script:</p>
 723
 724 <pre>
 725   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
 726     echo "$id" ; \
 727     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
 728   done
 729 </pre>
 730
 731 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
 732 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
 733
 734 <pre>
 735   acpi:ACPI0003:
 736     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
 737   acpi:device:
 738   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
 739   acpi:IBM0068:
 740     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
 741     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
 742     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
 743     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
 744   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
 745     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
 746     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
 747     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
 748   [...]
 749 </pre>
 750
 751 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
 752 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
 753 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
 754 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
 755
 756 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
 757 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
 758 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
 759
 760       </div>
 761       <div class="tags">
 762
 763
 764         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>.
 765
 766
 767       </div>
 768     </div>
 769     <div class="padding"></div>
 770
 771     <div class="entry">
 772       <div class="title">
 773         <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>
 774       </div>
 775       <div class="date">
 776         10th January 2013
 777       </div>
 778       <div class="body">
 779         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
 780 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
 781 Launcher and updated the Debian package
 782 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
 783 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
 784 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
 785 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
 786 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
 787 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
 788 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
 789 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
 790 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
 791 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
 792 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
 793 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
 794 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
 795 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
 796 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
 797
 798       </div>
 799       <div class="tags">
 800
 801
 802         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>.
 803
 804
 805       </div>
 806     </div>
 807     <div class="padding"></div>
 808
 809     <div class="entry">
 810       <div class="title">
 811         <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>
 812       </div>
 813       <div class="date">
 814          9th January 2013
 815       </div>
 816       <div class="body">
 817         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
 818 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
 819 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
 820 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
 821 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
 822 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
 823 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
 824 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
 825 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
 826 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
 827 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
 828
 829 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
 830 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
 831 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
 832 simple:
 833
 834 <ul>
 835
 836 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
 837   starting when a user log in.</li>
 838
 839 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
 840   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
 841
 842 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
 843   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
 844   packages.</li>
 845
 846 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
 847   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
 848
 849 </ul>
 850
 851 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
 852 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
 853 discover database to find packages and
 854 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
 855 packages.</p>
 856
 857 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
 858 draft package is now checked into
 859 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
 860 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
 861 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
 862 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
 863 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
 864 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
 865 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
 866 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
 867 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
 868 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
 869 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
 870 because of the freeze).</p>
 871
 872 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
 873 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
 874 inserted):</p>
 875
 876 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
 877
 878 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
 879 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
 880 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
 881
 882 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
 883 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
 884 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
 885 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
 886 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
 887 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
 888 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
 889
 890 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
 891 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
 892 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
 893 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
 894 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
 895 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
 896 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
 897 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
 898 not be installed?</p>
 899
 900 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
 901 please send me an email. :)</p>
 902
 903       </div>
 904       <div class="tags">
 905
 906
 907         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>.
 908
 909
 910       </div>
 911     </div>
 912     <div class="padding"></div>
 913
 914     <div class="entry">
 915       <div class="title">
 916         <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>
 917       </div>
 918       <div class="date">
 919          2nd January 2013
 920       </div>
 921       <div class="body">
 922         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
 923 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
 924 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
 925 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
 926 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
 927 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
 928 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
 929 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
 930 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
 931 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
 932
 933 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
 934 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
 935 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
 936
 937       </div>
 938       <div class="tags">
 939
 940
 941         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>.
 942
 943
 944       </div>
 945     </div>
 946     <div class="padding"></div>
 947
 948     <div class="entry">
 949       <div class="title">
 950         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
 951       </div>
 952       <div class="date">
 953         28th December 2012
 954       </div>
 955       <div class="body">
 956         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
 957 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
 958 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
 959 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
 960 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
 961 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
 962 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
 963 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
 964 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
 965 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
 966 followed by many others. :)</p>
 967
 968 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
 969 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
 970 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
 971 you want to donate to the project.</p>
 972
 973       </div>
 974       <div class="tags">
 975
 976
 977         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 978
 979
 980       </div>
 981     </div>
 982     <div class="padding"></div>
 983
 984     <div class="entry">
 985       <div class="title">
 986         <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>
 987       </div>
 988       <div class="date">
 989         25th December 2012
 990       </div>
 991       <div class="body">
 992         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
 993 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
 994
 995 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
 996 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
 997 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
 998 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
 999 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
1000 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
1001 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
1002 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
1003 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
1004 name.</p>
1005
1006 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
1007 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
1008 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
1009
1010 <blockquote><pre>
1011 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
1012 cd bitcoin
1013 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
1014 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
1015 </pre></blockquote>
1016
1017 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
1018 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
1019 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
1020 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
1021 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
1022 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
1023 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
1024 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
1025 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
1026
1027 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1028 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1029 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1030
1031       </div>
1032       <div class="tags">
1033
1034
1035         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>.
1036
1037
1038       </div>
1039     </div>
1040     <div class="padding"></div>
1041
1042     <div class="entry">
1043       <div class="title">
1044         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
1045       </div>
1046       <div class="date">
1047         21st December 2012
1048       </div>
1049       <div class="body">
1050         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
1051 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
1052 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
1053 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
1054 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
1055 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
1056 is now maintained by a
1057 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
1058 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
1059 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
1060 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
1061 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
1062 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
1063 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
1064 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
1065 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
1066 Corallo in a
1067 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
1068 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
1069 Debian package.</p>
1070
1071 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
1072 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
1073 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
1074 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
1075 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
1076 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
1077 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
1078 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
1079 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
1080 new version to unstable.
1081
1082 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
1083 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
1084 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
1085 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
1086 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
1087 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
1088 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
1089 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
1090 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
1091 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
1092 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
1093 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
1094 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
1095 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
1096 have not tested them.</p>
1097
1098 <p>My
1099 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
1100 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
1101 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
1102 years ago, as can be
1103 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
1104 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
1105 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
1106 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
1107 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
1108 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
1109 the same address as last time,
1110 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1111
1112       </div>
1113       <div class="tags">
1114
1115
1116         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>.
1117
1118
1119       </div>
1120     </div>
1121     <div class="padding"></div>
1122
1123     <div class="entry">
1124       <div class="title">
1125         <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>
1126       </div>
1127       <div class="date">
1128         18th December 2012
1129       </div>
1130       <div class="body">
1131         <p>A few days ago I came across
1132 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
1133 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
1134 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
1135 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
1136 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
1137 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
1138 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
1139 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
1140 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
1141
1142 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
1143 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
1144 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
1145 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
1146
1147 <blockquote><pre>
1148 2004-05-27 Book Store
1149       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
1150       Liabilities:Visa
1151 </pre></blockquote>
1152
1153 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
1154 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
1155 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
1156 Spang</a>,
1157 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
1158 Keen</a>,
1159 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
1160 Cantino</a> and
1161 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
1162 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
1163 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
1164 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
1165 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
1166
1167 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
1168 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
1169 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
1170 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
1171 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
1172
1173 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
1174 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
1175 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
1176 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
1177 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
1178 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
1179 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
1180 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
1181 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
1182
1183       </div>
1184       <div class="tags">
1185
1186
1187         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
1188
1189
1190       </div>
1191     </div>
1192     <div class="padding"></div>
1193
1194     <div class="entry">
1195       <div class="title">
1196         <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>
1197       </div>
1198       <div class="date">
1199          6th December 2012
1200       </div>
1201       <div class="body">
1202         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
1203 Oslo</a>, we use the
1204 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
1205 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
1206 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
1207 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
1208 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
1209 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
1210 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
1211 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
1212 Python.</p>
1213
1214 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
1215 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
1216 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
1217 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
1218 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
1219 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
1220
1221 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
1222 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
1223 user currently logged in:</p>
1224
1225 <blockquote><pre>
1226 #!/usr/bin/env python
1227 import getpass
1228 import xmlrpclib
1229 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
1230 username = getpass.getuser()
1231 password = getpass.getpass()
1232 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
1233 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
1234 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
1235 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
1236 result = server.logout(sessionid)
1237 print result
1238 </pre></blockquote>
1239
1240 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
1241 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
1242
1243       </div>
1244       <div class="tags">
1245
1246
1247         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>.
1248
1249
1250       </div>
1251     </div>
1252     <div class="padding"></div>
1253
1254     <div class="entry">
1255       <div class="title">
1256         <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>
1257       </div>
1258       <div class="date">
1259         17th November 2012
1260       </div>
1261       <div class="body">
1262         <p>While working on a
1263 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
1264 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
1265 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
1266 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
1267 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
1268 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
1269
1270 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
1271 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
1272 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
1273 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
1274 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
1275 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
1276 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
1277 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
1278 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
1279 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
1280 arguments.</p>
1281
1282 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
1283 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
1284 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
1285 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
1286 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
1287 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
1288 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
1289 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
1290
1291 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
1292 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
1293 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
1294 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
1295 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
1296 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
1297 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
1298 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
1299 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
1300 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
1301 correct right holder.</p>
1302
1303 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
1304 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
1305 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
1306 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
1307 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
1308 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
1309 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
1310 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
1311 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
1312 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
1313 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
1314 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
1315 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
1316 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
1317
1318 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
1319 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
1320 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
1321
1322 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
1323 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
1324
1325       </div>
1326       <div class="tags">
1327
1328
1329         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>.
1330
1331
1332       </div>
1333     </div>
1334     <div class="padding"></div>
1335
1336     <div class="entry">
1337       <div class="title">
1338         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
1339       </div>
1340       <div class="date">
1341         14th November 2012
1342       </div>
1343       <div class="body">
1344         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
1345 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
1346 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
1347 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
1348 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
1349 the people behind the German
1350 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
1351 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
1352 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
1353
1354 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1355
1356 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
1357 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
1358 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
1359
1360 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
1361 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
1362 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
1363 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
1364 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
1365 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
1366
1367 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
1368 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
1369 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
1370 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
1371 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
1372 relationship management and the communication processes in the
1373 project.</p>
1374
1375 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
1376 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
1377 and a yoga teacher.</p>
1378
1379 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
1380 project?</strong></p>
1381
1382 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
1383
1384 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
1385 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
1386 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
1387 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
1388 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
1389 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
1390 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
1391 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
1392 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
1393 parents.</p>
1394
1395 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
1396 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
1397 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
1398 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
1399 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
1400 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
1401 Germany.</p>
1402
1403 <p>For information about our school project you can read
1404 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
1405 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
1406
1407 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1408 Edu?</strong></p>
1409
1410 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
1411 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
1412
1413 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
1414 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
1415 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
1416 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
1417 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
1418 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
1419 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
1420 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
1421 teachers, parents...</p>
1422
1423 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1424 Edu?</strong></p>
1425
1426 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
1427 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
1428
1429 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
1430 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
1431 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
1432 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
1433 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
1434
1435 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
1436 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
1437 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
1438 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
1439 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
1440 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
1441 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
1442
1443 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1444
1445 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
1446 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
1447 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
1448 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
1449
1450 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1451 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1452
1453 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
1454 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
1455 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
1456 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
1457 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
1458
1459 <ul>
1460
1461 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
1462 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
1463 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
1464
1465 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
1466 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
1467 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
1468 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
1469 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
1470 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
1471 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
1472
1473 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
1474 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
1475 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
1476 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
1477
1478 </ul>
1479
1480       </div>
1481       <div class="tags">
1482
1483
1484         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
1485
1486
1487       </div>
1488     </div>
1489     <div class="padding"></div>
1490
1491     <div class="entry">
1492       <div class="title">
1493         <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>
1494       </div>
1495       <div class="date">
1496          4th November 2012
1497       </div>
1498       <div class="body">
1499         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
1500 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
1501 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
1502 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
1503 see how a member of the bitcoin community
1504 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
1505 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
1506 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
1507 competition.  My thoughts go to the
1508 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
1509 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
1510 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
1511 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
1512 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
1513
1514 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
1515 that the community already seem to have
1516 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
1517 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
1518 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
1519 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
1520 wealth is available.</p>
1521
1522       </div>
1523       <div class="tags">
1524
1525
1526         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>.
1527
1528
1529       </div>
1530     </div>
1531     <div class="padding"></div>
1532
1533     <div class="entry">
1534       <div class="title">
1535         <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>
1536       </div>
1537       <div class="date">
1538         26th October 2012
1539       </div>
1540       <div class="body">
1541         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
1542 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
1543 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
1544 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
1545 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
1546 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
1547 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
1548 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
1549 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
1550 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
1551 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
1552 it every time.</p>
1553
1554 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
1555 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
1556 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
1557 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
1558 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
1559 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
1560 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
1561 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
1562 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
1563 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
1564 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
1565 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
1566
1567 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
1568 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
1569 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
1570 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
1571 article: First the unplanned outage:
1572
1573 <blockquote><pre>
1574 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
1575 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
1576 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
1577 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
1578 Duration:    40 minutes
1579 Scope:       Exchange 2003
1580 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
1581              a cluster failover.
1582
1583 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
1584              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
1585 Technician:  [xxx]
1586 </pre></blockquote>
1587
1588 Next the planned outage:
1589
1590 <blockquote><pre>
1591 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
1592 Severity:    Major (Planned)
1593 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
1594 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
1595 Duration:    10 hours
1596 Scope:       H2 Transport
1597 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
1598              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
1599              4510s.
1600 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
1601              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
1602              connectivity.
1603 Technician:  [xxx]
1604 </pre></blockquote>
1605
1606 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
1607 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
1608 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
1609 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
1610 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
1611 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
1612 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
1613
1614 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
1615 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
1616 university too.  We do register
1617 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
1618 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
1619 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
1620 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
1621 for other sites to consider too?</p>
1622
1623       </div>
1624       <div class="tags">
1625
1626
1627         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>.
1628
1629
1630       </div>
1631     </div>
1632     <div class="padding"></div>
1633
1634     <div class="entry">
1635       <div class="title">
1636         <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>
1637       </div>
1638       <div class="date">
1639         22nd October 2012
1640       </div>
1641       <div class="body">
1642         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
1643 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
1644 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
1645 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
1646 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
1647 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
1648 background information is available in Norwegian from
1649 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
1650 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
1651 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
1652 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
1653 willing to
1654 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
1655 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
1656 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
1657 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
1658 sounded like
1659 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
1660 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
1661 later.</p>
1662
1663 <p>And thought this action is
1664 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
1665 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
1666 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
1667 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
1668 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
1669 rights.</p>
1670
1671 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
1672 unacceptable terms.  For example
1673 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
1674 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
1675 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
1676 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
1677 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
1678
1679 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
1680 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
1681 restored the account of the user, as reported by
1682 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
1683 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
1684 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
1685 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
1686 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
1687 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
1688 reading two opinions from
1689 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
1690 Phipps</a> and
1691 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
1692 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
1693 details about the original story.</p>
1694
1695       </div>
1696       <div class="tags">
1697
1698
1699         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>.
1700
1701
1702       </div>
1703     </div>
1704     <div class="padding"></div>
1705
1706     <div class="entry">
1707       <div class="title">
1708         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
1709       </div>
1710       <div class="date">
1711         18th October 2012
1712       </div>
1713       <div class="body">
1714         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
1715 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
1716 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
1717 across a marvellous drawing by
1718 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
1719 visualising some of what is going on.
1720
1721 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
1722 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
1723
1724 <blockquote>
1725 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
1726 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
1727 </blockquote>
1728
1729 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
1730 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
1731 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
1732 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
1733 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
1734 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
1735
1736       </div>
1737       <div class="tags">
1738
1739
1740         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>.
1741
1742
1743       </div>
1744     </div>
1745     <div class="padding"></div>
1746
1747     <div class="entry">
1748       <div class="title">
1749         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
1750       </div>
1751       <div class="date">
1752         12th October 2012
1753       </div>
1754       <div class="body">
1755         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
1756 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
1757 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
1758 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
1759 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
1760 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
1761 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
1762 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
1763 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
1764 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
1765 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
1766 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
1767 matter".</p>
1768
1769 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
1770 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
1771 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
1772 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
1773 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
1774 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
1775 to argue its side.</p>
1776
1777 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
1778 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
1779 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
1780 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
1781
1782 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
1783 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
1784 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
1785
1786       </div>
1787       <div class="tags">
1788
1789
1790         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>.
1791
1792
1793       </div>
1794     </div>
1795     <div class="padding"></div>
1796
1797     <div class="entry">
1798       <div class="title">
1799         <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>
1800       </div>
1801       <div class="date">
1802          3rd October 2012
1803       </div>
1804       <div class="body">
1805         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
1806 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
1807 the computer science book collection available in his local
1808 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
1809 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
1810 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
1811 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
1812 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
1813 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
1814 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
1815 recently published books.</p>
1816
1817 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
1818 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
1819 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
1820 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
1821 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
1822 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
1823 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
1824 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
1825 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
1826 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
1827 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
1828 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
1829 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
1830 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
1831 for the library that evening.</p>
1832
1833 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
1834 going to know that for example
1835 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
1836 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
1837 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
1838 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
1839 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
1840 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
1841 book right away.</p>
1842
1843       </div>
1844       <div class="tags">
1845
1846
1847         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1848
1849
1850       </div>
1851     </div>
1852     <div class="padding"></div>
1853
1854     <div class="entry">
1855       <div class="title">
1856         <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>
1857       </div>
1858       <div class="date">
1859         23rd September 2012
1860       </div>
1861       <div class="body">
1862         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
1863 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
1864 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
1865 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
1866 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
1867 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
1868
1869 When I started, I
1870 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
1871 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
1872 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
1873 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
1874 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
1875 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
1876 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
1877
1878 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
1879
1880 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
1881 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
1882 the project files currently available from
1883 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
1884
1885 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
1886 the updated
1887 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
1888 and
1889 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
1890 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
1891 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
1892 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
1893
1894       </div>
1895       <div class="tags">
1896
1897
1898         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>.
1899
1900
1901       </div>
1902     </div>
1903     <div class="padding"></div>
1904
1905     <div class="entry">
1906       <div class="title">
1907         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
1908       </div>
1909       <div class="date">
1910         17th September 2012
1911       </div>
1912       <div class="body">
1913         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
1914 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
1915 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
1916 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
1917 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
1918 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
1919 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
1920
1921 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1922
1923 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
1924 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
1925 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
1926 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
1927 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
1928 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
1929 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
1930 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
1931 training is anyway very important</p>
1932
1933 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
1934 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
1935 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
1936 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
1937 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
1938
1939 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1940 project?</strong></p>
1941
1942 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
1943 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
1944 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
1945 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
1946 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
1947 hole.</p>
1948
1949 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1950 Edu?</strong></p>
1951
1952 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
1953 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
1954 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
1955 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
1956 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
1957 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
1958 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
1959 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
1960 hassle.</p>
1961
1962 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1963 Edu?</strong></p>
1964
1965 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
1966 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
1967 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
1968 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
1969 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
1970 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
1971 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
1972 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
1973
1974 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1975
1976 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
1977 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
1978 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
1979 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
1980 has the same...</p>
1981
1982 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
1983 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
1984 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
1985 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
1986
1987 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1988 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1989
1990 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
1991 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
1992 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
1993
1994 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
1995 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
1996 don't.</p>
1997
1998 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
1999 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
2000 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
2001 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
2002 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
2003 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
2004 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
2005
2006       </div>
2007       <div class="tags">
2008
2009
2010         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
2011
2012
2013       </div>
2014     </div>
2015     <div class="padding"></div>
2016
2017     <div class="entry">
2018       <div class="title">
2019         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
2020       </div>
2021       <div class="date">
2022         15th September 2012
2023       </div>
2024       <div class="body">
2025         <p>After the
2026 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
2027 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
2028 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
2029 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
2030 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
2031 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
2032 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
2033 was
2034 <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
2035 formal working group should be formed.</p>
2036
2037 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
2038 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
2039 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
2040 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
2041 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
2042 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
2043 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
2044 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
2045
2046 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
2047 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
2048 IETF.</p>
2049
2050       </div>
2051       <div class="tags">
2052
2053
2054         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>.
2055
2056
2057       </div>
2058     </div>
2059     <div class="padding"></div>
2060
2061     <div class="entry">
2062       <div class="title">
2063         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
2064       </div>
2065       <div class="date">
2066         12th September 2012
2067       </div>
2068       <div class="body">
2069         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
2070 publication of of
2071 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
2072 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
2073 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
2074 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
2075 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
2076 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
2077 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
2078 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
2079 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
2080 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
2081
2082 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
2083 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
2084 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
2085 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
2086
2087 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
2088 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
2089
2090       </div>
2091       <div class="tags">
2092
2093
2094         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>.
2095
2096
2097       </div>
2098     </div>
2099     <div class="padding"></div>
2100
2101     <div class="entry">
2102       <div class="title">
2103         <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>
2104       </div>
2105       <div class="date">
2106          7th September 2012
2107       </div>
2108       <div class="body">
2109         <p>As I
2110 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
2111 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
2112 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
2113 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
2114 repository for the project</a>.</p>
2115
2116 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
2117 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
2118 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
2119 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
2120
2121 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
2122 PostScript formats at
2123 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
2124 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
2125
2126       </div>
2127       <div class="tags">
2128
2129
2130         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>.
2131
2132
2133       </div>
2134     </div>
2135     <div class="padding"></div>
2136
2137     <div class="entry">
2138       <div class="title">
2139         <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>
2140       </div>
2141       <div class="date">
2142         23rd August 2012
2143       </div>
2144       <div class="body">
2145         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
2146 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
2147 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
2148 revisit the great site
2149 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
2150 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
2151 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
2152
2153       </div>
2154       <div class="tags">
2155
2156
2157         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>.
2158
2159
2160       </div>
2161     </div>
2162     <div class="padding"></div>
2163
2164     <div class="entry">
2165       <div class="title">
2166         <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>
2167       </div>
2168       <div class="date">
2169         17th August 2012
2170       </div>
2171       <div class="body">
2172         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
2173 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
2174 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
2175 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
2176 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
2177 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
2178 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
2179 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
2180 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
2181 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
2182 summer I
2183 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
2184 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
2185 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
2186
2187 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
2188 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
2189 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
2190 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
2191 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
2192 progress:</p>
2193
2194 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
2195
2196 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
2197 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
2198 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
2199 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
2200 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
2201 english version of the docbook source.</p>
2202
2203 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
2204 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
2205 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
2206 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
2207 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
2208 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
2209 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
2210 project files currently available from <a
2211 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
2212
2213 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
2214 the updated
2215 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
2216 and
2217 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
2218 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
2219 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
2220 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
2221
2222       </div>
2223       <div class="tags">
2224
2225
2226         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>.
2227
2228
2229       </div>
2230     </div>
2231     <div class="padding"></div>
2232
2233     <div class="entry">
2234       <div class="title">
2235         <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>
2236       </div>
2237       <div class="date">
2238         10th August 2012
2239       </div>
2240       <div class="body">
2241         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
2242 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
2243 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
2244 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
2245 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
2246 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
2247 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
2248 case for the language
2249 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
2250 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
2251
2252 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
2253 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
2254 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
2255 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
2256 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
2257
2258 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
2259 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
2260 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
2261 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
2262 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
2263 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
2264 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
2265 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
2266 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
2267 alias for 'nb'.</p>
2268
2269 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
2270 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
2271 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
2272 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
2273 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
2274 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
2275 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
2276 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
2277 at the same time. :(</p>
2278
2279 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
2280 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
2281 processors. :(</p>
2282
2283 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
2284
2285       </div>
2286       <div class="tags">
2287
2288
2289         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>.
2290
2291
2292       </div>
2293     </div>
2294     <div class="padding"></div>
2295
2296     <div class="entry">
2297       <div class="title">
2298         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
2299       </div>
2300       <div class="date">
2301         31st July 2012
2302       </div>
2303       <div class="body">
2304         <p>I tried to send this text to the
2305 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
2306 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
2307 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
2308 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
2309 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
2310 out.</p>
2311
2312 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
2313 learning curve at the moment.</p>
2314
2315 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
2316 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
2317 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
2318 available from
2319 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
2320 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
2321 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
2322 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
2323 Squeeze.</p>
2324
2325 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
2326 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
2327 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
2328 problems.</p>
2329
2330 <ul>
2331
2332 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
2333    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
2334    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
2335    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
2336    index references spanning several pages (See
2337    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
2338    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
2339    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
2340
2341 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
2342    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
2343    #683163</a>).</li>
2344
2345 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
2346    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
2347    footnote and text body, see
2348    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
2349    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
2350    refs listed are not right).</li>
2351
2352 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
2353
2354 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
2355    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
2356
2357 </ul>
2358
2359 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
2360 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
2361 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
2362
2363 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
2364
2365       </div>
2366       <div class="tags">
2367
2368
2369         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>.
2370
2371
2372       </div>
2373     </div>
2374     <div class="padding"></div>
2375
2376     <div class="entry">
2377       <div class="title">
2378         <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>
2379       </div>
2380       <div class="date">
2381         21st July 2012
2382       </div>
2383       <div class="body">
2384         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
2385 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
2386 norwegian version</a> of the book
2387 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
2388 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
2389 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
2390 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
2391 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
2392
2393 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
2394 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
2395 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
2396 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
2397 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
2398 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
2399 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
2400 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
2401 print. :)</p>
2402
2403 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
2404 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
2405 language.</p>
2406
2407       </div>
2408       <div class="tags">
2409
2410
2411         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>.
2412
2413
2414       </div>
2415     </div>
2416     <div class="padding"></div>
2417
2418     <div class="entry">
2419       <div class="title">
2420         <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>
2421       </div>
2422       <div class="date">
2423         16th July 2012
2424       </div>
2425       <div class="body">
2426         <p>I am currently working on a
2427 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
2428 to translate</a> the book
2429 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
2430 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
2431 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
2432 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
2433 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
2434 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
2435 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
2436
2437 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
2438 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
2439 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
2440 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
2441 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
2442 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
2443 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
2444 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
2445 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
2446
2447       </div>
2448       <div class="tags">
2449
2450
2451         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>.
2452
2453
2454       </div>
2455     </div>
2456     <div class="padding"></div>
2457
2458     <div class="entry">
2459       <div class="title">
2460         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
2461       </div>
2462       <div class="date">
2463          9th July 2012
2464       </div>
2465       <div class="body">
2466         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2467 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
2468 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
2469 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
2470 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
2471 to adjust and scale the just released
2472 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
2473 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
2474 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
2475
2476 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2477
2478 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
2479 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
2480 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
2481 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
2482 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
2483 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
2484 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
2485 perspective when working with IT.</p>
2486
2487 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2488 project?</strong></p>
2489
2490 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
2491 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
2492 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
2493 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
2494 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
2495 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
2496
2497 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2498 Edu?</strong></p>
2499
2500 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
2501 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
2502 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
2503 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
2504 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
2505 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
2506 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
2507 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
2508 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
2509 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
2510 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
2511 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
2512 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
2513 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
2514 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
2515 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
2516 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
2517 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
2518 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
2519 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
2520 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
2521 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
2522 quicker to update.
2523
2524 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2525 Edu?</strong></p>
2526
2527 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
2528 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
2529 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
2530 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
2531 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
2532 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
2533
2534 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
2535 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
2536 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
2537 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
2538 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
2539 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
2540 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
2541 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
2542 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
2543 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
2544 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
2545 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
2546 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
2547 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
2548 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
2549
2550 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
2551 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
2552 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
2553 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
2554 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
2555 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
2556 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
2557 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
2558
2559 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
2560 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
2561 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
2562 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
2563 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
2564 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
2565 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
2566 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
2567 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
2568 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
2569 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
2570 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
2571 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
2572 sound file.</p>
2573
2574 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
2575 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
2576 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
2577 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
2578 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
2579 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
2580 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
2581 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
2582 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
2583
2584 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2585
2586 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
2587 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
2588 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
2589 )</p>
2590
2591 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2592 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2593
2594 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
2595 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
2596 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
2597 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
2598 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
2599 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
2600 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
2601 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
2602 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
2603 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
2604 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
2605 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
2606 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
2607 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
2608 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
2609
2610 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
2611 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
2612 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
2613 management with Airtime</a>,
2614 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
2615 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
2616 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
2617 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
2618 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
2619
2620       </div>
2621       <div class="tags">
2622
2623
2624         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
2625
2626
2627       </div>
2628     </div>
2629     <div class="padding"></div>
2630
2631     <div class="entry">
2632       <div class="title">
2633         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
2634       </div>
2635       <div class="date">
2636          8th July 2012
2637       </div>
2638       <div class="body">
2639         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
2640 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
2641 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
2642 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
2643 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
2644 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
2645 Steinberg in his blog post
2646 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
2647 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
2648 spending of your tax money.</p>
2649
2650 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
2651 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
2652 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
2653 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
2654 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
2655 purchases.</p>
2656
2657       </div>
2658       <div class="tags">
2659
2660
2661         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2662
2663
2664       </div>
2665     </div>
2666     <div class="padding"></div>
2667
2668     <div class="entry">
2669       <div class="title">
2670         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
2671       </div>
2672       <div class="date">
2673          7th July 2012
2674       </div>
2675       <div class="body">
2676         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2677 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
2678 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
2679 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
2680 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
2681 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
2682 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
2683 receive.  The software is
2684
2685 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
2686 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
2687 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
2688 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
2689 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
2690 Windows</a>.</p>
2691
2692 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
2693 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
2694
2695 <p><ul>
2696
2697   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
2698     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
2699
2700   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
2701     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
2702     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
2703     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
2704     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
2705     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
2706     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
2707     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
2708     </li>
2709
2710   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
2711     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
2712
2713   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
2714     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
2715
2716   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
2717     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
2718
2719   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
2720
2721   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
2722     formats </li>
2723
2724   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
2725     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
2726     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
2727     (as separate sets)</li>
2728
2729   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
2730     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
2731     percentage)</li>
2732
2733   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
2734     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
2735     memory):
2736     <ul>
2737       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
2738       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
2739       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
2740       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
2741       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
2742       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
2743       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
2744       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
2745       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
2746       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
2747           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
2748           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
2749           activity)</li>
2750       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
2751       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
2752     </ul></li>
2753
2754   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
2755     <ul>
2756       <li>Break periods</li>
2757       <li>For teacher(s):
2758         <ul>
2759           <li>Not available periods</li>
2760           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
2761           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
2762           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
2763           <li>Min hours daily</li>
2764           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
2765
2766           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
2767             days per week</li>
2768         </ul></li>
2769       <li>For students (sets):
2770         <ul>
2771           <li>Not available periods</li>
2772           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
2773           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
2774           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
2775           <li>Min hours daily</li>
2776           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
2777
2778           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
2779             days per week</li>
2780         </ul></li>
2781       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
2782         <ul>
2783           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
2784           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
2785           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
2786           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
2787           <li>End(s) students day</li>
2788           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
2789           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
2790             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
2791           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
2792           <li>Not overlapping</li>
2793           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
2794           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
2795         </ul></li>
2796     </ul></li>
2797
2798   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
2799     <ul>
2800       <li>Room not available periods</li>
2801       <li>For teacher(s):
2802         <ul>
2803           <li>Home room(s)</li>
2804           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
2805           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
2806         </ul>
2807       </li>
2808
2809       <li>For students (sets):
2810         <ul>
2811           <li>Home room(s)</li>
2812           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
2813           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
2814         </ul>
2815       </li>
2816       <li>Preferred room(s):
2817         <ul>
2818           <li>For a subject</li>
2819           <li>For an activity tag</li>
2820           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
2821           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
2822         </ul>
2823       </li>
2824
2825       <li>For a set of activities:
2826         <ul>
2827           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
2828         </ul>
2829       </li>
2830     </ul>
2831   </li>
2832 </ul></p>
2833
2834 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
2835 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
2836 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
2837 manually, check it out.
2838
2839 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
2840 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
2841 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
2842 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
2843 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
2844 section</a>.</p>
2845
2846       </div>
2847       <div class="tags">
2848
2849
2850         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2851
2852
2853       </div>
2854     </div>
2855     <div class="padding"></div>
2856
2857     <div class="entry">
2858       <div class="title">
2859         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Can_Zimbra_be_told_to_send_autoreplies_to_the_From__address_.html">Can Zimbra be told to send autoreplies to the From: address?</a>
2860       </div>
2861       <div class="date">
2862          3rd July 2012
2863       </div>
2864       <div class="body">
2865         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
2866 project (Norwegian version of
2867 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
2868 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
2869 a problem with the municipalities using
2870 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
2871 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
2872 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
2873 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
2874 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
2875 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
2876 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
2877 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
2878 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
2879 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
2880 the From: header.</p>
2881
2882 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
2883 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
2884 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
2885 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
2886 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
2887 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
2888 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
2889 behaviour.</p>
2890
2891 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
2892 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
2893 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
2894 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
2895 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
2896 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
2897 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
2898
2899       </div>
2900       <div class="tags">
2901
2902
2903         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>.
2904
2905
2906       </div>
2907     </div>
2908     <div class="padding"></div>
2909
2910     <div class="entry">
2911       <div class="title">
2912         <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>
2913       </div>
2914       <div class="date">
2915         26th June 2012
2916       </div>
2917       <div class="body">
2918         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
2919 another interview with the people behind
2920 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
2921 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
2922 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
2923 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
2924 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
2925 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
2926 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
2927
2928 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2929
2930 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
2931 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
2932 ICT in schools</p>
2933
2934 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2935 project?</strong></p>
2936
2937 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
2938 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
2939 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
2940 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
2941
2942 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2943 Edu?</strong></p>
2944
2945 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
2946 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
2947 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
2948 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
2949
2950 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2951 Edu?</strong></p>
2952
2953 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
2954 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
2955 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
2956 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
2957 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
2958 technologies in school.</p>
2959
2960 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2961
2962 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
2963 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
2964 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
2965
2966 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2967 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2968
2969 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
2970 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
2971 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
2972 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
2973
2974 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
2975 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
2976 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
2977
2978 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
2979 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
2980 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
2981 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
2982 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
2983 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
2984 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
2985 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
2986 working there.</p>
2987
2988       </div>
2989       <div class="tags">
2990
2991
2992         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
2993
2994
2995       </div>
2996     </div>
2997     <div class="padding"></div>
2998
2999     <div class="entry">
3000       <div class="title">
3001         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
3002       </div>
3003       <div class="date">
3004         24th June 2012
3005       </div>
3006       <div class="body">
3007         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
3008 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
3009 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
3010 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
3011 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
3012 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
3013 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
3014 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
3015 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
3016 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
3017 missing in my book.</p>
3018
3019 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
3020 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
3021 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
3022 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
3023 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
3024 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
3025 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
3026
3027       </div>
3028       <div class="tags">
3029
3030
3031         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>.
3032
3033
3034       </div>
3035     </div>
3036     <div class="padding"></div>
3037
3038     <div class="entry">
3039       <div class="title">
3040         <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>
3041       </div>
3042       <div class="date">
3043         11th June 2012
3044       </div>
3045       <div class="body">
3046         <p>During my work on
3047 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
3048 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
3049 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
3050 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
3051 explanation.</p>
3052
3053 <p><ul>
3054
3055 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
3056 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
3057 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
3058 system depend on tasksel tasks in
3059 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
3060 installation.</li>
3061
3062 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
3063 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
3064 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
3065 at least try to enable it for these services:
3066 <ul>
3067
3068   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
3069     quotas.</li>
3070   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
3071   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
3072   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
3073   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
3074   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
3075
3076 </ul></li>
3077
3078 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
3079 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
3080 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
3081 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
3082
3083 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
3084 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
3085 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
3086
3087 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
3088 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
3089 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
3090 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
3091 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
3092 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
3093
3094 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
3095 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
3096 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
3097 in Wheezy.
3098
3099 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
3100 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
3101 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
3102
3103 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
3104 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
3105 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
3106 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
3107
3108 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
3109 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
3110 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
3111 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
3112
3113 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
3114 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
3115 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
3116
3117 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
3118 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
3119 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
3120
3121 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
3122 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
3123 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
3124 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
3125 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
3126
3127 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
3128 <ul>
3129
3130 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
3131 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
3132 <li>and probably more?</li>
3133 </ul></li>
3134
3135 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
3136 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
3137 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
3138 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
3139 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
3140 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
3141 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
3142 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
3143
3144
3145 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
3146 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
3147 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
3148 use.</li>
3149
3150 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
3151 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
3152 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
3153 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
3154 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
3155
3156 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
3157 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
3158 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
3159 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
3160 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
3161 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
3162
3163 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
3164 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
3165 There are at least three implementations,
3166 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
3167 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
3168 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
3169 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
3170 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
3171 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
3172 given room.</li>
3173
3174 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
3175 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
3176 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
3177 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
3178 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
3179 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
3180 investigated.</li>
3181
3182 </ul></p>
3183
3184 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
3185 version.</p>
3186
3187       </div>
3188       <div class="tags">
3189
3190
3191         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3192
3193
3194       </div>
3195     </div>
3196     <div class="padding"></div>
3197
3198     <div class="entry">
3199       <div class="title">
3200         <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>
3201       </div>
3202       <div class="date">
3203          9th June 2012
3204       </div>
3205       <div class="body">
3206         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
3207 <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
3208 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
3209 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
3210 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
3211 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
3212 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
3213 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
3214 be willing to pay for.</p>
3215
3216 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
3217 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
3218 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
3219 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
3220 Orwell</a>.</p>
3221
3222       </div>
3223       <div class="tags">
3224
3225
3226         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>.
3227
3228
3229       </div>
3230     </div>
3231     <div class="padding"></div>
3232
3233     <div class="entry">
3234       <div class="title">
3235         <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>
3236       </div>
3237       <div class="date">
3238          6th June 2012
3239       </div>
3240       <div class="body">
3241         <p>A few days ago
3242 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
3243 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
3244 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
3245 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
3246 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
3247 code for HP, Dell and IBM
3248 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
3249 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
3250 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
3251 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
3252 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
3253
3254 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
3255 output:
3256
3257 <blockquote><pre>
3258 % 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>
3259 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": ""})
3260 %
3261 </pre></blockquote>
3262
3263 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
3264 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
3265 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
3266
3267       </div>
3268       <div class="tags">
3269
3270
3271         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>.
3272
3273
3274       </div>
3275     </div>
3276     <div class="padding"></div>
3277
3278     <div class="entry">
3279       <div class="title">
3280         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
3281       </div>
3282       <div class="date">
3283          2nd June 2012
3284       </div>
3285       <div class="body">
3286         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
3287 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
3288 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
3289 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
3290 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
3291 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
3292
3293 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3294
3295 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
3296 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
3297 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
3298 by Angela).</p>
3299
3300 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
3301 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
3302 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
3303 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
3304 becoming an osteopath.</p>
3305
3306 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
3307 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
3308 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
3309 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
3310 skills with communication skills.</p>
3311
3312 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3313 project?</strong></p>
3314
3315 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
3316 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
3317 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
3318 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
3319 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
3320
3321 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
3322 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
3323 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
3324 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
3325 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
3326 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
3327 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
3328 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
3329 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
3330
3331 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
3332 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
3333 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
3334
3335 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
3336
3337 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
3338 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
3339 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
3340 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
3341 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
3342 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
3343 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
3344 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
3345 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
3346 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
3347 point.</p>
3348
3349 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
3350 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
3351 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
3352 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
3353 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
3354 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
3355
3356 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
3357 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
3358 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
3359 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
3360 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
3361 spare time.</p>
3362
3363 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
3364 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
3365 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
3366 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
3367 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
3368
3369 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
3370 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
3371 avoidance do exist.</p>
3372
3373 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
3374 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
3375 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
3376 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
3377 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
3378 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
3379 and probably a gain for all.</p>
3380
3381 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3382 Edu?</strong></p>
3383
3384 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
3385 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
3386 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
3387 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
3388 project communication, honest communication within the group of
3389 developers, etc.</p>
3390
3391 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3392 Edu?</strong></p>
3393
3394 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
3395
3396 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
3397 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
3398 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
3399 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
3400 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
3401 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
3402 contribute).</p>
3403
3404 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
3405 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
3406 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
3407 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
3408 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
3409 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
3410 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
3411 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
3412 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
3413 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
3414
3415 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3416
3417 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
3418
3419 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
3420 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
3421 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
3422
3423 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
3424 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
3425 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
3426 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
3427
3428 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
3429 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
3430 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
3431 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
3432 whiteboard.</p>
3433
3434 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
3435
3436 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3437 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3438
3439 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
3440 enrol people.</p>
3441
3442       </div>
3443       <div class="tags">
3444
3445
3446         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
3447
3448
3449       </div>
3450     </div>
3451     <div class="padding"></div>
3452
3453     <div class="entry">
3454       <div class="title">
3455         <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>
3456       </div>
3457       <div class="date">
3458          1st June 2012
3459       </div>
3460       <div class="body">
3461         <p>A few years ago I wrote
3462 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
3463 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
3464 I have learned from colleges here at the
3465 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
3466 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
3467 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
3468 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
3469 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
3470
3471 <p><pre>
3472 use strict;
3473 use warnings;
3474 use SOAP::Lite;
3475 use Data::Dumper;
3476 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
3477 my $App = 'test';
3478 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
3479 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
3480 my $s = SOAP::Lite
3481     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
3482     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
3483     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
3484     ;
3485 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
3486     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
3487     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
3488     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
3489 );
3490 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
3491 </pre></p>
3492
3493 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
3494
3495 <p><pre>
3496 $VAR1 = {
3497           'Asset' => {
3498                      'Entitlements' => {
3499                                        'EntitlementData' => [
3500                                                             {
3501                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
3502                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
3503                                                               'Provider' => '',
3504                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
3505                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
3506                                                             },
3507                                                             {
3508                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
3509                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
3510                                                               'Provider' => '',
3511                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
3512                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
3513                                                             },
3514                                                             {
3515                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
3516                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
3517                                                               'Provider' => '',
3518                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
3519                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
3520                                                             }
3521                                                           ]
3522                                      },
3523                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
3524                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
3525                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
3526                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
3527                                           'Buid' => '2323',
3528                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
3529                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
3530                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
3531                                         }
3532                    }
3533         };
3534 </pre></p>
3535
3536 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
3537 service outside the
3538 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
3539 documentation</a>, and according to
3540 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
3541 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
3542 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
3543
3544 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
3545 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
3546
3547       </div>
3548       <div class="tags">
3549
3550
3551         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>.
3552
3553
3554       </div>
3555     </div>
3556     <div class="padding"></div>
3557
3558     <div class="entry">
3559       <div class="title">
3560         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
3561       </div>
3562       <div class="date">
3563         31st May 2012
3564       </div>
3565       <div class="body">
3566         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
3567 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
3568 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
3569 running Debian Squeeze, where
3570 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
3571 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
3572 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
3573 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
3574 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
3575 another day.</p>
3576
3577 <p>After calibration, I get a
3578 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
3579 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
3580 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
3581 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
3582 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
3583 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
3584 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
3585 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
3586 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
3587 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
3588 and a simple</p>
3589
3590 <p><pre>
3591 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
3592 </pre></p>
3593
3594 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
3595 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
3596 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
3597 enough for now.</p>
3598
3599       </div>
3600       <div class="tags">
3601
3602
3603         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3604
3605
3606       </div>
3607     </div>
3608     <div class="padding"></div>
3609
3610     <div class="entry">
3611       <div class="title">
3612         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
3613       </div>
3614       <div class="date">
3615         27th May 2012
3616       </div>
3617       <div class="body">
3618         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
3619 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
3620 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
3621 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
3622 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
3623 since then, helping to make sure the
3624 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
3625 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
3626
3627 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3628
3629 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
3630 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
3631 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
3632 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
3633 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
3634 our computer network.</p>
3635
3636 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
3637 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
3638 (4 months).</p>
3639
3640 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3641 project?</strong></p>
3642
3643 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
3644 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
3645 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
3646 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
3647 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
3648 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
3649 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
3650 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
3651 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
3652 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
3653 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
3654 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
3655 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
3656 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
3657
3658 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3659 Edu?</strong></p>
3660
3661 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
3662 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
3663 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
3664 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
3665 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
3666 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
3667 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
3668 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
3669
3670 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3671 Edu?</strong></p>
3672
3673 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
3674 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
3675 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
3676 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
3677 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
3678 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
3679 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
3680 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
3681 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
3682 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
3683 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
3684 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
3685
3686 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3687
3688 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
3689 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
3690 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
3691
3692 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3693 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3694
3695 <p><ol>
3696
3697 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
3698 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
3699 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
3700 developing.</li>
3701
3702 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
3703 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
3704 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
3705 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
3706 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
3707
3708 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
3709 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
3710 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
3711
3712 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
3713 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
3714 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
3715 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
3716
3717 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
3718 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
3719 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
3720
3721 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
3722
3723 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
3724 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
3725 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
3726 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
3727
3728 </ol></p>
3729
3730       </div>
3731       <div class="tags">
3732
3733
3734         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
3735
3736
3737       </div>
3738     </div>
3739     <div class="padding"></div>
3740
3741     <div class="entry">
3742       <div class="title">
3743         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
3744       </div>
3745       <div class="date">
3746         26th May 2012
3747       </div>
3748       <div class="body">
3749         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
3750 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
3751 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
3752 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
3753 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
3754
3755 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
3756 <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>
3757 comment:</p>
3758
3759 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
3760 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
3761 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
3762 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
3763 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
3764 </blockquote></p>
3765
3766 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
3767 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
3768 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
3769 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
3770 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
3771 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
3772 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
3773 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
3774 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
3775 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
3776 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
3777 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
3778 of wasted effort.</p>
3779
3780 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
3781 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
3782 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
3783
3784 <p>See
3785 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
3786 and
3787 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
3788 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
3789 </blockquote></p>
3790
3791       </div>
3792       <div class="tags">
3793
3794
3795         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>.
3796
3797
3798       </div>
3799     </div>
3800     <div class="padding"></div>
3801
3802     <div class="entry">
3803       <div class="title">
3804         <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>
3805       </div>
3806       <div class="date">
3807         18th May 2012
3808       </div>
3809       <div class="body">
3810         <p>In january, I
3811 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
3812 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
3813 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
3814 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
3815 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
3816 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
3817 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
3818 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
3819 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
3820 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
3821
3822 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
3823 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
3824 drivers. :)</p>
3825
3826       </div>
3827       <div class="tags">
3828
3829
3830         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3831
3832
3833       </div>
3834     </div>
3835     <div class="padding"></div>
3836
3837     <div class="entry">
3838       <div class="title">
3839         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
3840       </div>
3841       <div class="date">
3842         13th May 2012
3843       </div>
3844       <div class="body">
3845         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
3846 publish another interview with the people behind
3847 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
3848 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
3849 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
3850 details get right before release.
3851
3852 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3853
3854 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
3855 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
3856 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
3857 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
3858 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
3859 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
3860 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
3861 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
3862
3863 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
3864 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
3865 home since 2006.</p>
3866
3867 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3868 project?</strong></p>
3869
3870 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
3871 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
3872 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
3873 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
3874 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
3875 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
3876
3877 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
3878 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
3879 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
3880 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
3881 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
3882 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
3883 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
3884 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
3885 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
3886 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
3887 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
3888 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
3889 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
3890 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
3891 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
3892 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
3893
3894 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3895 Edu?</strong></p>
3896
3897 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
3898 for me as today.</p>
3899
3900 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
3901
3902 <p><ul>
3903
3904 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
3905 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
3906
3907 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
3908 cost.</li>
3909
3910 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
3911 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
3912 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
3913 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
3914 server</li>
3915
3916 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
3917 school.</li>
3918
3919 </ul></p>
3920
3921 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
3922 came up in this way:</p>
3923
3924 <p><ul>
3925
3926 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
3927 now.</li>
3928
3929 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
3930 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
3931 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
3932
3933 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
3934 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
3935 interfaces used in the past.</li>
3936
3937 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
3938 different needs.</li>
3939
3940 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
3941
3942 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
3943 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
3944 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
3945
3946 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
3947 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
3948
3949 </ul></p>
3950
3951 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3952 Edu?</strong></p>
3953
3954 <p><ul>
3955
3956 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
3957 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
3958 whole municipality areas.</li>
3959
3960 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
3961 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
3962 politicians.</li>
3963
3964 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
3965
3966 </ul></p>
3967
3968 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3969
3970 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
3971 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
3972 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
3973 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
3974 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
3975 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
3976
3977 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
3978 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
3979 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
3980 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
3981 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
3982
3983 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3984 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3985
3986 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
3987 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
3988 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
3989
3990       </div>
3991       <div class="tags">
3992
3993
3994         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
3995
3996
3997       </div>
3998     </div>
3999     <div class="padding"></div>
4000
4001     <div class="entry">
4002       <div class="title">
4003         <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>
4004       </div>
4005       <div class="date">
4006         30th April 2012
4007       </div>
4008       <div class="body">
4009         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
4010 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
4011
4012 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
4013 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
4014 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
4015 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
4016 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
4017 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
4018 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
4019 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
4020 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
4021 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
4022 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
4023 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
4024 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
4025 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
4026 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
4027 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
4028
4029 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
4030 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
4031 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
4032 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
4033 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
4034 finally found a Danish supplier
4035 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
4036 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
4037 days ago.</p>
4038
4039 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
4040 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
4041 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
4042 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
4043 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
4044 toys.</p>
4045
4046       </div>
4047       <div class="tags">
4048
4049
4050         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4051
4052
4053       </div>
4054     </div>
4055     <div class="padding"></div>
4056
4057     <div class="entry">
4058       <div class="title">
4059         <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>
4060       </div>
4061       <div class="date">
4062         26th April 2012
4063       </div>
4064       <div class="body">
4065         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
4066 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
4067 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
4068 that the video editor application included with
4069 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
4070 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
4071 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
4072
4073 <p><blockquote>
4074 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
4075 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
4076 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
4077 </blockquote></p>
4078
4079 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
4080
4081 <p><blockquote>
4082 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
4083 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
4084 </blockquote></p>
4085
4086 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
4087 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
4088 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
4089 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
4090 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
4091 video.  AMR is
4092 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
4093 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
4094 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
4095 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
4096 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
4097 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
4098 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
4099
4100 <p>I know why I prefer
4101 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
4102 standards</a> also for video.</p>
4103
4104       </div>
4105       <div class="tags">
4106
4107
4108         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>.
4109
4110
4111       </div>
4112     </div>
4113     <div class="padding"></div>
4114
4115     <div class="entry">
4116       <div class="title">
4117         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
4118       </div>
4119       <div class="date">
4120         19th April 2012
4121       </div>
4122       <div class="body">
4123         <p>Here in Norway, the
4124 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
4125 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
4126 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
4127 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
4128 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
4129 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
4130 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
4131 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
4132 on the same level.</p>
4133
4134 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
4135 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
4136 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
4137 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
4138 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
4139 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
4140 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
4141 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
4142 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
4143 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
4144 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
4145 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
4146 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
4147 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
4148 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
4149 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
4150 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
4151 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
4152
4153 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
4154 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
4155 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
4156 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
4157 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
4158 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
4159 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
4160 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
4161
4162 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
4163 from Simon Phipps
4164 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
4165 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
4166
4167 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
4168 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
4169 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
4170 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
4171 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
4172 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
4173 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
4174 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
4175 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
4176
4177       </div>
4178       <div class="tags">
4179
4180
4181         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>.
4182
4183
4184       </div>
4185     </div>
4186     <div class="padding"></div>
4187
4188     <div class="entry">
4189       <div class="title">
4190         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
4191       </div>
4192       <div class="date">
4193         15th April 2012
4194       </div>
4195       <div class="body">
4196         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
4197 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
4198 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
4199 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
4200 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
4201 up in the recently released
4202 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
4203 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
4204
4205 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4206
4207 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
4208 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
4209 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
4210 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
4211 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
4212 information technology and science/technology.</p>
4213
4214 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4215 project?</strong></p>
4216
4217 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
4218 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
4219 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
4220 contributing.</p>
4221
4222 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4223 Edu?</strong></p>
4224
4225 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
4226 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
4227 Debian Project!</p>
4228
4229 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4230 Edu?</strong></p>
4231
4232 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
4233 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
4234 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
4235 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
4236 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
4237 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
4238 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
4239
4240 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
4241 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
4242
4243 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4244
4245 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
4246 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
4247 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
4248 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
4249
4250 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4251 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4252
4253 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
4254 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
4255 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
4256 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
4257 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
4258 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
4259 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
4260
4261 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
4262 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
4263 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
4264 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
4265 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
4266 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
4267 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
4268 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
4269
4270       </div>
4271       <div class="tags">
4272
4273
4274         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
4275
4276
4277       </div>
4278     </div>
4279     <div class="padding"></div>
4280
4281     <div class="entry">
4282       <div class="title">
4283         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
4284       </div>
4285       <div class="date">
4286          8th April 2012
4287       </div>
4288       <div class="body">
4289         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
4290 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
4291 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
4292 contributor to the
4293 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
4294 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
4295
4296 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4297
4298 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
4299 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
4300
4301 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4302 project?</strong></p>
4303
4304 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
4305 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
4306 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
4307 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
4308 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
4309 "localisation".</p>
4310
4311 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4312 Edu?</strong></p>
4313
4314 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4315 Edu?</strong></p>
4316
4317 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
4318 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
4319 education system.</p>
4320
4321 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
4322 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
4323 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
4324 money on the latest hardware.</p>
4325
4326 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4327
4328 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
4329 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
4330 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
4331
4332 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4333 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4334
4335 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
4336 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
4337 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
4338
4339       </div>
4340       <div class="tags">
4341
4342
4343         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
4344
4345
4346       </div>
4347     </div>
4348     <div class="padding"></div>
4349
4350     <div class="entry">
4351       <div class="title">
4352         <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>
4353       </div>
4354       <div class="date">
4355          6th April 2012
4356       </div>
4357       <div class="body">
4358         <p>Recently I have spent time with
4359 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
4360 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
4361 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
4362 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
4363 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
4364 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
4365 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
4366 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
4367
4368 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
4369 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
4370 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
4371 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
4372 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
4373 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
4374 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
4375 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
4376
4377 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
4378 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
4379 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
4380 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
4381 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
4382 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
4383 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
4384 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
4385
4386 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
4387 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
4388 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
4389 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
4390 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
4391 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
4392 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
4393 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
4394 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
4395 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
4396
4397 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
4398 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
4399 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
4400 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
4401
4402 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
4403 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
4404
4405       </div>
4406       <div class="tags">
4407
4408
4409         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4410
4411
4412       </div>
4413     </div>
4414     <div class="padding"></div>
4415
4416     <div class="entry">
4417       <div class="title">
4418         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
4419       </div>
4420       <div class="date">
4421          5th April 2012
4422       </div>
4423       <div class="body">
4424         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
4425 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
4426 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
4427 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
4428 for schools.  Check out his article
4429 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
4430 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
4431
4432       </div>
4433       <div class="tags">
4434
4435
4436         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4437
4438
4439       </div>
4440     </div>
4441     <div class="padding"></div>
4442
4443     <div class="entry">
4444       <div class="title">
4445         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
4446       </div>
4447       <div class="date">
4448          1st April 2012
4449       </div>
4450       <div class="body">
4451         <p>Germany is a core area for the
4452 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
4453 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
4454 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
4455
4456 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4457
4458 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
4459 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
4460 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
4461 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
4462 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
4463 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
4464 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
4465 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
4466
4467 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
4468 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
4469 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
4470 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
4471 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
4472 the end of April this year.</p>
4473
4474 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4475 project?</strong></p>
4476
4477 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
4478 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
4479 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
4480 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
4481 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
4482 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
4483 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
4484 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
4485 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
4486 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
4487 Skolelinux.</p>
4488
4489 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
4490 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
4491 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
4492 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
4493 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
4494 the admin teachers.</p>
4495
4496 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4497 Edu?</strong></p>
4498
4499 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
4500 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
4501 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
4502
4503 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
4504 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
4505 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
4506 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
4507 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
4508
4509 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4510 Edu?</strong></p>
4511
4512 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
4513
4514 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4515
4516 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
4517 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
4518 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
4519 LibreOffice.</p>
4520
4521 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4522 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4523
4524 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
4525 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
4526 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
4527
4528       </div>
4529       <div class="tags">
4530
4531
4532         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
4533
4534
4535       </div>
4536     </div>
4537     <div class="padding"></div>
4538
4539     <div class="entry">
4540       <div class="title">
4541         <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>
4542       </div>
4543       <div class="date">
4544         25th March 2012
4545       </div>
4546       <div class="body">
4547         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
4548
4549 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
4550 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
4551 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
4552 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
4553 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
4554 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
4555 and download as a
4556 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
4557 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
4558
4559 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
4560   <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"' />
4561     <p>Download video as
4562       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
4563 </video></p>
4564
4565       </div>
4566       <div class="tags">
4567
4568
4569         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4570
4571
4572       </div>
4573     </div>
4574     <div class="padding"></div>
4575
4576     <div class="entry">
4577       <div class="title">
4578         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
4579       </div>
4580       <div class="date">
4581         19th March 2012
4582       </div>
4583       <div class="body">
4584         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
4585 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
4586 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
4587 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
4588 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
4589
4590 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4591
4592 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
4593 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
4594 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
4595 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
4596 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
4597 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
4598 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
4599 installations.</p>
4600
4601 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4602 project?</strong></p>
4603
4604 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
4605 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
4606 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
4607 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
4608 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
4609 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
4610 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
4611 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
4612 these things we decided to try it.</p>
4613
4614 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4615 Edu?</strong></p>
4616
4617 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
4618 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
4619 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
4620 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
4621 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
4622 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
4623 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
4624 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
4625
4626 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4627 Edu?</strong></p>
4628
4629 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
4630 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
4631 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
4632 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
4633 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
4634
4635 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4636
4637 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
4638 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
4639 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
4640 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
4641 that counts...)</p>
4642
4643 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4644 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4645
4646 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
4647 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
4648 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
4649 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
4650 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
4651 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
4652 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
4653 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
4654 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
4655 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
4656 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
4657
4658 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
4659 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
4660 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
4661
4662       </div>
4663       <div class="tags">
4664
4665
4666         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
4667
4668
4669       </div>
4670     </div>
4671     <div class="padding"></div>
4672
4673     <div class="entry">
4674       <div class="title">
4675         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
4676       </div>
4677       <div class="date">
4678         16th March 2012
4679       </div>
4680       <div class="body">
4681         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
4682 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
4683 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
4684 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
4685
4686 <ol>
4687
4688 <li>The documentation is written in a
4689 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
4690 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
4691 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
4692 docbook XML.</li>
4693
4694 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
4695 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
4696 with the translated text.</li>
4697
4698 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
4699 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
4700 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
4701 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
4702 images.</li>
4703
4704 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
4705 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
4706
4707 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
4708 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
4709
4710 </ol>
4711
4712 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
4713 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
4714 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
4715 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
4716 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
4717
4718 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
4719 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
4720 package</a>.</p>
4721
4722       </div>
4723       <div class="tags">
4724
4725
4726         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4727
4728
4729       </div>
4730     </div>
4731     <div class="padding"></div>
4732
4733     <div class="entry">
4734       <div class="title">
4735         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
4736       </div>
4737       <div class="date">
4738         11th March 2012
4739       </div>
4740       <div class="body">
4741         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
4742 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
4743 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
4744 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
4745 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
4746 you have not done so already.</p>
4747
4748 <p>I plan to present the new version at
4749 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
4750 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
4751 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
4752
4753       </div>
4754       <div class="tags">
4755
4756
4757         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4758
4759
4760       </div>
4761     </div>
4762     <div class="padding"></div>
4763
4764     <div class="entry">
4765       <div class="title">
4766         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
4767       </div>
4768       <div class="date">
4769          9th March 2012
4770       </div>
4771       <div class="body">
4772         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
4773 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
4774 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4775 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
4776 more international audience.</p>
4777
4778 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
4779 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
4780 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
4781 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
4782 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
4783 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
4784 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
4785
4786
4787 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4788
4789 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
4790 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
4791 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
4792 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
4793 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
4794 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
4795 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
4796 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
4797 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
4798 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
4799 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
4800
4801 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4802 project?</strong></p>
4803
4804 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
4805 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
4806 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
4807 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
4808 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
4809 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
4810 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
4811 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
4812 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
4813 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
4814 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
4815 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
4816 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
4817
4818 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4819 Edu?</strong></p>
4820
4821 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
4822 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
4823 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
4824 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
4825 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
4826 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
4827 Japan.</p>
4828
4829 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4830 Edu?</strong></p>
4831
4832 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
4833 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
4834 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
4835 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
4836 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
4837 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
4838 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
4839 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
4840 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
4841 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
4842 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
4843 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
4844 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
4845 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
4846 help.</p>
4847
4848 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4849
4850 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
4851 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
4852 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
4853 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
4854 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
4855 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
4856 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
4857 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
4858 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
4859 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
4860 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
4861
4862 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4863 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4864
4865 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
4866 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
4867 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
4868 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
4869 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
4870 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
4871 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
4872 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
4873 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
4874 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
4875 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
4876 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
4877
4878       </div>
4879       <div class="tags">
4880
4881
4882         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
4883
4884
4885       </div>
4886     </div>
4887     <div class="padding"></div>
4888
4889     <div class="entry">
4890       <div class="title">
4891         <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>
4892       </div>
4893       <div class="date">
4894          7th March 2012
4895       </div>
4896       <div class="body">
4897         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
4898
4899 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
4900 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
4901 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
4902 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
4903 download as a
4904 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
4905 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
4906
4907 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
4908   <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"' />
4909     <p>Download video as
4910       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
4911 </video></p>
4912
4913       </div>
4914       <div class="tags">
4915
4916
4917         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4918
4919
4920       </div>
4921     </div>
4922     <div class="padding"></div>
4923
4924     <div class="entry">
4925       <div class="title">
4926         <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>
4927       </div>
4928       <div class="date">
4929          4th March 2012
4930       </div>
4931       <div class="body">
4932         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
4933 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
4934 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
4935 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
4936 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
4937 need a software solution for your school.</p>
4938
4939       </div>
4940       <div class="tags">
4941
4942
4943         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4944
4945
4946       </div>
4947     </div>
4948     <div class="padding"></div>
4949
4950     <div class="entry">
4951       <div class="title">
4952         <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>
4953       </div>
4954       <div class="date">
4955          3rd March 2012
4956       </div>
4957       <div class="body">
4958         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
4959 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
4960 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
4961 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
4962 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
4963 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
4964 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
4965 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
4966 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
4967 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
4968 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
4969 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
4970 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
4971 year...</p>
4972
4973 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
4974 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
4975 name,
4976 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
4977 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
4978 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
4979 mean). I've been following
4980 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
4981 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
4982 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
4983 Check it out. :)</p>
4984
4985       </div>
4986       <div class="tags">
4987
4988
4989         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
4990
4991
4992       </div>
4993     </div>
4994     <div class="padding"></div>
4995
4996     <div class="entry">
4997       <div class="title">
4998         <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>
4999       </div>
5000       <div class="date">
5001         27th February 2012
5002       </div>
5003       <div class="body">
5004         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
5005 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
5006 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
5007 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
5008 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
5009 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
5010 need a software solution for your school.</p>
5011
5012       </div>
5013       <div class="tags">
5014
5015
5016         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5017
5018
5019       </div>
5020     </div>
5021     <div class="padding"></div>
5022
5023     <div class="entry">
5024       <div class="title">
5025         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">First release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
5026       </div>
5027       <div class="date">
5028         19th February 2012
5029       </div>
5030       <div class="body">
5031         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
5032 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
5033 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
5034 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
5035 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
5036 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
5037 solution for your school.</p>
5038
5039       </div>
5040       <div class="tags">
5041
5042
5043         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5044
5045
5046       </div>
5047     </div>
5048     <div class="padding"></div>
5049
5050     <div class="entry">
5051       <div class="title">
5052         <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>
5053       </div>
5054       <div class="date">
5055         14th February 2012
5056       </div>
5057       <div class="body">
5058         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
5059 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
5060 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
5061 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
5062 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
5063 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
5064 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
5065 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
5066 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
5067
5068 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
5069 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
5070 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
5071 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
5072 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
5073
5074 <blockquote><pre>
5075 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
5076 do
5077     printf "Failed disk $d: "
5078     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
5079 done
5080 </blockquote></pre>
5081
5082 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
5083 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
5084
5085 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
5086
5087 <blockquote><pre>
5088 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
5089 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
5090 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
5091 </blockquote></pre>
5092
5093 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
5094 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
5095 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
5096 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
5097 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
5098 mounted inside my box.</p>
5099
5100 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
5101 Software RAID in the
5102 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
5103 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
5104 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
5105 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
5106 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
5107 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
5108
5109       </div>
5110       <div class="tags">
5111
5112
5113         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>.
5114
5115
5116       </div>
5117     </div>
5118     <div class="padding"></div>
5119
5120     <div class="entry">
5121       <div class="title">
5122         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
5123       </div>
5124       <div class="date">
5125         13th February 2012
5126       </div>
5127       <div class="body">
5128         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
5129 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
5130 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
5131 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
5132 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
5133 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
5134 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
5135 change the global proxy setting by editing
5136 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
5137 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
5138
5139 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
5140 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
5141 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
5142
5143 <blockquote><pre>
5144 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
5145 {
5146    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
5147        isPlainHostName(host) ||
5148        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
5149       return "DIRECT";
5150    else
5151       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
5152 }
5153 </pre></blockquote>
5154
5155 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
5156
5157 <blockquote><pre>
5158 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
5159 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
5160 </pre></blockquote>
5161
5162 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
5163 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
5164 would be used for
5165 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
5166 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
5167 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
5168 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
5169 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
5170 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
5171 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
5172 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
5173 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
5174 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
5175
5176 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
5177 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
5178 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
5179 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
5180 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
5181 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
5182
5183 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
5184 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
5185 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
5186 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
5187 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
5188 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
5189 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
5190 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
5191 the network setup changes.</p>
5192
5193 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
5194 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
5195 draft</a> and a
5196 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
5197 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
5198
5199       </div>
5200       <div class="tags">
5201
5202
5203         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5204
5205
5206       </div>
5207     </div>
5208     <div class="padding"></div>
5209
5210     <div class="entry">
5211       <div class="title">
5212         <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>
5213       </div>
5214       <div class="date">
5215          5th February 2012
5216       </div>
5217       <div class="body">
5218         <p>Since the Lenny version of
5219 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
5220 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
5221 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
5222 in the morning.  This is done using the
5223 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
5224
5225 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
5226 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
5227 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
5228 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
5229 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
5230 the
5231 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
5232 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
5233 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
5234 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
5235 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
5236
5237 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
5238 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
5239 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
5240 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
5241 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
5242 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
5243 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
5244
5245 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
5246 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
5247 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
5248 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
5249 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
5250
5251       </div>
5252       <div class="tags">
5253
5254
5255         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5256
5257
5258       </div>
5259     </div>
5260     <div class="padding"></div>
5261
5262     <div class="entry">
5263       <div class="title">
5264         <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>
5265       </div>
5266       <div class="date">
5267          4th February 2012
5268       </div>
5269       <div class="body">
5270         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
5271 publish the third beta version of
5272 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
5273 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
5274 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
5275 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
5276 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
5277 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
5278 on the project announcement list.</p>
5279
5280 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
5281 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
5282
5283 <ul>
5284
5285 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
5286   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
5287   the installation.</li>
5288
5289 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
5290   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
5291
5292 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
5293   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
5294   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
5295
5296 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
5297   for the local system administrator is created during installation
5298   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
5299   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
5300   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
5301   up to date on the system.</li>
5302
5303 </ul>
5304
5305 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
5306 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
5307 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
5308 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
5309
5310 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
5311 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
5312 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
5313 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
5314 will see you there?</p>
5315
5316       </div>
5317       <div class="tags">
5318
5319
5320         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5321
5322
5323       </div>
5324     </div>
5325     <div class="padding"></div>
5326
5327     <div class="entry">
5328       <div class="title">
5329         <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>
5330       </div>
5331       <div class="date">
5332         27th January 2012
5333       </div>
5334       <div class="body">
5335         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
5336 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
5337 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
5338 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
5339 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
5340 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
5341 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
5342
5343 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
5344 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
5345 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
5346 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
5347 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
5348 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
5349 not taken care of by this.</p>
5350
5351 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
5352 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
5353 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
5354 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
5355 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
5356 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
5357 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
5358 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
5359 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
5360 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
5361 firmware packages.</p>
5362
5363 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
5364 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
5365 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
5366 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
5367 initrd with extra firmware, the
5368 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
5369 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
5370 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
5371
5372 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
5373 network cards working.  For this,
5374 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
5375 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
5376 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
5377
5378 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
5379 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
5380 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
5381
5382 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
5383 try.</p>
5384
5385       </div>
5386       <div class="tags">
5387
5388
5389         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5390
5391
5392       </div>
5393     </div>
5394     <div class="padding"></div>
5395
5396     <div class="entry">
5397       <div class="title">
5398         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Setting_up_a_new_school_with_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Setting up a new school with Debian Edu/Squeeze</a>
5399       </div>
5400       <div class="date">
5401         25th January 2012
5402       </div>
5403       <div class="body">
5404         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
5405 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
5406 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
5407 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
5408 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
5409
5410 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
5411 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
5412 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
5413 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
5414 this is done, log on to the central server and run
5415 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
5416 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
5417 will look similar to this:</p>
5418
5419 <p><blockquote><pre>
5420 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
5421 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
5422 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.
5423
5424 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
5425
5426 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5427 enter password: *******
5428 %
5429 </pre></blockquote></p>
5430
5431 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
5432 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
5433 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
5434 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
5435 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
5436 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
5437 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
5438 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
5439 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
5440 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
5441 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
5442 automatically.</p>
5443
5444 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
5445 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
5446
5447 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
5448 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
5449 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
5450
5451       </div>
5452       <div class="tags">
5453
5454
5455         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
5456
5457
5458       </div>
5459     </div>
5460     <div class="padding"></div>
5461
5462     <div class="entry">
5463       <div class="title">
5464         <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>
5465       </div>
5466       <div class="date">
5467         10th January 2012
5468       </div>
5469       <div class="body">
5470         <p>In the Squeeze version of
5471 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
5472 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
5473 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
5474 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
5475 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
5476 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
5477 first time.</p>
5478
5479 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
5480 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
5481 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
5482 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
5483
5484 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
5485 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
5486 new setting.</p>
5487
5488 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
5489 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
5490 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
5491
5492       </div>
5493       <div class="tags">
5494
5495
5496         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
5497
5498
5499       </div>
5500     </div>
5501     <div class="padding"></div>
5502
5503     <div class="entry">
5504       <div class="title">
5505         <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>
5506       </div>
5507       <div class="date">
5508          7th January 2012
5509       </div>
5510       <div class="body">
5511         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
5512 the second beta version of
5513 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
5514 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
5515 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
5516 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
5517 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
5518 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
5519 on the project announcement list.</p>
5520
5521       </div>
5522       <div class="tags">
5523
5524
5525         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5526
5527
5528       </div>
5529     </div>
5530     <div class="padding"></div>
5531
5532     <div class="entry">
5533       <div class="title">
5534         <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>
5535       </div>
5536       <div class="date">
5537          3rd January 2012
5538       </div>
5539       <div class="body">
5540         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
5541 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
5542 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
5543 interesting.</p>
5544
5545 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
5546 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
5547 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
5548 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
5549 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
5550 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
5551 wrap up its tasks.</p>
5552
5553 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
5554 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
5555 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
5556 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
5557 because I was typing.</P>
5558
5559 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
5560 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
5561 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
5562 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
5563 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
5564 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
5565 generate entropy.</p>
5566
5567 <p>The fix is in
5568 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
5569 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
5570 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
5571 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
5572
5573       </div>
5574       <div class="tags">
5575
5576
5577         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
5578
5579
5580       </div>
5581     </div>
5582     <div class="padding"></div>
5583
5584     <div class="entry">
5585       <div class="title">
5586         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
5587       </div>
5588       <div class="date">
5589         21st November 2011
5590       </div>
5591       <div class="body">
5592         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
5593 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
5594 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
5595 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
5596 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
5597 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
5598 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
5599 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
5600 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
5601 the tools to do so.</p>
5602
5603 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
5604 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
5605 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
5606 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
5607
5608 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
5609 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
5610 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
5611 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
5612 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
5613 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
5614 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
5615 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
5616
5617 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
5618 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
5619 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
5620
5621 <p><pre>
5622 #!/usr/bin/perl
5623 use strict;
5624 use warnings;
5625 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
5626 BEGIN {
5627     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
5628     my %rhelmodules = (
5629         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
5630         );
5631     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
5632         eval "use $module;";
5633         if ($@) {
5634             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
5635             system("yum install -y $pkg");
5636             eval "use $module;";
5637         }
5638     }
5639 }
5640 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
5641
5642 upgrade_dell();
5643
5644 exit 0;
5645
5646 sub run_firmware_script {
5647     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
5648     unless ($script) {
5649         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
5650         exit 1
5651     }
5652     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
5653
5654     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
5655         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
5656     } else {
5657         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
5658     }
5659 }
5660
5661 sub run_firmware_scripts {
5662     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
5663     # Run firmware packages
5664     for my $dir (@dirs) {
5665         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
5666         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
5667         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
5668             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
5669             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
5670         }
5671         closedir $dh;
5672     }
5673 }
5674
5675 sub download {
5676     my $url = shift;
5677     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
5678     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
5679 }
5680
5681 sub upgrade_dell {
5682     my @dirs;
5683     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5684     chomp $product;
5685
5686     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
5687
5688         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
5689         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
5690
5691         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
5692             CLEANUP => 1
5693             );
5694         chdir($tmpdir);
5695         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
5696         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
5697         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
5698         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
5699         my $fwopts = "-q";
5700         if (@paths) {
5701             for my $url (@paths) {
5702                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
5703             }
5704             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
5705         } else {
5706             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5707             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5708         }
5709         chdir('/');
5710     } else {
5711         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5712         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5713     }
5714 }
5715
5716 sub fetch_dell_fw {
5717     my $path = shift;
5718     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
5719     download($url);
5720 }
5721
5722 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
5723 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
5724 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
5725 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
5726     my $filename = shift;
5727
5728     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5729     chomp $product;
5730     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
5731
5732     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
5733
5734     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
5735     my @paths;
5736     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
5737         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
5738         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
5739         my $oscode;
5740         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
5741             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
5742         } else {
5743             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
5744         }
5745         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
5746         {
5747             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
5748         }
5749     }
5750     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
5751         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
5752
5753         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
5754         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
5755
5756         my $cpath = $component->{path};
5757         for my $path (@paths) {
5758             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
5759                 push(@paths, $cpath);
5760             }
5761         }
5762     }
5763     return @paths;
5764 }
5765 </pre>
5766
5767 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
5768 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
5769 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
5770 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
5771 outdated.</p>
5772
5773       </div>
5774       <div class="tags">
5775
5776
5777         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>.
5778
5779
5780       </div>
5781     </div>
5782     <div class="padding"></div>
5783
5784     <div class="entry">
5785       <div class="title">
5786         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_e_book_kiosk_for_the_public_libraries_.html">Free e-book kiosk for the public libraries?</a>
5787       </div>
5788       <div class="date">
5789          7th October 2011
5790       </div>
5791       <div class="body">
5792         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
5793 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
5794 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
5795 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
5796 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
5797 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
5798 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
5799 models.</p>
5800
5801 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
5802 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
5803 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
5804 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
5805
5806 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
5807 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
5808 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
5809 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
5810 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
5811 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
5812 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
5813 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
5814 distributed.</p>
5815
5816 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
5817
5818 <ul>
5819
5820 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
5821   other relevant equipment.</li>
5822
5823 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
5824
5825 </ul>
5826
5827 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
5828 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
5829 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
5830 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
5831 books available.</p>
5832
5833 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
5834 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
5835 libraries. :)</p>
5836
5837       </div>
5838       <div class="tags">
5839
5840
5841         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>.
5842
5843
5844       </div>
5845     </div>
5846     <div class="padding"></div>
5847
5848     <div class="entry">
5849       <div class="title">
5850         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
5851       </div>
5852       <div class="date">
5853         17th September 2011
5854       </div>
5855       <div class="body">
5856         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
5857 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
5858 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
5859 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
5860 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
5861 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
5862 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
5863 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
5864
5865 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
5866
5867 <blockquote><pre>
5868 #!/bin/sh
5869 # apt-get install lsdvd
5870 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
5871 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
5872 </pre></blockquote>
5873
5874 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
5875 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
5876 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
5877 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
5878
5879 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
5880 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
5881 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
5882 back as an ISO.
5883
5884 <blockquote><pre>
5885 #!/bin/sh
5886 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
5887 set -e
5888 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
5889 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
5890 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
5891 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
5892 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
5893 </pre></blockquote>
5894
5895 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
5896
5897 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
5898 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
5899 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
5900 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
5901 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
5902
5903 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
5904 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
5905 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
5906 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
5907 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
5908 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
5909
5910       </div>
5911       <div class="tags">
5912
5913
5914         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>.
5915
5916
5917       </div>
5918     </div>
5919     <div class="padding"></div>
5920
5921     <div class="entry">
5922       <div class="title">
5923         <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>
5924       </div>
5925       <div class="date">
5926          4th August 2011
5927       </div>
5928       <div class="body">
5929         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
5930 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
5931 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
5932 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
5933 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
5934 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
5935 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
5936 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
5937 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
5938
5939 <p><blockquote>
5940 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
5941 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
5942 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
5943 </blockquote></p>
5944
5945 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
5946 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
5947 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
5948 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
5949 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
5950 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
5951 hard to explain.</p>
5952
5953 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
5954 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
5955 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
5956 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
5957 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
5958 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
5959 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
5960 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
5961 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
5962 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
5963 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
5964 mode).</p>
5965
5966 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
5967 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
5968 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
5969 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
5970 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
5971 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
5972 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
5973 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
5974 after visiting single user mode.</p>
5975
5976 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
5977 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
5978 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
5979 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
5980 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
5981 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
5982 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
5983 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
5984
5985 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
5986 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
5987 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
5988
5989       </div>
5990       <div class="tags">
5991
5992
5993         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>.
5994
5995
5996       </div>
5997     </div>
5998     <div class="padding"></div>
5999
6000     <div class="entry">
6001       <div class="title">
6002         <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>
6003       </div>
6004       <div class="date">
6005         30th July 2011
6006       </div>
6007       <div class="body">
6008         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
6009 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
6010 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
6011 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
6012 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
6013 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
6014 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
6015 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
6016 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
6017 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
6018 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
6019 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
6020 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
6021
6022 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
6023 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
6024 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
6025 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
6026 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
6027 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
6028 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
6029 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
6030 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
6031
6032 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
6033 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
6034 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
6035 is presented.</p>
6036
6037 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
6038 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
6039 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
6040 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
6041 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
6042 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
6043 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
6044 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
6045 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
6046 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
6047 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
6048 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
6049 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
6050 find time to push this forward.</p>
6051
6052       </div>
6053       <div class="tags">
6054
6055
6056         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>.
6057
6058
6059       </div>
6060     </div>
6061     <div class="padding"></div>
6062
6063     <div class="entry">
6064       <div class="title">
6065         <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>
6066       </div>
6067       <div class="date">
6068         29th July 2011
6069       </div>
6070       <div class="body">
6071         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
6072 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
6073 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
6074 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
6075 issues.</p>
6076
6077 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
6078 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
6079 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
6080
6081 <ol>
6082
6083 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
6084 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
6085 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
6086 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
6087 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
6088 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
6089 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
6090 Debian.</li>
6091
6092 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
6093 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
6094 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
6095 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
6096 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
6097 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
6098 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
6099 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
6100 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
6101 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
6102 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
6103 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
6104 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
6105
6106 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
6107 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
6108 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
6109 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
6110 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
6111 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
6112 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
6113 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
6114 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
6115 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
6116
6117 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
6118 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
6119 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
6120 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
6121 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
6122 latter behaviour.</li>
6123
6124 </ol>
6125
6126 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
6127 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
6128 it do not matter much.</p>
6129
6130 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
6131 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
6132 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
6133
6134       </div>
6135       <div class="tags">
6136
6137
6138         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>.
6139
6140
6141       </div>
6142     </div>
6143     <div class="padding"></div>
6144
6145     <div class="entry">
6146       <div class="title">
6147         <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>
6148       </div>
6149       <div class="date">
6150         26th July 2011
6151       </div>
6152       <div class="body">
6153         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
6154 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
6155 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
6156 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
6157 security support for a few years.</p>
6158
6159 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
6160 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
6161 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
6162 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
6163 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
6164 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
6165 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
6166 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
6167 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
6168 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
6169 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
6170 easier in the future.</p>
6171
6172 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
6173 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
6174 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
6175 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
6176 do not have time for.</p>
6177
6178       </div>
6179       <div class="tags">
6180
6181
6182         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>.
6183
6184
6185       </div>
6186     </div>
6187     <div class="padding"></div>
6188
6189     <div class="entry">
6190       <div class="title">
6191         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
6192       </div>
6193       <div class="date">
6194         20th June 2011
6195       </div>
6196       <div class="body">
6197         <p>Reading
6198 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
6199 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
6200 parts of the
6201 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
6202 and
6203 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
6204 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
6205 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
6206 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
6207
6208       </div>
6209       <div class="tags">
6210
6211
6212         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>.
6213
6214
6215       </div>
6216     </div>
6217     <div class="padding"></div>
6218
6219     <div class="entry">
6220       <div class="title">
6221         <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>
6222       </div>
6223       <div class="date">
6224         30th April 2011
6225       </div>
6226       <div class="body">
6227         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
6228 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
6229 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
6230 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
6231 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
6232 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
6233 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
6234 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
6235 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
6236 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
6237
6238 <p>Where is it?  Visit
6239 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
6240 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
6241 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
6242 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
6243
6244       </div>
6245       <div class="tags">
6246
6247
6248         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>.
6249
6250
6251       </div>
6252     </div>
6253     <div class="padding"></div>
6254
6255     <div class="entry">
6256       <div class="title">
6257         <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>
6258       </div>
6259       <div class="date">
6260         29th April 2011
6261       </div>
6262       <div class="body">
6263         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
6264 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
6265 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
6266 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
6267 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
6268 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
6269 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
6270 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
6271 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
6272 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
6273 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
6274 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
6275 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
6276
6277 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
6278 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
6279 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
6280 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
6281 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
6282 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
6283 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
6284 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
6285 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
6286 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
6287 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
6288 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
6289 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
6290
6291 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
6292 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
6293 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
6294 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
6295 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
6296 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
6297 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
6298 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
6299 it.</p>
6300
6301 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
6302 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
6303 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
6304 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
6305 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
6306 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
6307 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
6308
6309 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
6310 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
6311 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
6312 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
6313 and range= options.</p>
6314
6315 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
6316 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
6317 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
6318 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
6319 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
6320 to best handle this.  I've noticed
6321 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
6322 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
6323 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
6324 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
6325
6326 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
6327 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
6328 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
6329 discussions instead of only
6330 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
6331 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
6332 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
6333 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
6334 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
6335 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
6336
6337       </div>
6338       <div class="tags">
6339
6340
6341         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>.
6342
6343
6344       </div>
6345     </div>
6346     <div class="padding"></div>
6347
6348     <div class="entry">
6349       <div class="title">
6350         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
6351       </div>
6352       <div class="date">
6353          6th April 2011
6354       </div>
6355       <div class="body">
6356         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
6357 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
6358 A few days ago the project
6359 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
6360 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
6361 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
6362 into Gnash.</p>
6363
6364       </div>
6365       <div class="tags">
6366
6367
6368         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>.
6369
6370
6371       </div>
6372     </div>
6373     <div class="padding"></div>
6374
6375     <div class="entry">
6376       <div class="title">
6377         <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>
6378       </div>
6379       <div class="date">
6380          3rd April 2011
6381       </div>
6382       <div class="body">
6383         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
6384 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
6385 update in English.</p>
6386
6387 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
6388 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
6389 of the British service
6390 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
6391 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
6392 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
6393 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
6394 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
6395 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
6396 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
6397 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
6398 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
6399 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
6400 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
6401 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
6402 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
6403
6404 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
6405 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
6406 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
6407 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
6408 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
6409 public infrastructure.</p>
6410
6411 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
6412 such service?</p>
6413
6414       </div>
6415       <div class="tags">
6416
6417
6418         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>.
6419
6420
6421       </div>
6422     </div>
6423     <div class="padding"></div>
6424
6425     <div class="entry">
6426       <div class="title">
6427         <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>
6428       </div>
6429       <div class="date">
6430         28th January 2011
6431       </div>
6432       <div class="body">
6433         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
6434 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
6435 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
6436 available on the Internet, and check our locally
6437 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
6438 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
6439 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
6440 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
6441 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
6442 out which security holes were present in our free software
6443 collection.</p>
6444
6445 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
6446 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
6447 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
6448 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
6449 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
6450 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
6451 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
6452 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
6453 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
6454 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
6455 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
6456 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
6457 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
6458 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
6459 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
6460 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
6461
6462 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
6463 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
6464 check out, one could look up
6465 <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
6466 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
6467 The most recent one is
6468 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
6469 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
6470 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
6471
6472 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
6473 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
6474 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
6475 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
6476 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
6477 security issues out.</p>
6478
6479 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
6480 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
6481 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
6482 RHEL is providing
6483 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
6484 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
6485 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
6486
6487 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
6488 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
6489 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
6490 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
6491 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
6492 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
6493 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
6494 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
6495 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
6496 established soon.</p>
6497
6498 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
6499 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
6500 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
6501 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
6502 for their packages.</p>
6503
6504       </div>
6505       <div class="tags">
6506
6507
6508         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>.
6509
6510
6511       </div>
6512     </div>
6513     <div class="padding"></div>
6514
6515     <div class="entry">
6516       <div class="title">
6517         <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>
6518       </div>
6519       <div class="date">
6520         23rd January 2011
6521       </div>
6522       <div class="body">
6523         <p>In the
6524 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
6525 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
6526 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
6527 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
6528 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
6529 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
6530 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
6531 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
6532 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
6533 one of my machines like this:</p>
6534
6535 <pre>
6536 loaded modules:
6537 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
6538 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
6539 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
6540 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
6541 10de:03ec pata_amd
6542 10de:03f6 sata_nv
6543 1022:1103 k8temp
6544 109e:036e bttv
6545 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
6546 11ab:4364 sky2
6547 </pre>
6548
6549 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
6550 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
6551
6552 <pre>
6553 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
6554     echo loaded pci modules:
6555     (
6556         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
6557         for address in * ; do
6558             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
6559                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
6560                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
6561                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
6562                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
6563                     echo "$id $module"
6564                 fi
6565             fi
6566         done
6567     )
6568     echo
6569 fi
6570 </pre>
6571
6572 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
6573 mappings:</p>
6574
6575 <pre>
6576 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
6577     echo loaded usb modules:
6578     (
6579         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
6580         for address in * ; do
6581             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
6582                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
6583                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
6584                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
6585                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
6586                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
6587                         echo "$id $module"
6588                     fi
6589                 fi
6590             fi
6591         done
6592     )
6593     echo
6594 fi
6595 </pre>
6596
6597 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
6598 well.</p>
6599
6600       </div>
6601       <div class="tags">
6602
6603
6604         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>.
6605
6606
6607       </div>
6608     </div>
6609     <div class="padding"></div>
6610
6611     <div class="entry">
6612       <div class="title">
6613         <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>
6614       </div>
6615       <div class="date">
6616         16th January 2011
6617       </div>
6618       <div class="body">
6619         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
6620 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
6621 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
6622 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
6623 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
6624 the Wikipedia article on
6625 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
6626 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
6627 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
6628 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
6629 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
6630 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
6631 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
6632 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
6633 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
6634 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
6635 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
6636 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
6637
6638 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
6639 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
6640 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
6641 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
6642 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
6643 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
6644 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
6645 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
6646 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
6647 from last week</a>.</p>
6648
6649 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
6650 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
6651 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
6652 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
6653 was without royalties and license terms, check out
6654 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
6655 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
6656
6657 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
6658 available from
6659 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
6660 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
6661 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
6662
6663 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
6664 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
6665 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
6666 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
6667
6668       </div>
6669       <div class="tags">
6670
6671
6672         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>.
6673
6674
6675       </div>
6676     </div>
6677     <div class="padding"></div>
6678
6679     <div class="entry">
6680       <div class="title">
6681         <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>
6682       </div>
6683       <div class="date">
6684         12th January 2011
6685       </div>
6686       <div class="body">
6687         <p>Today I discovered
6688 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
6689 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
6690 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
6691 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
6692 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
6693 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
6694 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
6695 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
6696 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
6697 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
6698 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
6699 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
6700 on the Google announcement is available from
6701 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
6702 A good read. :)</p>
6703
6704 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
6705 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
6706 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
6707 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
6708 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
6709 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
6710 browsers support H.264, and others support
6711 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
6712 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
6713 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
6714 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
6715 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
6716 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
6717 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
6718 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
6719
6720 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
6721 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
6722 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
6723 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
6724 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
6725 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
6726 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
6727
6728 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
6729 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
6730 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
6731 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
6732 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
6733 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
6734 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
6735
6736 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
6737 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
6738 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
6739 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
6740 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
6741 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
6742 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
6743
6744 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
6745 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
6746 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
6747 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
6748 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
6749 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
6750 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
6751 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
6752 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
6753 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
6754 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
6755 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
6756 I guess time will tell.</p>
6757
6758 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
6759 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
6760 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
6761
6762       </div>
6763       <div class="tags">
6764
6765
6766         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>.
6767
6768
6769       </div>
6770     </div>
6771     <div class="padding"></div>
6772
6773     <div class="entry">
6774       <div class="title">
6775         <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>
6776       </div>
6777       <div class="date">
6778         30th December 2010
6779       </div>
6780       <div class="body">
6781         <p>After trying to
6782 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
6783 Ogg Theora</a> to
6784 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
6785 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
6786 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
6787 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
6788 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
6789 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
6790 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
6791
6792 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
6793 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
6794 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
6795 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
6796 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
6797 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
6798 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
6799
6800 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
6801 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
6802
6803       </div>
6804       <div class="tags">
6805
6806
6807         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>.
6808
6809
6810       </div>
6811     </div>
6812     <div class="padding"></div>
6813
6814     <div class="entry">
6815       <div class="title">
6816         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
6817       </div>
6818       <div class="date">
6819         27th December 2010
6820       </div>
6821       <div class="body">
6822         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
6823 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
6824 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
6825 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
6826 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
6827 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
6828 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
6829 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
6830
6831 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
6832 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
6833 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
6834 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
6835 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
6836 page</a>.</p>
6837
6838 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
6839 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
6840 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
6841 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
6842 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
6843 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
6844 specification on equal terms.</p>
6845
6846 <blockquote>
6847
6848 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
6849 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
6850 open standard:</p>
6851
6852 <ul>
6853
6854 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
6855 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
6856 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
6857 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
6858
6859 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
6860 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
6861 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
6862 nominal fee.</li>
6863
6864 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
6865 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
6866 free basis.</li>
6867
6868 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
6869
6870 </ul>
6871 </blockquote>
6872
6873 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
6874 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
6875 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
6876 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
6877 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
6878 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
6879 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
6880
6881 <blockquote>
6882
6883 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
6884
6885 <ol>
6886
6887 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
6888 tilgængelig.</li>
6889
6890 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
6891 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
6892
6893 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
6894 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
6895
6896 </ol>
6897
6898 </blockquote>
6899
6900 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
6901 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
6902
6903 <blockquote>
6904
6905 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
6906
6907 <ol>
6908
6909 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
6910 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
6911
6912 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
6913 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
6914 Standard themselves;</li>
6915
6916 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
6917 any party or in any business model;</li>
6918
6919 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
6920 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
6921 parties;</li>
6922
6923 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
6924 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
6925 parties.</li>
6926
6927 </ol>
6928
6929 </blockquote>
6930
6931 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
6932 its
6933 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
6934 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
6935
6936 <blockquote>
6937 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
6938
6939 <ul>
6940
6941 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
6942   democratic:
6943
6944          <ul>
6945
6946          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
6947             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
6948             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
6949             and managed.</li>
6950
6951          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
6952             method, can be changed through input from all
6953             participants.</li>
6954
6955          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
6956             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
6957
6958          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
6959             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
6960
6961          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
6962             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
6963             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
6964
6965          </ul>
6966
6967 </li>
6968
6969 </ul>
6970
6971 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
6972 <ul>
6973
6974 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
6975   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
6976   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
6977   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
6978   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
6979
6980 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
6981   a technical or economic barriers</li>
6982
6983 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
6984   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
6985   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
6986   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
6987   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
6988   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
6989   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
6990   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
6991   intended to function.</li>
6992
6993 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
6994   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
6995   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
6996
6997 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
6998   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
6999   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
7000   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
7001   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
7002   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
7003   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
7004   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
7005
7006       <ul>
7007
7008       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
7009         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
7010         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
7011
7012       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
7013         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
7014         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
7015         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
7016
7017       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
7018         licensor</li>
7019
7020       </ul>
7021 </li>
7022
7023 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
7024   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
7025   or restricted licensing terms</li>
7026
7027 </ul>
7028
7029 </blockquote>
7030
7031 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
7032 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
7033 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
7034 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
7035 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
7036 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
7037 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
7038 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
7039 Standards.</p>
7040
7041       </div>
7042       <div class="tags">
7043
7044
7045         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>.
7046
7047
7048       </div>
7049     </div>
7050     <div class="padding"></div>
7051
7052     <div class="entry">
7053       <div class="title">
7054         <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>
7055       </div>
7056       <div class="date">
7057         25th December 2010
7058       </div>
7059       <div class="body">
7060         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
7061 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
7062
7063 <blockquote>
7064
7065 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
7066 as follows:</p>
7067
7068 <ol>
7069
7070 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
7071 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
7072 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
7073
7074 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
7075 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
7076 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
7077 parties.</li>
7078
7079 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
7080 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
7081 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
7082
7083 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
7084 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
7085
7086 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
7087
7088 </ol>
7089
7090 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
7091 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
7092 products based on the standard.</p>
7093 </blockquote>
7094
7095 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
7096 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
7097 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
7098 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
7099 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
7100 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
7101 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
7102 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
7103
7104 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
7105
7106 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
7107 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
7108 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
7109 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
7110 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
7111 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
7112 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
7113 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
7114 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
7115 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
7116 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
7117 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
7118 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
7119 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
7120
7121 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
7122
7123 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
7124 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
7125 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
7126 documentation indicating this.</p>
7127
7128 <p>According to
7129 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
7130 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
7131 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
7132 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
7133 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
7134 report is correct.</p>
7135
7136 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
7137
7138 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
7139 container format</a> and both the
7140 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
7141 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
7142 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
7143
7144 <blockquote>
7145
7146 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
7147 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
7148 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
7149 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
7150 specification compliance.
7151
7152 </blockquote>
7153
7154 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
7155 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
7156 this is the term:<p>
7157
7158 <blockquote>
7159
7160 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
7161 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
7162 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
7163 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
7164 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
7165 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
7166 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
7167 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
7168 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
7169 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
7170 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
7171 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
7172
7173 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
7174 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
7175 </blockquote>
7176
7177 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
7178 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
7179 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
7180 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
7181 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
7182
7183 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
7184
7185 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
7186 Theora format.
7187 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
7188 and
7189 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
7190 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
7191 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
7192 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
7193 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
7194 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
7195 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
7196 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
7197
7198 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
7199
7200 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
7201
7202 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
7203
7204 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
7205 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
7206 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
7207 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
7208 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
7209 this.</p>
7210
7211 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
7212 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
7213
7214       </div>
7215       <div class="tags">
7216
7217
7218         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>.
7219
7220
7221       </div>
7222     </div>
7223     <div class="padding"></div>
7224
7225     <div class="entry">
7226       <div class="title">
7227         <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>
7228       </div>
7229       <div class="date">
7230         25th December 2010
7231       </div>
7232       <div class="body">
7233         <p>A few days ago
7234 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
7235 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
7236 2.0 of
7237 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
7238 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
7239 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
7240 Nothing very surprising there, given
7241 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
7242 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
7243 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
7244 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
7245 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
7246 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
7247 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
7248 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
7249 standard definition from its content.</p>
7250
7251 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
7252 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
7253 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
7254 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
7255 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
7256 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
7257 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
7258 background information about that story is available in
7259 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
7260 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
7261
7262 <blockquote>
7263 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
7264 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
7265 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
7266
7267 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
7268
7269 <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>
7270
7271 <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>
7272
7273 <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>
7274
7275 <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>
7276
7277 <p>
7278 <ul>
7279 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
7280 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
7281 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
7282 </ul>
7283 </p>
7284
7285 <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>
7286
7287 <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>
7288
7289 <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>
7290
7291 <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>
7292
7293 <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>
7294
7295
7296 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
7297 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
7298 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
7299 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
7300 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
7301 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
7302
7303 </p>
7304
7305 <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>
7306
7307 <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>
7308
7309 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
7310
7311 <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>
7312
7313 <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>
7314
7315 <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>
7316
7317 <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>
7318
7319 <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>
7320
7321 <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>
7322
7323 <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>
7324
7325 <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>
7326
7327 <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>
7328
7329 <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>
7330
7331 <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>
7332
7333 <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>
7334
7335 <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>
7336
7337 <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>
7338
7339 <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>
7340
7341 <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>
7342
7343 <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>
7344
7345 <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>
7346
7347 <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>
7348
7349 <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>
7350
7351 <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>
7352
7353 <p>On security:</p>
7354
7355 <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>
7356
7357 <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>
7358
7359 <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>
7360
7361 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
7362
7363 <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>
7364
7365 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
7366
7367 <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>
7368
7369 <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>
7370
7371 <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>
7372
7373 <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>
7374
7375 <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>
7376
7377 <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>
7378
7379 <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>
7380
7381 <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>
7382
7383 <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>
7384
7385 <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>
7386
7387 <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>
7388
7389 <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>
7390
7391 <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>
7392
7393 <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>
7394
7395 <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>
7396
7397 <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>
7398
7399 <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>
7400
7401 <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>
7402
7403 <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>
7404
7405 <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>
7406
7407 <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>
7408
7409 <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>
7410
7411 <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>
7412
7413 <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>
7414
7415 <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>
7416
7417 <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>
7418
7419 <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>
7420
7421 <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>
7422
7423 <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>
7424
7425 <p>Cordially,<br>
7426 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
7427 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
7428 </blockquote>
7429
7430       </div>
7431       <div class="tags">
7432
7433
7434         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>.
7435
7436
7437       </div>
7438     </div>
7439     <div class="padding"></div>
7440
7441     <div class="entry">
7442       <div class="title">
7443         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
7444       </div>
7445       <div class="date">
7446         25th December 2010
7447       </div>
7448       <div class="body">
7449         <p>Half a year ago I
7450 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
7451 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
7452 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
7453 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
7454
7455 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
7456 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
7457 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
7458 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
7459 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
7460 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
7461 got such a great test tool available.</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/standard">standard</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/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html">How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</a>
7477       </div>
7478       <div class="date">
7479         22nd December 2010
7480       </div>
7481       <div class="body">
7482         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
7483 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
7484 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
7485 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
7486 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
7487 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
7488 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
7489 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
7490 university.</p>
7491
7492 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
7493 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
7494 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
7495 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
7496 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
7497 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
7498 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
7499 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
7500
7501 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
7502 I perform on a new model.</p>
7503
7504 <ul>
7505
7506 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
7507 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
7508 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
7509
7510 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
7511 installation, X.org is working.</li>
7512
7513 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
7514 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
7515 reported by the program.</li>
7516
7517 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
7518 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
7519 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
7520 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
7521 normally test this by playing
7522 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
7523 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
7524
7525 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
7526 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
7527
7528 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
7529 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
7530
7531 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
7532 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
7533
7534 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
7535 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
7536 few.</li>
7537
7538 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
7539 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
7540 notice this.</li>
7541
7542 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
7543 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
7544 resume.</li>
7545
7546 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
7547 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
7548 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
7549 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
7550 not.</li>
7551
7552 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
7553 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
7554 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
7555 existence.</li>
7556
7557 </ul>
7558
7559 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
7560 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
7561 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
7562 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
7563 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
7564 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
7565 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
7566 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
7567
7568       </div>
7569       <div class="tags">
7570
7571
7572         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>.
7573
7574
7575       </div>
7576     </div>
7577     <div class="padding"></div>
7578
7579     <div class="entry">
7580       <div class="title">
7581         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
7582       </div>
7583       <div class="date">
7584         11th December 2010
7585       </div>
7586       <div class="body">
7587         <p>As I continue to explore
7588 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
7589 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
7590 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
7591
7592 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
7593 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
7594 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
7595 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
7596 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
7597 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
7598 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
7599 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
7600 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
7601 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
7602 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
7603 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
7604 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
7605 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
7606 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
7607 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
7608 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
7609 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
7610 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
7611 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
7612
7613 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
7614 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
7615 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
7616 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
7617 If the Skolelinux foundation
7618 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
7619 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
7620 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
7621 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
7622 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
7623 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
7624 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
7625 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
7626
7627 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
7628 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
7629 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
7630 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
7631 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
7632 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
7633 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
7634 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
7635 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
7636 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
7637 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
7638 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
7639 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
7640 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
7641 currencies.</p>
7642
7643 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
7644 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
7645 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
7646 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
7647 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
7648 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
7649 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
7650 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
7651 BitCoins.  Check out
7652 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
7653 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
7654 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
7655 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
7656 yet.</p>
7657
7658 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
7659 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
7660 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
7661 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
7662 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
7663
7664       </div>
7665       <div class="tags">
7666
7667
7668         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>.
7669
7670
7671       </div>
7672     </div>
7673     <div class="padding"></div>
7674
7675     <div class="entry">
7676       <div class="title">
7677         <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>
7678       </div>
7679       <div class="date">
7680         10th December 2010
7681       </div>
7682       <div class="body">
7683         <p>With this weeks lawless
7684 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
7685 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
7686 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
7687 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
7688 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
7689 A blog post from
7690 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
7691 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
7692 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
7693 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
7694 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
7695 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
7696 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
7697
7698 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
7699 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
7700 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
7701 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
7702 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
7703 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
7704 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
7705 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
7706 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
7707 Debian</a> soon.</p>
7708
7709 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
7710 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
7711 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
7712 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
7713 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
7714 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
7715 you can even get
7716 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
7717 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
7718 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
7719 on the current exchange rates.</p>
7720
7721 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
7722 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
7723 donations to the address
7724 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
7725
7726       </div>
7727       <div class="tags">
7728
7729
7730         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>.
7731
7732
7733       </div>
7734     </div>
7735     <div class="padding"></div>
7736
7737     <div class="entry">
7738       <div class="title">
7739         <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>
7740       </div>
7741       <div class="date">
7742          9th December 2010
7743       </div>
7744       <div class="body">
7745         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
7746 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
7747 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
7748 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
7749 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
7750 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
7751 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
7752 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
7753 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
7754 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
7755 operational.</p>
7756
7757 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
7758 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
7759 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
7760 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
7761 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
7762 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
7763 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
7764
7765       </div>
7766       <div class="tags">
7767
7768
7769         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>.
7770
7771
7772       </div>
7773     </div>
7774     <div class="padding"></div>
7775
7776     <div class="entry">
7777       <div class="title">
7778         <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>
7779       </div>
7780       <div class="date">
7781         29th November 2010
7782       </div>
7783       <div class="body">
7784         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
7785 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
7786 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
7787 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
7788 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
7789 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
7790
7791 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
7792 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
7793 will hold its
7794 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
7795 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
7796 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
7797 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
7798 vote this year.</p>
7799
7800       </div>
7801       <div class="tags">
7802
7803
7804         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
7805
7806
7807       </div>
7808     </div>
7809     <div class="padding"></div>
7810
7811     <div class="entry">
7812       <div class="title">
7813         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
7814       </div>
7815       <div class="date">
7816         27th November 2010
7817       </div>
7818       <div class="body">
7819         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
7820 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
7821 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
7822 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
7823 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
7824 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
7825 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
7826 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
7827
7828 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
7829 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
7830 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
7831 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
7832 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
7833 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
7834 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
7835 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
7836 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
7837 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
7838 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
7839
7840 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
7841 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
7842 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
7843 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
7844 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
7845 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
7846 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
7847 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
7848 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
7849 what is going on.</p>
7850
7851       </div>
7852       <div class="tags">
7853
7854
7855         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>.
7856
7857
7858       </div>
7859     </div>
7860     <div class="padding"></div>
7861
7862     <div class="entry">
7863       <div class="title">
7864         <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>
7865       </div>
7866       <div class="date">
7867         22nd November 2010
7868       </div>
7869       <div class="body">
7870         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
7871 upgrade testing of the
7872 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
7873 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
7874 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
7875 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
7876
7877 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
7878
7879 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7880
7881 <blockquote><p>
7882   apache2.2-bin
7883   aptdaemon
7884   baobab
7885   binfmt-support
7886   browser-plugin-gnash
7887   cheese-common
7888   cli-common
7889   cups-pk-helper
7890   dmz-cursor-theme
7891   empathy
7892   empathy-common
7893   freedesktop-sound-theme
7894   freeglut3
7895   gconf-defaults-service
7896   gdm-themes
7897   gedit-plugins
7898   geoclue
7899   geoclue-hostip
7900   geoclue-localnet
7901   geoclue-manual
7902   geoclue-yahoo
7903   gnash
7904   gnash-common
7905   gnome
7906   gnome-backgrounds
7907   gnome-cards-data
7908   gnome-codec-install
7909   gnome-core
7910   gnome-desktop-environment
7911   gnome-disk-utility
7912   gnome-screenshot
7913   gnome-search-tool
7914   gnome-session-canberra
7915   gnome-system-log
7916   gnome-themes-extras
7917   gnome-themes-more
7918   gnome-user-share
7919   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
7920   gstreamer0.10-tools
7921   gtk2-engines
7922   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
7923   gtk2-engines-smooth
7924   hamster-applet
7925   libapache2-mod-dnssd
7926   libapr1
7927   libaprutil1
7928   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
7929   libaprutil1-ldap
7930   libart2.0-cil
7931   libboost-date-time1.42.0
7932   libboost-python1.42.0
7933   libboost-thread1.42.0
7934   libchamplain-0.4-0
7935   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
7936   libcheese-gtk18
7937   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
7938   libcryptui0
7939   libdiscid0
7940   libelf1
7941   libepc-1.0-2
7942   libepc-common
7943   libepc-ui-1.0-2
7944   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
7945   libfreerdp0
7946   libgconf2.0-cil
7947   libgdata-common
7948   libgdata7
7949   libgdu-gtk0
7950   libgee2
7951   libgeoclue0
7952   libgexiv2-0
7953   libgif4
7954   libglade2.0-cil
7955   libglib2.0-cil
7956   libgmime2.4-cil
7957   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
7958   libgnome2.24-cil
7959   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
7960   libgpod-common
7961   libgpod4
7962   libgtk2.0-cil
7963   libgtkglext1
7964   libgtksourceview2.0-common
7965   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
7966   libmono-addins0.2-cil
7967   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
7968   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
7969   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
7970   libmono-posix2.0-cil
7971   libmono-security2.0-cil
7972   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
7973   libmono-system2.0-cil
7974   libmtp8
7975   libmusicbrainz3-6
7976   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
7977   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
7978   libopal3.6.8
7979   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
7980   libpt2.6.7
7981   libpython2.6
7982   librpm1
7983   librpmio1
7984   libsdl1.2debian
7985   libsrtp0
7986   libssh-4
7987   libtelepathy-farsight0
7988   libtelepathy-glib0
7989   libtidy-0.99-0
7990   media-player-info
7991   mesa-utils
7992   mono-2.0-gac
7993   mono-gac
7994   mono-runtime
7995   nautilus-sendto
7996   nautilus-sendto-empathy
7997   p7zip-full
7998   pkg-config
7999   python-aptdaemon
8000   python-aptdaemon-gtk
8001   python-axiom
8002   python-beautifulsoup
8003   python-bugbuddy
8004   python-clientform
8005   python-coherence
8006   python-configobj
8007   python-crypto
8008   python-cupshelpers
8009   python-elementtree
8010   python-epsilon
8011   python-evolution
8012   python-feedparser
8013   python-gdata
8014   python-gdbm
8015   python-gst0.10
8016   python-gtkglext1
8017   python-gtksourceview2
8018   python-httplib2
8019   python-louie
8020   python-mako
8021   python-markupsafe
8022   python-mechanize
8023   python-nevow
8024   python-notify
8025   python-opengl
8026   python-openssl
8027   python-pam
8028   python-pkg-resources
8029   python-pyasn1
8030   python-pysqlite2
8031   python-rdflib
8032   python-serial
8033   python-tagpy
8034   python-twisted-bin
8035   python-twisted-conch
8036   python-twisted-core
8037   python-twisted-web
8038   python-utidylib
8039   python-webkit
8040   python-xdg
8041   python-zope.interface
8042   remmina
8043   remmina-plugin-data
8044   remmina-plugin-rdp
8045   remmina-plugin-vnc
8046   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
8047   rhythmbox-plugins
8048   rpm-common
8049   rpm2cpio
8050   seahorse-plugins
8051   shotwell
8052   software-center
8053   system-config-printer-udev
8054   telepathy-gabble
8055   telepathy-mission-control-5
8056   telepathy-salut
8057   tomboy
8058   totem
8059   totem-coherence
8060   totem-mozilla
8061   totem-plugins
8062   transmission-common
8063   xdg-user-dirs
8064   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
8065   xserver-xephyr
8066 </p></blockquote>
8067
8068 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8069
8070 <blockquote><p>
8071   cheese
8072   ekiga
8073   eog
8074   epiphany-extensions
8075   evolution-exchange
8076   fast-user-switch-applet
8077   file-roller
8078   gcalctool
8079   gconf-editor
8080   gdm
8081   gedit
8082   gedit-common
8083   gnome-games
8084   gnome-games-data
8085   gnome-nettool
8086   gnome-system-tools
8087   gnome-themes
8088   gnuchess
8089   gucharmap
8090   guile-1.8-libs
8091   libavahi-ui0
8092   libdmx1
8093   libgalago3
8094   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
8095   libgtksourceview2.0-0
8096   liblircclient0
8097   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
8098   libspeexdsp1
8099   libsvga1
8100   rhythmbox
8101   seahorse
8102   sound-juicer
8103   system-config-printer
8104   totem-common
8105   transmission-gtk
8106   vinagre
8107   vino
8108 </p></blockquote>
8109
8110 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8111
8112 <blockquote><p>
8113   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8114 </p></blockquote>
8115
8116 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8117
8118 <blockquote><p>
8119 [nothing]
8120 </p></blockquote>
8121
8122 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
8123
8124 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8125
8126 <blockquote><p>
8127   ksmserver
8128 </p></blockquote>
8129
8130 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8131
8132 <blockquote><p>
8133   kwin
8134   network-manager-kde
8135 </p></blockquote>
8136
8137 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8138
8139 <blockquote><p>
8140   arts
8141   dolphin
8142   freespacenotifier
8143   google-gadgets-gst
8144   google-gadgets-xul
8145   kappfinder
8146   kcalc
8147   kcharselect
8148   kde-core
8149   kde-plasma-desktop
8150   kde-standard
8151   kde-window-manager
8152   kdeartwork
8153   kdeartwork-emoticons
8154   kdeartwork-style
8155   kdeartwork-theme-icon
8156   kdebase
8157   kdebase-apps
8158   kdebase-workspace
8159   kdebase-workspace-bin
8160   kdebase-workspace-data
8161   kdeeject
8162   kdelibs
8163   kdeplasma-addons
8164   kdeutils
8165   kdewallpapers
8166   kdf
8167   kfloppy
8168   kgpg
8169   khelpcenter4
8170   kinfocenter
8171   konq-plugins-l10n
8172   konqueror-nsplugins
8173   kscreensaver
8174   kscreensaver-xsavers
8175   ktimer
8176   kwrite
8177   libgle3
8178   libkde4-ruby1.8
8179   libkonq5
8180   libkonq5-templates
8181   libnetpbm10
8182   libplasma-ruby
8183   libplasma-ruby1.8
8184   libqt4-ruby1.8
8185   marble-data
8186   marble-plugins
8187   netpbm
8188   nuvola-icon-theme
8189   plasma-dataengines-workspace
8190   plasma-desktop
8191   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
8192   plasma-runners-addons
8193   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
8194   plasma-scriptengine-python
8195   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
8196   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
8197   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
8198   plasma-scriptengines
8199   plasma-wallpapers-addons
8200   plasma-widget-folderview
8201   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
8202   ruby
8203   sweeper
8204   update-notifier-kde
8205   xscreensaver-data-extra
8206   xscreensaver-gl
8207   xscreensaver-gl-extra
8208   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
8209 </p></blockquote>
8210
8211 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8212
8213 <blockquote><p>
8214   ark
8215   google-gadgets-common
8216   google-gadgets-qt
8217   htdig
8218   kate
8219   kdebase-bin
8220   kdebase-data
8221   kdepasswd
8222   kfind
8223   klipper
8224   konq-plugins
8225   konqueror
8226   ksysguard
8227   ksysguardd
8228   libarchive1
8229   libcln6
8230   libeet1
8231   libeina-svn-06
8232   libggadget-1.0-0b
8233   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
8234   libgps19
8235   libkdecorations4
8236   libkephal4
8237   libkonq4
8238   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
8239   libkscreensaver5
8240   libksgrd4
8241   libksignalplotter4
8242   libkunitconversion4
8243   libkwineffects1a
8244   libmarblewidget4
8245   libntrack-qt4-1
8246   libntrack0
8247   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
8248   libplasmaclock4a
8249   libplasmagenericshell4
8250   libprocesscore4a
8251   libprocessui4a
8252   libqalculate5
8253   libqedje0a
8254   libqtruby4shared2
8255   libqzion0a
8256   libruby1.8
8257   libscim8c2a
8258   libsmokekdecore4-3
8259   libsmokekdeui4-3
8260   libsmokekfile3
8261   libsmokekhtml3
8262   libsmokekio3
8263   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
8264   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
8265   libsmokekparts3
8266   libsmokektexteditor3
8267   libsmokekutils3
8268   libsmokenepomuk3
8269   libsmokephonon3
8270   libsmokeplasma3
8271   libsmokeqtcore4-3
8272   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
8273   libsmokeqtgui4-3
8274   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
8275   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
8276   libsmokeqtscript4-3
8277   libsmokeqtsql4-3
8278   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
8279   libsmokeqttest4-3
8280   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
8281   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
8282   libsmokeqtxml4-3
8283   libsmokesolid3
8284   libsmokesoprano3
8285   libtaskmanager4a
8286   libtidy-0.99-0
8287   libweather-ion4a
8288   libxklavier16
8289   libxxf86misc1
8290   okteta
8291   oxygencursors
8292   plasma-dataengines-addons
8293   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
8294   plasma-widget-lancelot
8295   plasma-widgets-addons
8296   plasma-widgets-workspace
8297   polkit-kde-1
8298   ruby1.8
8299   systemsettings
8300   update-notifier-common
8301 </p></blockquote>
8302
8303 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
8304 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
8305 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
8306 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
8307
8308       </div>
8309       <div class="tags">
8310
8311
8312         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>.
8313
8314
8315       </div>
8316     </div>
8317     <div class="padding"></div>
8318
8319     <div class="entry">
8320       <div class="title">
8321         <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>
8322       </div>
8323       <div class="date">
8324         22nd November 2010
8325       </div>
8326       <div class="body">
8327         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
8328 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
8329 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
8330 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
8331 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
8332 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
8333 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
8334 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
8335 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
8336
8337 <p>I found
8338 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
8339 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
8340 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
8341 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
8342 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
8343 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
8344
8345 <pre>
8346 #!/bin/sh
8347
8348 # Based on
8349 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
8350
8351 set -e
8352 set -x
8353
8354 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
8355     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
8356     exit 1
8357 else
8358     host="$1"
8359 fi
8360
8361 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
8362     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
8363     exit 1
8364 fi
8365
8366 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
8367 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
8368 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
8369 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
8370
8371 img=$host.img
8372 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
8373 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
8374
8375 parted $img mklabel msdos
8376 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
8377 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
8378 parted $img set 1 boot on
8379
8380 modprobe dm-mod
8381 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
8382 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
8383
8384 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
8385 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
8386 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
8387
8388 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
8389 losetup -d /dev/loop0
8390 </pre>
8391
8392 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
8393 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
8394
8395 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
8396 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
8397 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
8398 seem to work just fine.</p>
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/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</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/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>
8414       </div>
8415       <div class="date">
8416         20th November 2010
8417       </div>
8418       <div class="body">
8419         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
8420 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
8421 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
8422 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
8423
8424 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
8425 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
8426 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
8427
8428 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
8429
8430 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8431
8432 <blockquote><p>
8433   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
8434   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
8435   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
8436   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
8437   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
8438   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
8439   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
8440   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
8441   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
8442   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
8443   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
8444   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
8445   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
8446   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
8447   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
8448   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
8449   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
8450   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
8451   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
8452   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
8453   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
8454   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
8455   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
8456   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
8457   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
8458   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
8459   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
8460   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
8461   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
8462   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
8463   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
8464   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
8465   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
8466   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
8467   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
8468   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
8469   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
8470   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
8471   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
8472   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
8473   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
8474   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
8475   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
8476   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
8477   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
8478   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
8479   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
8480   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
8481   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
8482   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
8483   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
8484   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
8485   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
8486   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
8487   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
8488   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
8489   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
8490   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
8491   zip
8492 </p></blockquote>
8493
8494 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
8495
8496 <blockquote><p>
8497   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
8498   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
8499   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
8500   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
8501   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
8502   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
8503   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
8504   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
8505   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
8506   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
8507   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
8508   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
8509   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
8510   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
8511   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
8512   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
8513   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
8514   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
8515   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
8516   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
8517   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
8518   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
8519   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
8520   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
8521   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
8522   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
8523   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
8524   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
8525   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
8526 </p></blockquote>
8527
8528 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8529
8530 <blockquote><p>
8531   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8532 </p></blockquote>
8533
8534 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8535
8536 <blockquote><p>
8537 [nothing]
8538 </p></blockquote>
8539
8540 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
8541
8542 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
8543
8544 <blockquote><p>
8545   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
8546   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
8547   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
8548   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
8549   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
8550   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
8551   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
8552   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
8553   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
8554   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
8555   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
8556   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
8557   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
8558   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
8559   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
8560   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
8561   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
8562   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
8563   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
8564   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
8565   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
8566   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
8567   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
8568   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
8569   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
8570   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
8571   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
8572   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
8573   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
8574   ttf-sazanami-gothic
8575 </p></blockquote>
8576
8577 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
8578
8579 <blockquote><p>
8580   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
8581   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
8582   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
8583   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
8584   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
8585   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
8586   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
8587   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
8588   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
8589   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
8590   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
8591   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
8592   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
8593   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
8594   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
8595   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
8596   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
8597   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
8598   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
8599   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
8600   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
8601   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
8602   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
8603   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
8604   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
8605   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
8606   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
8607   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
8608   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
8609   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
8610   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
8611   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
8612   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
8613 </p></blockquote>
8614
8615 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
8616
8617 <blockquote><p>
8618   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
8619   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
8620   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
8621   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
8622   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
8623   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
8624   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
8625 </p></blockquote>
8626
8627 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
8628
8629 <blockquote><p>
8630   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
8631 </p></blockquote>
8632
8633       </div>
8634       <div class="tags">
8635
8636
8637         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>.
8638
8639
8640       </div>
8641     </div>
8642     <div class="padding"></div>
8643
8644     <div class="entry">
8645       <div class="title">
8646         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
8647       </div>
8648       <div class="date">
8649         20th November 2010
8650       </div>
8651       <div class="body">
8652         <p>Answering
8653 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
8654 call from the Gnash project</a> for
8655 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
8656 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
8657 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
8658 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
8659 releases out more often.</p>
8660
8661 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
8662 I have considered setting up a <a
8663 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
8664 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
8665 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
8666 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
8667 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
8668 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
8669 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
8670 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
8671 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
8672 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
8673 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
8674 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
8675
8676       </div>
8677       <div class="tags">
8678
8679
8680         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
8681
8682
8683       </div>
8684     </div>
8685     <div class="padding"></div>
8686
8687     <div class="entry">
8688       <div class="title">
8689         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
8690       </div>
8691       <div class="date">
8692          9th November 2010
8693       </div>
8694       <div class="body">
8695         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
8696
8697 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
8698 3D linked in from
8699 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
8700 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
8701
8702       </div>
8703       <div class="tags">
8704
8705
8706         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>.
8707
8708
8709       </div>
8710     </div>
8711     <div class="padding"></div>
8712
8713     <div class="entry">
8714       <div class="title">
8715         <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>
8716       </div>
8717       <div class="date">
8718          7th November 2010
8719       </div>
8720       <div class="body">
8721         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
8722 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
8723 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
8724 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
8725 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
8726 working using this DVD.</p>
8727
8728 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
8729 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
8730 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
8731 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
8732 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
8733 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
8734 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
8735
8736 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
8737 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
8738 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
8739 Debian archive.</p>
8740
8741 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
8742 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
8743 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
8744 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
8745 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
8746 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
8747 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
8748 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
8749 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
8750 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
8751 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
8752 free X driver should work.</p>
8753
8754 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
8755 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
8756 DVD more useful again.</p>
8757
8758       </div>
8759       <div class="tags">
8760
8761
8762         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
8763
8764
8765       </div>
8766     </div>
8767     <div class="padding"></div>
8768
8769     <div class="entry">
8770       <div class="title">
8771         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
8772       </div>
8773       <div class="date">
8774         24th October 2010
8775       </div>
8776       <div class="body">
8777         <p>Some updates.</p>
8778
8779 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
8780 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
8781 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
8782 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
8783 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
8784 :)</p>
8785
8786 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
8787 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
8788 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
8789 It is called
8790 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
8791 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
8792 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
8793 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
8794 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
8795 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
8796
8797 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
8798 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
8799 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
8800 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
8801 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
8802 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
8803 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
8804 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
8805 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
8806 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
8807
8808       </div>
8809       <div class="tags">
8810
8811
8812         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>.
8813
8814
8815       </div>
8816     </div>
8817     <div class="padding"></div>
8818
8819     <div class="entry">
8820       <div class="title">
8821         <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>
8822       </div>
8823       <div class="date">
8824         19th October 2010
8825       </div>
8826       <div class="body">
8827         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
8828 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
8829 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
8830 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
8831 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
8832 AVM2 flash files.</p>
8833
8834 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
8835 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
8836 following text:</P>
8837
8838 <p><blockquote>
8839
8840   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
8841   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
8842
8843   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
8844
8845   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
8846
8847   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
8848   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
8849   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
8850   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
8851   days. The project web page is available from
8852   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
8853   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
8854   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
8855
8856   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
8857   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
8858   to get this to happen.</p>
8859
8860   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
8861   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
8862
8863 </blockquote></p>
8864
8865 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
8866 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
8867 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
8868 :)</p>
8869
8870       </div>
8871       <div class="tags">
8872
8873
8874         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>.
8875
8876
8877       </div>
8878     </div>
8879     <div class="padding"></div>
8880
8881     <div class="entry">
8882       <div class="title">
8883         <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>
8884       </div>
8885       <div class="date">
8886          9th October 2010
8887       </div>
8888       <div class="body">
8889         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
8890 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
8891 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
8892 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
8893 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
8894 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
8895 robots.</p>
8896
8897 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
8898 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
8899 a few less important features too.</p>
8900
8901 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
8902 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
8903 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
8904 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
8905
8906 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
8907 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
8908 source or binary package:</p>
8909
8910 <p><ul>
8911 <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>
8912 <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>
8913 <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>
8914 </ul></p>
8915
8916 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
8917 please let me know.</p>
8918
8919       </div>
8920       <div class="tags">
8921
8922
8923         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>.
8924
8925
8926       </div>
8927     </div>
8928     <div class="padding"></div>
8929
8930     <div class="entry">
8931       <div class="title">
8932         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
8933       </div>
8934       <div class="date">
8935          3rd October 2010
8936       </div>
8937       <div class="body">
8938         <p><ul>
8939
8940 <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
8941 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
8942
8943 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
8944 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
8945 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
8946
8947 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
8948 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
8949 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
8950 simple setup.
8951
8952 </ul></p>
8953
8954       </div>
8955       <div class="tags">
8956
8957
8958         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>.
8959
8960
8961       </div>
8962     </div>
8963     <div class="padding"></div>
8964
8965     <div class="entry">
8966       <div class="title">
8967         <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>
8968       </div>
8969       <div class="date">
8970          9th September 2010
8971       </div>
8972       <div class="body">
8973         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
8974 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
8975 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
8976 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
8977 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
8978 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
8979 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
8980 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
8981 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
8982
8983 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
8984 written:</p>
8985
8986 <blockquote>
8987 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
8988 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
8989 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
8990 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
8991 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
8992
8993 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
8994 standard.</p>
8995 </blockquote>
8996
8997 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
8998 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
8999 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
9000 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
9001
9002 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
9003 read
9004 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
9005 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
9006 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
9007 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
9008 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
9009 the issue.  The solution is to support the
9010 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
9011 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
9012 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
9013
9014       </div>
9015       <div class="tags">
9016
9017
9018         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>.
9019
9020
9021       </div>
9022     </div>
9023     <div class="padding"></div>
9024
9025     <div class="entry">
9026       <div class="title">
9027         <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>
9028       </div>
9029       <div class="date">
9030          4th September 2010
9031       </div>
9032       <div class="body">
9033         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
9034 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
9035 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
9036 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
9037 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
9038 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
9039 installed.</p>
9040
9041 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
9042 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
9043 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
9044 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
9045 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
9046 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
9047 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
9048 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
9049 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
9050
9051 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
9052 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
9053 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
9054 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
9055 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
9056 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
9057 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
9058 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
9059 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
9060 pages they want to visit.</p>
9061
9062 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
9063 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
9064 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
9065 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
9066 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
9067 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
9068 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
9069 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
9070 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
9071 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
9072 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
9073
9074       </div>
9075       <div class="tags">
9076
9077
9078         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>.
9079
9080
9081       </div>
9082     </div>
9083     <div class="padding"></div>
9084
9085     <div class="entry">
9086       <div class="title">
9087         <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>
9088       </div>
9089       <div class="date">
9090          1st September 2010
9091       </div>
9092       <div class="body">
9093         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
9094 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
9095 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
9096 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
9097 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
9098 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
9099 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
9100 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
9101 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
9102 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
9103 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
9104 drive around.</p>
9105
9106 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
9107 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
9108
9109 <p><pre>
9110 use Spykee;
9111 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
9112 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
9113 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
9114 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
9115 $spykee->left();
9116 sleep 2;
9117 $spykee->right();
9118 sleep 2;
9119 $spykee->forward();
9120 sleep 2;
9121 $spykee->back();
9122 sleep 2;
9123 $spykee->stop();
9124 </pre></p>
9125
9126 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
9127 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
9128 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
9129 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
9130 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
9131 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
9132 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
9133 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
9134 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
9135 going. :).</p>
9136
9137 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
9138 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
9139 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
9140 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
9141
9142       </div>
9143       <div class="tags">
9144
9145
9146         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>.
9147
9148
9149       </div>
9150     </div>
9151     <div class="padding"></div>
9152
9153     <div class="entry">
9154       <div class="title">
9155         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
9156       </div>
9157       <div class="date">
9158         30th August 2010
9159       </div>
9160       <div class="body">
9161         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
9162 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
9163 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
9164 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
9165 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
9166 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
9167 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
9168
9169 <pre>
9170 % ln foo bar
9171 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
9172 %
9173 </pre>
9174
9175 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
9176 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
9177 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
9178 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
9179 nevertheless. :)</p>
9180
9181 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
9182 git from
9183 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
9184
9185       </div>
9186       <div class="tags">
9187
9188
9189         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9190
9191
9192       </div>
9193     </div>
9194     <div class="padding"></div>
9195
9196     <div class="entry">
9197       <div class="title">
9198         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
9199       </div>
9200       <div class="date">
9201         26th August 2010
9202       </div>
9203       <div class="body">
9204         <p>My file system sematics program
9205 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
9206 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
9207 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
9208 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
9209 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
9210 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
9211 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
9212 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
9213 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
9214 script:</p>
9215
9216 <pre>
9217 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
9218   mode_t retval = 0;
9219   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
9220   if (-1 != fd) {
9221     unlink(name);
9222     struct stat statbuf;
9223     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
9224       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
9225     }
9226     close(fd);
9227   }
9228   return retval;
9229 }
9230
9231 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
9232 int test_umask(void) {
9233   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
9234
9235   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
9236   mode_t newmode;
9237   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
9238     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
9239            newmode);
9240   }
9241   umask(007);
9242   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
9243     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
9244            newmode);
9245   }
9246
9247   umask (orig_umask);
9248   return 0;
9249 }
9250
9251 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
9252   [...]
9253   test_umask();
9254   return 0;
9255 }
9256 </pre>
9257
9258 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
9259
9260 <pre>
9261 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
9262 info: testing symlink creation
9263 info: testing subdirectory creation
9264 info: testing fcntl locking
9265   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
9266   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
9267   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
9268   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
9269   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
9270   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
9271 info: testing umask effect on file creation
9272 </pre>
9273
9274 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
9275 result:</p>
9276
9277 <pre>
9278 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
9279 info: testing symlink creation
9280 info: testing subdirectory creation
9281 info: testing fcntl locking
9282   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
9283   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
9284   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
9285   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
9286   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
9287   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
9288 info: testing umask effect on file creation
9289   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
9290   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
9291 </pre>
9292
9293 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
9294 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
9295 directory.</p>
9296
9297 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
9298 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
9299
9300 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
9301 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
9302 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
9303
9304       </div>
9305       <div class="tags">
9306
9307
9308         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9309
9310
9311       </div>
9312     </div>
9313     <div class="padding"></div>
9314
9315     <div class="entry">
9316       <div class="title">
9317         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
9318       </div>
9319       <div class="date">
9320         15th August 2010
9321       </div>
9322       <div class="body">
9323         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
9324 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
9325 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
9326 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
9327 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
9328 long time.</p>
9329
9330       </div>
9331       <div class="tags">
9332
9333
9334         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>.
9335
9336
9337       </div>
9338     </div>
9339     <div class="padding"></div>
9340
9341     <div class="entry">
9342       <div class="title">
9343         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
9344       </div>
9345       <div class="date">
9346          9th August 2010
9347       </div>
9348       <div class="body">
9349         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
9350 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
9351 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
9352 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
9353 generated configuration.</p>
9354
9355 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
9356 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
9357 without any manual configuration.</p>
9358
9359 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
9360 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
9361 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
9362 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
9363 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
9364 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
9365 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
9366 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
9367 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
9368 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
9369 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
9370 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
9371 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
9372 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
9373 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
9374 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
9375 use.</p>
9376
9377 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
9378 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
9379 working properly out of the box:</p>
9380
9381 <ul>
9382 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
9383 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
9384 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
9385 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
9386 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
9387 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
9388 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
9389 </ul>
9390
9391 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
9392
9393 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
9394 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
9395 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
9396 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
9397 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
9398
9399 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
9400 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
9401 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
9402 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
9403 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
9404 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
9405 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
9406 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
9407
9408 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
9409 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
9410 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
9411 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
9412 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
9413 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
9414 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
9415 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
9416 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
9417 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
9418 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
9419 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
9420 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
9421 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
9422 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
9423 current DNS domain is used.</p>
9424
9425 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
9426 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
9427 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
9428 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
9429 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
9430 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
9431 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
9432 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
9433 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
9434 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
9435 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
9436 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
9437 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
9438
9439 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
9440 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
9441 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
9442 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
9443 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
9444 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
9445 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
9446 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
9447 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
9448 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
9449 do for now. :)</p>
9450
9451 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
9452 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
9453 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
9454 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
9455 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
9456 yet.</p>
9457
9458 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
9459 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9460
9461 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
9462 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
9463 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
9464 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
9465
9466       </div>
9467       <div class="tags">
9468
9469
9470         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9471
9472
9473       </div>
9474     </div>
9475     <div class="padding"></div>
9476
9477     <div class="entry">
9478       <div class="title">
9479         <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>
9480       </div>
9481       <div class="date">
9482          8th August 2010
9483       </div>
9484       <div class="body">
9485         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
9486 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
9487 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
9488 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
9489 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
9490 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
9491 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
9492
9493 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
9494 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
9495 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
9496 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
9497 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
9498 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
9499 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
9500
9501 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
9502 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
9503 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
9504 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
9505 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
9506
9507 <pre>
9508 /*
9509  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
9510  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
9511  * directory.
9512  * License: GPL v2 or later
9513  *
9514  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
9515  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
9516 */
9517
9518 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
9519 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
9520 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
9521
9522 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
9523
9524 #include &lt;errno.h>
9525 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
9526 #include &lt;stdio.h>
9527 #include &lt;string.h>
9528 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
9529 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
9530 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
9531 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
9532 #include &lt;unistd.h>
9533
9534 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
9535 /*
9536  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
9537  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
9538  * below.
9539  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
9540  */
9541 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
9542 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
9543   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
9544 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
9545   char *zErrMsg;
9546   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
9547   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
9548   unlink(name);
9549   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
9550   if( rc ){
9551     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
9552     sqlite3_close(db);
9553     return -1;
9554   }
9555
9556   /* create tables */
9557   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
9558   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
9559     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
9560     sqlite3_close(db);
9561     return -1;
9562   }
9563   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
9564   sqlite3_close(db);
9565   return 0;
9566 }
9567 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
9568
9569 /*
9570  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
9571  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
9572  * done in the sqlite3 library.
9573  * See also
9574  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
9575  * POSIX specification
9576  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
9577  */
9578 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
9579   struct flock fl;
9580   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
9581   unlink(name);
9582   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
9583   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
9584
9585   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
9586   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
9587   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
9588   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
9589   fl.l_len    = 1;
9590   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
9591   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9592
9593   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
9594   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
9595   fl.l_len    = 510;
9596   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
9597   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9598
9599   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
9600   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
9601   fl.l_len    = 1;
9602   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
9603   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9604
9605   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
9606   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
9607   fl.l_len    = 1;
9608   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
9609   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9610
9611   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
9612   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
9613   fl.l_len    = 510;
9614   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9615
9616   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
9617   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
9618   fl.l_len    = 2;
9619   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
9620   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9621
9622   close(fd);
9623   return 0;
9624 }
9625
9626 /*
9627  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
9628  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
9629  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
9630  * slowing down file operations.
9631  */
9632 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
9633 #define LEVELS 5
9634   char *path = strdup("test");
9635   char *dirs[LEVELS];
9636   int level;
9637   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
9638   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
9639     char *newpath = NULL;
9640     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
9641       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
9642              path, strerror(errno));
9643       break;
9644     }
9645     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
9646     free(path);
9647     path = newpath;
9648   }
9649   return 0;
9650 }
9651
9652 /*
9653  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
9654  * KDE.
9655  */
9656 int test_symlinks(void) {
9657   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
9658   unlink("symlink");
9659   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
9660     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
9661   return 0;
9662 }
9663
9664 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
9665   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
9666   test_symlinks();
9667   test_subdirectory_creation();
9668 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
9669   test_sqlite_open();
9670 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
9671   test_gcompris_locking();
9672   return 0;
9673 }
9674 </pre>
9675
9676 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
9677 this:</p>
9678
9679 <pre>
9680 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
9681 info: testing symlink creation
9682 info: testing subdirectory creation
9683 info: sqlite worked
9684 info: testing fcntl locking
9685   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
9686   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
9687   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
9688   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
9689   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
9690   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
9691 </pre>
9692
9693 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
9694 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
9695 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
9696 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
9697 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
9698 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
9699 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
9700 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
9701
9702 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
9703 it. :)</p>
9704
9705 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
9706 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
9707 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
9708
9709       </div>
9710       <div class="tags">
9711
9712
9713         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9714
9715
9716       </div>
9717     </div>
9718     <div class="padding"></div>
9719
9720     <div class="entry">
9721       <div class="title">
9722         <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>
9723       </div>
9724       <div class="date">
9725          7th August 2010
9726       </div>
9727       <div class="body">
9728         <p>A few days ago, I
9729 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
9730 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
9731 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
9732 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
9733 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
9734 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
9735 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
9736 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
9737 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
9738
9739 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
9740 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
9741 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
9742 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
9743 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
9744 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
9745 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
9746 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
9747 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
9748 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
9749 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
9750 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
9751 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
9752 gave it a IP address.</p>
9753
9754 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
9755 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
9756 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
9757 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
9758 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
9759 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
9760 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
9761 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
9762
9763 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
9764 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
9765 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
9766 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
9767 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
9768 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
9769
9770 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
9771 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
9772 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
9773 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
9774 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
9775 with UID and GID values.</p>
9776
9777 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
9778 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9779
9780       </div>
9781       <div class="tags">
9782
9783
9784         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9785
9786
9787       </div>
9788     </div>
9789     <div class="padding"></div>
9790
9791     <div class="entry">
9792       <div class="title">
9793         <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>
9794       </div>
9795       <div class="date">
9796          3rd August 2010
9797       </div>
9798       <div class="body">
9799         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
9800 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
9801 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
9802 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
9803 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
9804 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
9805 servers.</p>
9806
9807 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
9808 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
9809 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
9810 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
9811 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
9812 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
9813 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
9814 .uio.no.</p>
9815
9816 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
9817 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
9818 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
9819 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
9820 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
9821 university servers.</p>
9822
9823 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
9824 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
9825 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
9826 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
9827 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
9828 uses.</p>
9829
9830       </div>
9831       <div class="tags">
9832
9833
9834         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
9835
9836
9837       </div>
9838     </div>
9839     <div class="padding"></div>
9840
9841     <div class="entry">
9842       <div class="title">
9843         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
9844       </div>
9845       <div class="date">
9846         27th July 2010
9847       </div>
9848       <div class="body">
9849         <p>I discovered this while doing
9850 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
9851 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
9852 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
9853 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
9854 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
9855
9856 <p>An example is from todays
9857 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
9858 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
9859 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
9860 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
9861 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
9862 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
9863 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
9864
9865 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
9866
9867 <blockquote><pre>
9868 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
9869  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
9870   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
9871 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
9872  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
9873 </pre></blockquote>
9874
9875 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
9876 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
9877 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
9878 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
9879 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
9880 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
9881 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
9882 of dependency loops.</p>
9883
9884 <p>Thanks to
9885 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
9886 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
9887 dependencies
9888 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
9889 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
9890
9891 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
9892 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
9893 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
9894 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
9895 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
9896 it.</p>
9897
9898       </div>
9899       <div class="tags">
9900
9901
9902         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>.
9903
9904
9905       </div>
9906     </div>
9907     <div class="padding"></div>
9908
9909     <div class="entry">
9910       <div class="title">
9911         <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>
9912       </div>
9913       <div class="date">
9914         27th July 2010
9915       </div>
9916       <div class="body">
9917         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
9918 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
9919 completed.</p>
9920
9921 <blockquote>
9922 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
9923 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
9924 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
9925 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
9926 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
9927 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
9928 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
9929 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
9930
9931 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
9932 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
9933 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
9934
9935 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
9936 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
9937 much.</p>
9938
9939 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
9940
9941 <ul>
9942 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
9943 <ul>
9944   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
9945          combination with some new artwork
9946   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
9947   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
9948   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
9949   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
9950   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
9951   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
9952   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
9953   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
9954   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
9955 </ul></li>
9956 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
9957     Enabled for:
9958 <ul>
9959   <li>PAM
9960   <li>LDAP
9961   <li>IMAP
9962   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
9963 </ul>
9964 </li>
9965 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
9966 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
9967     fetched from LDAP.</li>
9968 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
9969 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
9970 </ul>
9971 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
9972
9973 <ul>
9974 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
9975     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
9976     for testing.</li>
9977 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
9978     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
9979     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
9980 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
9981 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
9982 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
9983 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
9984     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
9985 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
9986     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
9987     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
9988 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
9989     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
9990     and help out with translations.</li>
9991 </ul>
9992
9993 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
9994
9995 <ul>
9996 <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>
9997 <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>
9998 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
9999 </ul>
10000 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
10001
10002 <ul>
10003 <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>
10004 <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>
10005 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
10006 </ul>
10007
10008 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
10009 get closer to the final release.</p>
10010
10011 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
10012
10013 <ul>
10014 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
10015 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
10016 </ul>
10017
10018 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
10019 <ul>
10020 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
10021 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
10022 </ul>
10023 <p>How to report bugs:
10024 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
10025
10026 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
10027 </blockquote>
10028
10029       </div>
10030       <div class="tags">
10031
10032
10033         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10034
10035
10036       </div>
10037     </div>
10038     <div class="padding"></div>
10039
10040     <div class="entry">
10041       <div class="title">
10042         <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>
10043       </div>
10044       <div class="date">
10045         25th July 2010
10046       </div>
10047       <div class="body">
10048         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
10049 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
10050 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
10051 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
10052 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
10053
10054 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
10055 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
10056 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
10057 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
10058 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
10059 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
10060 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
10061
10062 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
10063 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
10064 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
10065 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
10066 up. :)</p>
10067
10068 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
10069 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
10070 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
10071
10072 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
10073 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
10074 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
10075 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
10076 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
10077 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
10078 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
10079 release another day.</p>
10080
10081 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
10082 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10083
10084       </div>
10085       <div class="tags">
10086
10087
10088         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10089
10090
10091       </div>
10092     </div>
10093     <div class="padding"></div>
10094
10095     <div class="entry">
10096       <div class="title">
10097         <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>
10098       </div>
10099       <div class="date">
10100         18th July 2010
10101       </div>
10102       <div class="body">
10103         <p>Thanks to
10104 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
10105 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
10106 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
10107 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
10108 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
10109 only available from the development server, until more experience is
10110 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
10111
10112 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
10113 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
10114 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
10115 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
10116 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
10117 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
10118 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
10119
10120       </div>
10121       <div class="tags">
10122
10123
10124         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>.
10125
10126
10127       </div>
10128     </div>
10129     <div class="padding"></div>
10130
10131     <div class="entry">
10132       <div class="title">
10133         <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>
10134       </div>
10135       <div class="date">
10136         17th July 2010
10137       </div>
10138       <div class="body">
10139         <p>This is a
10140 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
10141 on my
10142 <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
10143 work</a> on
10144 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
10145 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
10146
10147 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
10148 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
10149 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
10150 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
10151
10152 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
10153 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
10154 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
10155
10156 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
10157
10158 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
10159 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
10160 the web.
10161
10162 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
10163 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
10164 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
10165 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
10166 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
10167 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
10168
10169 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
10170 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
10171 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
10172 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
10173 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
10174 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
10175 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
10176 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
10177 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
10178 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
10179 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
10180 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
10181 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
10182 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
10183 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
10184 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
10185
10186 <blockquote><pre>
10187 ldapsearch -h ldap \
10188   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
10189   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
10190   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
10191   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
10192   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
10193   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
10194
10195 ldapsearch -h ldap \
10196   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
10197   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
10198   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
10199   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
10200   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
10201 </pre></blockquote>
10202
10203 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
10204 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
10205 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
10206 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10207 also exist.</p>
10208
10209 <blockquote><pre>
10210 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10211 objectclass: top
10212 objectclass: dnsdomain
10213 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10214 dc: tjener
10215 arecord: 10.0.2.2
10216 associateddomain: tjener.intern
10217
10218 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10219 objectclass: top
10220 objectclass: dnsdomain2
10221 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10222 dc: 2
10223 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
10224 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
10225 </pre></blockquote>
10226
10227 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
10228 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
10229 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
10230 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
10231 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
10232 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
10233 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
10234 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
10235 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
10236 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
10237 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
10238 instead.</p>
10239
10240 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
10241 like this:</p>
10242
10243 <blockquote><pre>
10244 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
10245   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
10246   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
10247   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
10248   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
10249   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
10250
10251 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
10252   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
10253 </pre></blockquote>
10254
10255 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
10256 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
10257 reverse lookups.</p>
10258
10259 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
10260 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
10261 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
10262 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
10263
10264 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
10265 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
10266 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
10267
10268 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
10269 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
10270 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
10271 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
10272 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
10273
10274 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
10275 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
10276 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
10277 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
10278 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
10279
10280 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
10281 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
10282 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
10283 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
10284 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
10285 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
10286
10287 <blockquote><pre>
10288 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
10289     SUP top
10290     AUXILIARY
10291     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
10292           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
10293           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
10294           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
10295           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
10296     ))
10297 </pre></blockquote>
10298
10299 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
10300 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
10301 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
10302 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
10303 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
10304 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
10305
10306 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
10307
10308 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
10309 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
10310 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
10311 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
10312 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
10313
10314 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
10315 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
10316 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
10317 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
10318
10319 <blockquote><pre>
10320 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
10321 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
10322 </pre></blockquote>
10323
10324 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
10325 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
10326 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
10327 search result is this entry:</p>
10328
10329 <blockquote><pre>
10330 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10331 cn: dhcp
10332 objectClass: top
10333 objectClass: dhcpServer
10334 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10335 </pre></blockquote>
10336
10337 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
10338 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
10339 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
10340 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
10341 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
10342 The search result is this entry:</p>
10343
10344 <blockquote><pre>
10345 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10346 cn: DHCP Config
10347 objectClass: top
10348 objectClass: dhcpService
10349 objectClass: dhcpOptions
10350 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10351 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
10352 dhcpStatements: authoritative
10353 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
10354 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
10355 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
10356 </pre></blockquote>
10357
10358 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
10359 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
10360 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
10361 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
10362 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
10363 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
10364 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
10365 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
10366 related computer objects.</p>
10367
10368 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
10369 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
10370 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
10371 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
10372 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
10373 like:</p>
10374
10375 <blockquote><pre>
10376 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10377 cn: hostname
10378 objectClass: top
10379 objectClass: dhcpHost
10380 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
10381 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
10382 </pre></blockquote>
10383
10384 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
10385 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
10386 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
10387 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
10388 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
10389 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
10390 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
10391 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
10392 structural object class.
10393
10394 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
10395
10396 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
10397 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
10398 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
10399 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
10400 in the configuration.</p>
10401
10402 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
10403 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
10404 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
10405 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
10406 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
10407 structure.</p>
10408
10409 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
10410 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
10411
10412 <blockquote><pre>
10413 ou=services
10414   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
10415     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
10416     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
10417       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
10418         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
10419     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
10420       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
10421         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
10422     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
10423       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
10424 </pre></blockquote>
10425
10426 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
10427 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
10428 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
10429 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
10430
10431 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
10432 like this:</p>
10433
10434 <blockquote><pre>
10435 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10436 dc: hostname
10437 objectClass: top
10438 objectClass: dhcpHost
10439 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10440 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
10441 associateddomain: hostname.intern
10442 arecord: 10.11.12.13
10443 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
10444 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
10445 </pre></blockquote>
10446
10447 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
10448 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
10449 auxiliary object class.</p>
10450
10451       </div>
10452       <div class="tags">
10453
10454
10455         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>.
10456
10457
10458       </div>
10459     </div>
10460     <div class="padding"></div>
10461
10462     <div class="entry">
10463       <div class="title">
10464         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
10465       </div>
10466       <div class="date">
10467         14th July 2010
10468       </div>
10469       <div class="body">
10470         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
10471 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
10472 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
10473 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
10474 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
10475
10476 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
10477 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
10478
10479 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
10480 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
10481 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
10482 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
10483 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
10484 to a slave DNS server.</p>
10485
10486 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
10487 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
10488 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
10489 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
10490 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
10491 seem to work.</p>
10492
10493 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
10494 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
10495 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
10496 this:</p>
10497
10498 <blockquote><pre>
10499   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10500   cn: hostname
10501   objectClass: dhcphost
10502   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10503   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
10504   associateddomain: hostname.intern
10505   arecord: 10.11.12.13
10506   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
10507   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
10508   ldapconfigsound: Y
10509 </pre></blockquote>
10510
10511 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
10512 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
10513 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
10514 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
10515
10516 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
10517 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
10518 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
10519 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
10520 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
10521 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
10522 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
10523 might be a good place to put it.</p>
10524
10525 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10526 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10527
10528       </div>
10529       <div class="tags">
10530
10531
10532         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>.
10533
10534
10535       </div>
10536     </div>
10537     <div class="padding"></div>
10538
10539     <div class="entry">
10540       <div class="title">
10541         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
10542       </div>
10543       <div class="date">
10544         11th July 2010
10545       </div>
10546       <div class="body">
10547         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
10548 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
10549 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
10550 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
10551
10552 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
10553 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
10554 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
10555 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
10556 LTSP clients.</p>
10557
10558 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
10559 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
10560 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
10561
10562 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
10563 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
10564 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
10565
10566 <blockquote><pre>
10567 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
10568 #
10569 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
10570 #
10571 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
10572 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
10573 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
10574 #
10575 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
10576 # existence of attribute names.
10577 #
10578 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
10579 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
10580 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
10581 #
10582 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
10583 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
10584 #
10585 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
10586 #     SUP top
10587 #     AUXILIARY
10588 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
10589
10590 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
10591 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
10592     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
10593     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
10594         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
10595         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
10596             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
10597             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
10598             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
10599             # bass value on to clients
10600             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
10601         done
10602     done
10603 fi
10604 </pre></blockquote>
10605
10606 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
10607 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
10608 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
10609 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
10610 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
10611
10612 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10613 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10614
10615 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
10616 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
10617 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
10618 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
10619 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
10620 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
10621
10622       </div>
10623       <div class="tags">
10624
10625
10626         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>.
10627
10628
10629       </div>
10630     </div>
10631     <div class="padding"></div>
10632
10633     <div class="entry">
10634       <div class="title">
10635         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
10636       </div>
10637       <div class="date">
10638          9th July 2010
10639       </div>
10640       <div class="body">
10641         <p>Since
10642 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
10643 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
10644 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
10645 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
10646 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
10647 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
10648 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
10649 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
10650 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
10651 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
10652 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
10653 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
10654 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
10655
10656       </div>
10657       <div class="tags">
10658
10659
10660         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>.
10661
10662
10663       </div>
10664     </div>
10665     <div class="padding"></div>
10666
10667     <div class="entry">
10668       <div class="title">
10669         <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>
10670       </div>
10671       <div class="date">
10672          3rd July 2010
10673       </div>
10674       <div class="body">
10675         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
10676 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
10677 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
10678 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
10679 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
10680 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
10681 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
10682 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
10683
10684 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
10685 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
10686 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
10687 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
10688 publish the difference.</p>
10689
10690 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
10691
10692 <blockquote><p>
10693   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
10694   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
10695   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
10696   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
10697   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
10698   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
10699   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
10700   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
10701 </p></blockquote>
10702
10703 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
10704
10705 <blockquote><p>
10706   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
10707   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
10708   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
10709   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
10710   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
10711   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
10712   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
10713   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
10714   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
10715   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
10716   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
10717   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
10718   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
10719   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
10720   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
10721   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
10722   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
10723   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
10724   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
10725   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
10726 </p></blockquote>
10727
10728 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
10729
10730 <blockquote><p>
10731   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
10732   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
10733   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10734   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10735   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
10736   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
10737   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
10738   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10739   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10740   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10741   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10742   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
10743   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
10744   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
10745   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
10746   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
10747   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
10748   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
10749   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
10750   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
10751   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
10752 </p></blockquote>
10753
10754 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
10755
10756 <blockquote><p>
10757   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
10758   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
10759   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
10760 </p></blockquote>
10761
10762 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
10763 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
10764 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
10765 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
10766 the difference somewhat.
10767
10768       </div>
10769       <div class="tags">
10770
10771
10772         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>.
10773
10774
10775       </div>
10776     </div>
10777     <div class="padding"></div>
10778
10779     <div class="entry">
10780       <div class="title">
10781         <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>
10782       </div>
10783       <div class="date">
10784          1st July 2010
10785       </div>
10786       <div class="body">
10787         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
10788 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
10789 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
10790 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
10791 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
10792 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
10793 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
10794 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
10795 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
10796
10797 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
10798
10799 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
10800 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
10801 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
10802 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
10803 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
10804 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
10805 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
10806 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
10807 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
10808 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
10809 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
10810 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
10811 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
10812 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
10813 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
10814
10815 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
10816
10817 <blockquote><pre>
10818 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
10819 </pre></blockquote>
10820
10821 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
10822 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
10823 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
10824 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
10825 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
10826 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
10827 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
10828 on how to get this working.</p>
10829
10830 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
10831 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
10832 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
10833 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
10834 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
10835 instructions I found in the
10836 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
10837 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
10838
10839 <blockquote><pre>
10840         debug-level             0
10841         reload-count            unlimited
10842         paranoia                no
10843
10844         enable-cache            passwd          yes
10845         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
10846         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
10847         suggested-size          passwd          211
10848         check-files             passwd          yes
10849         persistent              passwd          yes
10850         shared                  passwd          yes
10851         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
10852         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
10853
10854         enable-cache            group           yes
10855         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
10856         negative-time-to-live   group           20
10857         suggested-size          group           211
10858         check-files             group           yes
10859         persistent              group           yes
10860         shared                  group           yes
10861         max-db-size             group           33554432
10862         auto-propagate          group           yes
10863
10864         enable-cache            hosts           no
10865         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
10866         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
10867         suggested-size          hosts           211
10868         check-files             hosts           yes
10869         persistent              hosts           yes
10870         shared                  hosts           yes
10871         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
10872
10873         enable-cache            services        yes
10874         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
10875         negative-time-to-live   services        20
10876         suggested-size          services        211
10877         check-files             services        yes
10878         persistent              services        yes
10879         shared                  services        yes
10880         max-db-size             services        33554432
10881 </pre></blockquote>
10882
10883 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
10884 automatically like the one provided in
10885 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
10886 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
10887 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
10888 look like this:</p>
10889
10890 <blockquote><pre>
10891 passwd:         files ldap
10892 group:          files ldap
10893 shadow:         files ldap
10894 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
10895 networks:       files
10896 protocols:      files
10897 services:       files
10898 ethers:         files
10899 rpc:            files
10900 netgroup:       files ldap
10901 </pre></blockquote>
10902
10903 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
10904 shadow and netgroup.</p>
10905
10906 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
10907 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
10908 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
10909 attributes cached.
10910
10911 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
10912   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
10913
10914 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
10915 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
10916 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
10917 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
10918 discovered sssd.</p>
10919
10920 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
10921
10922 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
10923 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
10924 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
10925 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
10926 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
10927 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
10928 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
10929 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
10930 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
10931 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
10932 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
10933 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
10934 version 1.2 is now in testing.
10935
10936 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
10937 roaming setup I want</p>
10938
10939 <blockquote><pre>
10940 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
10941 </pre></blockquote>
10942
10943 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
10944 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
10945
10946 <blockquote><pre>
10947 [sssd]
10948 config_file_version = 2
10949 reconnection_retries = 3
10950 sbus_timeout = 30
10951 services = nss, pam
10952 domains = INTERN
10953
10954 [nss]
10955 filter_groups = root
10956 filter_users = root
10957 reconnection_retries = 3
10958
10959 [pam]
10960 reconnection_retries = 3
10961
10962 [domain/INTERN]
10963 enumerate = false
10964 cache_credentials = true
10965
10966 id_provider = ldap
10967 auth_provider = ldap
10968 chpass_provider = ldap
10969
10970 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
10971 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10972 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
10973 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
10974 </pre></blockquote>
10975
10976 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
10977 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
10978
10979 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
10980 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
10981 modify it manually.</p>
10982
10983 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10984 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10985
10986       </div>
10987       <div class="tags">
10988
10989
10990         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
10991
10992
10993       </div>
10994     </div>
10995     <div class="padding"></div>
10996
10997     <div class="entry">
10998       <div class="title">
10999         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
11000       </div>
11001       <div class="date">
11002         28th June 2010
11003       </div>
11004       <div class="body">
11005         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
11006 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
11007 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
11008 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
11009 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
11010 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
11011 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
11012 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
11013 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
11014 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
11015
11016 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
11017 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
11018 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
11019 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
11020 released.</p>
11021
11022 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
11023 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
11024 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
11025 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
11026
11027 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
11028 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11029
11030 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
11031 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
11032 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
11033 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
11034 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
11035
11036       </div>
11037       <div class="tags">
11038
11039
11040         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>.
11041
11042
11043       </div>
11044     </div>
11045     <div class="padding"></div>
11046
11047     <div class="entry">
11048       <div class="title">
11049         <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>
11050       </div>
11051       <div class="date">
11052         24th June 2010
11053       </div>
11054       <div class="body">
11055         <p>A while back, I
11056 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
11057 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
11058 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
11059 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
11060
11061 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
11062 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
11063 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
11064 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
11065
11066 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
11067 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
11068 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
11069 Debian Edu.</p>
11070
11071 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
11072 the
11073 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
11074 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
11075 available today from IETF.</p>
11076
11077 <pre>
11078 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
11079 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
11080 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
11081  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
11082         NAME 'dhcpHost'
11083         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
11084 -       SUP top
11085 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
11086         MUST cn
11087         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
11088         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
11089 </pre>
11090
11091 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
11092 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
11093 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
11094
11095 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11096 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11097
11098       </div>
11099       <div class="tags">
11100
11101
11102         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>.
11103
11104
11105       </div>
11106     </div>
11107     <div class="padding"></div>
11108
11109     <div class="entry">
11110       <div class="title">
11111         <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>
11112       </div>
11113       <div class="date">
11114         16th June 2010
11115       </div>
11116       <div class="body">
11117         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
11118 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
11119 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
11120 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
11121 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
11122 this:
11123
11124 <blockquote><pre>
11125 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11126 tasksel --new-install
11127 </pre></blockquote>
11128
11129 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
11130 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
11131 any output what so ever.
11132
11133 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
11134 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
11135 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
11136 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
11137 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
11138 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
11139 code like this:
11140
11141 <blockquote><pre>
11142 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11143 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
11144 $cmd
11145 </pre></blockquote>
11146
11147 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
11148 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
11149 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
11150 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
11151 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
11152 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
11153 installation.</p>
11154
11155 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
11156 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
11157 like this.</p>
11158
11159       </div>
11160       <div class="tags">
11161
11162
11163         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>.
11164
11165
11166       </div>
11167     </div>
11168     <div class="padding"></div>
11169
11170     <div class="entry">
11171       <div class="title">
11172         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
11173       </div>
11174       <div class="date">
11175         13th June 2010
11176       </div>
11177       <div class="body">
11178         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
11179 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
11180 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
11181 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
11182 pages.</p>
11183
11184 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
11185 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
11186 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
11187 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
11188 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
11189 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
11190 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
11191 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
11192 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
11193 see how the project is doing.</p>
11194
11195 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
11196 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
11197 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
11198 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
11199 Windows.  This is great.</p>
11200
11201       </div>
11202       <div class="tags">
11203
11204
11205         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>.
11206
11207
11208       </div>
11209     </div>
11210     <div class="padding"></div>
11211
11212     <div class="entry">
11213       <div class="title">
11214         <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>
11215       </div>
11216       <div class="date">
11217         13th June 2010
11218       </div>
11219       <div class="body">
11220         <p>My
11221 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
11222 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
11223 finally made the upgrade logs available from
11224 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
11225 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
11226 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
11227 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
11228
11229 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
11230 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
11231 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
11232 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
11233 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
11234 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
11235 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
11236 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
11237
11238 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
11239 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
11240 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
11241 too surprising.</p>
11242
11243 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
11244 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
11245 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
11246 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
11247 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
11248 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
11249 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
11250 continue.</p>
11251
11252 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
11253 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
11254   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
11255   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
11256   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
11257   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
11258   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
11259   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11260   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11261   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
11262   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
11263   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
11264   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
11265   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11266   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11267   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11268   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11269   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11270   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
11271   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
11272   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
11273   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
11274   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
11275   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
11276   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
11277   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
11278   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
11279   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
11280   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
11281   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
11282
11283 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
11284
11285 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
11286   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
11287   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
11288   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
11289   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
11290   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
11291   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
11292   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
11293   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
11294   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
11295   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
11296   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
11297   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
11298   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
11299   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
11300   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
11301   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
11302   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
11303   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
11304   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
11305   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
11306   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
11307   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
11308   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
11309   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
11310   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
11311   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
11312   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
11313   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
11314   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11315   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
11316   zip</p>
11317
11318 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
11319
11320 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
11321   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
11322   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
11323   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
11324   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
11325   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
11326   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11327   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11328   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
11329   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
11330   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
11331   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
11332   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11333   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11334   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11335   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11336   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11337   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
11338   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
11339   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
11340   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
11341   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
11342   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
11343   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
11344   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
11345   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
11346   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
11347   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
11348
11349 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
11350 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
11351   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
11352   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
11353   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
11354   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
11355   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
11356   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
11357   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
11358   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
11359   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
11360   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
11361   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
11362   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
11363   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
11364   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
11365   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
11366   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
11367   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
11368   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
11369   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
11370   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
11371   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
11372   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
11373   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
11374   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
11375   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
11376   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
11377   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
11378   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
11379   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
11380   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
11381   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
11382   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
11383   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
11384   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11385   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
11386   xulrunner-1.9</p>
11387
11388
11389       </div>
11390       <div class="tags">
11391
11392
11393         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>.
11394
11395
11396       </div>
11397     </div>
11398     <div class="padding"></div>
11399
11400     <div class="entry">
11401       <div class="title">
11402         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
11403       </div>
11404       <div class="date">
11405         11th June 2010
11406       </div>
11407       <div class="body">
11408         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
11409 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
11410 have been discovered and reported in the process
11411 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
11412 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
11413 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
11414 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
11415 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
11416
11417 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
11418 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
11419 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
11420 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
11421 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
11422 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
11423
11424 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
11425 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
11426 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
11427 is created.  The bug report
11428 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
11429 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
11430 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
11431 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
11432 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
11433 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
11434 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
11435 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
11436 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
11437 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
11438 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
11439 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
11440 Debian Squeeze.</p>
11441
11442 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
11443 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
11444 trick:</p>
11445
11446 <blockquote><pre>
11447 #!/bin/sh
11448 set -ex
11449
11450 if [ "$1" ] ; then
11451     desktop=$1
11452 else
11453     desktop=gnome
11454 fi
11455
11456 from=lenny
11457 to=squeeze
11458
11459 exec &lt; /dev/null
11460 unset LANG
11461 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
11462 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
11463 fuser -mv .
11464 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
11465 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
11466 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
11467 #!/bin/sh
11468 exit 101
11469 EOF
11470 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
11471 exit_cleanup() {
11472     umount $tmpdir/proc
11473 }
11474 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
11475 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
11476 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
11477
11478 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
11479
11480 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
11481 # to return the correct answers.
11482 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
11483     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
11484
11485 # Include the desktop and laptop task
11486 for test in desktop laptop ; do
11487     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
11488 #!/bin/sh
11489 exit 2
11490 EOF
11491     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
11492 done
11493
11494 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11495 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
11496 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
11497 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
11498
11499 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
11500 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
11501 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
11502 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
11503 fuser -mv
11504 </pre></blockquote>
11505
11506 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
11507 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
11508 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
11509 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
11510 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
11511 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
11512
11513 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
11514 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
11515 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
11516 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
11517 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
11518 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
11519 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
11520
11521 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
11522 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
11523 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
11524 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
11525 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
11526 packages.</p>
11527
11528       </div>
11529       <div class="tags">
11530
11531
11532         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>.
11533
11534
11535       </div>
11536     </div>
11537     <div class="padding"></div>
11538
11539     <div class="entry">
11540       <div class="title">
11541         <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>
11542       </div>
11543       <div class="date">
11544          6th June 2010
11545       </div>
11546       <div class="body">
11547         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
11548 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
11549 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
11550 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
11551 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
11552 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
11553 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
11554
11555 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
11556 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
11557 COLUMNS):</p>
11558
11559 <blockquote><pre>
11560 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
11561 previous=N
11562 PREVLEVEL=
11563 RUNLEVEL=
11564 runlevel=S
11565 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
11566 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
11567 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
11568 </pre></blockquote>
11569
11570 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
11571 script.</p>
11572
11573 <blockquote><pre>
11574 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
11575 previous=N
11576 PREVLEVEL=N
11577 RUNLEVEL=S
11578 runlevel=S
11579 </pre></blockquote>
11580
11581 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
11582 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
11583 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
11584
11585 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
11586 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
11587 choice.</p>
11588
11589       </div>
11590       <div class="tags">
11591
11592
11593         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>.
11594
11595
11596       </div>
11597     </div>
11598     <div class="padding"></div>
11599
11600     <div class="entry">
11601       <div class="title">
11602         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
11603       </div>
11604       <div class="date">
11605          6th June 2010
11606       </div>
11607       <div class="body">
11608         <p>Via the
11609 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
11610 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
11611 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
11612 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
11613 following the standards wars of today.</p>
11614
11615       </div>
11616       <div class="tags">
11617
11618
11619         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>.
11620
11621
11622       </div>
11623     </div>
11624     <div class="padding"></div>
11625
11626     <div class="entry">
11627       <div class="title">
11628         <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>
11629       </div>
11630       <div class="date">
11631          3rd June 2010
11632       </div>
11633       <div class="body">
11634         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
11635 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
11636 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
11637 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
11638 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
11639
11640 <blockquote><pre>
11641 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
11642   vendor                    count
11643   Dell Computer Corporation     1
11644     PowerEdge 1750              1
11645   IBM                           1
11646     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
11647   Intel                         2
11648   [no-dmi-info]                 3
11649 maintainer:~#
11650 </pre></blockquote>
11651
11652 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
11653 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
11654 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
11655 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
11656 option to list the individual machines.</p>
11657
11658 <p>A larger list is
11659 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
11660 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
11661 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
11662 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
11663 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
11664 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
11665 collector.</p>
11666
11667       </div>
11668       <div class="tags">
11669
11670
11671         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>.
11672
11673
11674       </div>
11675     </div>
11676     <div class="padding"></div>
11677
11678     <div class="entry">
11679       <div class="title">
11680         <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>
11681       </div>
11682       <div class="date">
11683          1st June 2010
11684       </div>
11685       <div class="body">
11686         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
11687 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
11688 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
11689 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
11690 wait.</p>
11691
11692 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
11693 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
11694 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
11695 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
11696 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
11697 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
11698
11699 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
11700 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
11701 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
11702 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
11703 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
11704 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
11705 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
11706 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
11707
11708 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
11709
11710       </div>
11711       <div class="tags">
11712
11713
11714         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>.
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/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a>
11724       </div>
11725       <div class="date">
11726         27th May 2010
11727       </div>
11728       <div class="body">
11729         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
11730 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
11731 issues are known and should be solved:
11732
11733 <p><ul>
11734
11735 <li>The wicd package seen to
11736 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
11737 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
11738 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
11739 seem to be on the case.</li>
11740
11741 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
11742 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
11743 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
11744 maintainer is on the case.</li>
11745
11746 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
11747 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
11748 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
11749 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
11750 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
11751 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
11752 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
11753 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
11754
11755 </ul></p>
11756
11757 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
11758 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
11759 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
11760 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
11761
11762 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11763 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11764 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11765 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
11766
11767 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
11768
11769       </div>
11770       <div class="tags">
11771
11772
11773         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>.
11774
11775
11776       </div>
11777     </div>
11778     <div class="padding"></div>
11779
11780     <div class="entry">
11781       <div class="title">
11782         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
11783       </div>
11784       <div class="date">
11785         22nd May 2010
11786       </div>
11787       <div class="body">
11788         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
11789 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
11790 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
11791 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
11792
11793 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
11794 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
11795 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
11796 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
11797 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
11798 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
11799 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
11800 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
11801 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
11802 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
11803 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
11804 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
11805 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
11806 going to work.</p>
11807
11808 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
11809 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
11810 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
11811 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
11812 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
11813 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
11814 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
11815 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
11816 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
11817 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
11818 Edu.</p>
11819
11820 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
11821 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
11822 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
11823 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
11824 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
11825 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
11826
11827 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
11828 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
11829
11830       </div>
11831       <div class="tags">
11832
11833
11834         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11835
11836
11837       </div>
11838     </div>
11839     <div class="padding"></div>
11840
11841     <div class="entry">
11842       <div class="title">
11843         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pieces_of_the_roaming_laptop_puzzle_in_Debian.html">Pieces of the roaming laptop puzzle in Debian</a>
11844       </div>
11845       <div class="date">
11846         19th May 2010
11847       </div>
11848       <div class="body">
11849         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
11850 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
11851 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
11852 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
11853 into unstable.  The
11854 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
11855 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
11856 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
11857 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
11858 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
11859 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
11860 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
11861
11862 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
11863 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
11864 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
11865 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
11866 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
11867 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
11868 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
11869 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
11870
11871 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
11872 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
11873 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
11874 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
11875 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
11876 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
11877 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
11878
11879 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
11880 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
11881 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
11882 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
11883 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
11884 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
11885 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
11886 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
11887 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
11888 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
11889 on the home directory servers.</p>
11890
11891 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
11892 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
11893 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
11894 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
11895 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
11896 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
11897
11898 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11899 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11900
11901       </div>
11902       <div class="tags">
11903
11904
11905         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
11906
11907
11908       </div>
11909     </div>
11910     <div class="padding"></div>
11911
11912     <div class="entry">
11913       <div class="title">
11914         <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>
11915       </div>
11916       <div class="date">
11917         14th May 2010
11918       </div>
11919       <div class="body">
11920         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
11921 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
11922 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
11923 expected, if I am to believe the
11924 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
11925 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
11926 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
11927 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
11928 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
11929 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
11930 version.</p>
11931
11932 More information about
11933 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11934 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
11935 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
11936 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
11937
11938 <blockquote><pre>
11939 CONCURRENCY=none
11940 </pre></blockquote>
11941
11942 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11943 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11944 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11945 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
11946
11947       </div>
11948       <div class="tags">
11949
11950
11951         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>.
11952
11953
11954       </div>
11955     </div>
11956     <div class="padding"></div>
11957
11958     <div class="entry">
11959       <div class="title">
11960         <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>
11961       </div>
11962       <div class="date">
11963         14th May 2010
11964       </div>
11965       <div class="body">
11966         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
11967 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
11968 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
11969 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
11970 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
11971 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
11972 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
11973 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
11974
11975 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
11976 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
11977 this on the collector host:</p>
11978
11979 <blockquote><pre>
11980 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
11981 </pre></blockquote>
11982
11983 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
11984 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
11985
11986 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
11987 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
11988 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
11989 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
11990 written yet.</p>
11991
11992       </div>
11993       <div class="tags">
11994
11995
11996         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>.
11997
11998
11999       </div>
12000     </div>
12001     <div class="padding"></div>
12002
12003     <div class="entry">
12004       <div class="title">
12005         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
12006       </div>
12007       <div class="date">
12008         13th May 2010
12009       </div>
12010       <div class="body">
12011         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
12012 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
12013 has been
12014 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
12015
12016 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
12017 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
12018 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
12019 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
12020 based boot system.  Tollef is
12021 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
12022 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
12023 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
12024 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
12025 at the moment do not.</p>
12026
12027 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
12028 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
12029 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
12030 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
12031 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
12032 way forward.</p>
12033
12034 <p>In the mean time, based on the
12035 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
12036 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
12037 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
12038 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
12039 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
12040 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
12041 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
12042 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
12043
12044       </div>
12045       <div class="tags">
12046
12047
12048         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>.
12049
12050
12051       </div>
12052     </div>
12053     <div class="padding"></div>
12054
12055     <div class="entry">
12056       <div class="title">
12057         <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>
12058       </div>
12059       <div class="date">
12060          6th May 2010
12061       </div>
12062       <div class="body">
12063         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
12064 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
12065 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
12066 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
12067 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
12068 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
12069 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
12070
12071 <blockquote><pre>
12072 CONCURRENCY=makefile
12073 </pre></blockquote>
12074
12075 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
12076 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
12077 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
12078 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
12079 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
12080 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
12081 make this happen.</p>
12082
12083 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
12084 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
12085 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
12086 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
12087 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
12088
12089 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
12090 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
12091 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
12092 fix the remaining issues.</p>
12093
12094 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
12095 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
12096 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
12097 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
12098
12099       </div>
12100       <div class="tags">
12101
12102
12103         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>.
12104
12105
12106       </div>
12107     </div>
12108     <div class="padding"></div>
12109
12110     <div class="entry">
12111       <div class="title">
12112         <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>
12113       </div>
12114       <div class="date">
12115          2nd May 2010
12116       </div>
12117       <div class="body">
12118         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
12119 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
12120 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
12121
12122 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
12123 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
12124 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
12125 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
12126 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
12127
12128 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
12129 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
12130
12131 <blockquote><pre>
12132 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
12133 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
12134 Password expires                                        : never
12135 Password inactive                                       : never
12136 Account expires                                         : never
12137 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
12138 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
12139 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
12140 root@tjener:~#
12141 </pre></blockquote>
12142
12143 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
12144 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
12145 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
12146 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
12147 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
12148 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
12149
12150 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
12151 intended:</p>
12152
12153 <blockquote><pre>
12154 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
12155 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
12156 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
12157 Password expires                                        : never
12158 Password inactive                                       : never
12159 Account expires                                         : never
12160 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
12161 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
12162 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
12163 root@tjener:~#
12164 </pre></blockquote>
12165
12166 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
12167 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
12168 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
12169
12170 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
12171 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
12172
12173 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
12174 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
12175
12176 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
12177 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
12178 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
12179 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
12180 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
12181 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
12182 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
12183
12184 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
12185 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
12186 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
12187 change.</p>
12188
12189       </div>
12190       <div class="tags">
12191
12192
12193         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12194
12195
12196       </div>
12197     </div>
12198     <div class="padding"></div>
12199
12200     <div class="entry">
12201       <div class="title">
12202         <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>
12203       </div>
12204       <div class="date">
12205         28th April 2010
12206       </div>
12207       <div class="body">
12208         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
12209 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
12210 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
12211 and go.</p>
12212
12213 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
12214 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
12215 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
12216 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
12217
12218 <ul>
12219
12220  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
12221    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
12222    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
12223    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
12224    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
12225    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
12226    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
12227    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
12228    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
12229    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
12230    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
12231    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
12232
12233  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
12234    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
12235    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
12236    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
12237    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
12238    or the Fedora developed
12239    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
12240    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
12241
12242  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
12243    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
12244    directory, using unison.</li>
12245
12246  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
12247    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
12248    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
12249    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
12250    implemented.</li>
12251
12252  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
12253    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
12254
12255  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
12256    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
12257    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
12258
12259 </ul>
12260
12261 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
12262 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
12263 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
12264 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
12265 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
12266 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
12267 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
12268 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
12269 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
12270
12271 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
12272 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
12273
12274       </div>
12275       <div class="tags">
12276
12277
12278         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12279
12280
12281       </div>
12282     </div>
12283     <div class="padding"></div>
12284
12285     <div class="entry">
12286       <div class="title">
12287         <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>
12288       </div>
12289       <div class="date">
12290         19th April 2010
12291       </div>
12292       <div class="body">
12293         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
12294 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
12295 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
12296 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
12297 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
12298 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
12299 restrictions on the web, for example from
12300 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
12301 epub-version from
12302 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
12303 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
12304 strongly recommend this book.</p>
12305
12306       </div>
12307       <div class="tags">
12308
12309
12310         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>.
12311
12312
12313       </div>
12314     </div>
12315     <div class="padding"></div>
12316
12317     <div class="entry">
12318       <div class="title">
12319         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
12320       </div>
12321       <div class="date">
12322         14th April 2010
12323       </div>
12324       <div class="body">
12325         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
12326 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
12327 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
12328 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
12329 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
12330 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
12331 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
12332 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
12333 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
12334
12335 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
12336 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
12337 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
12338 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
12339 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
12340
12341 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
12342 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
12343
12344 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
12345 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
12346 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
12347 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
12348 to work properly.</p>
12349
12350 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
12351 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
12352 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
12353 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
12354 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
12355 time.</p>
12356
12357 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
12358 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
12359 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
12360 up in a few days.</p>
12361
12362       </div>
12363       <div class="tags">
12364
12365
12366         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12367
12368
12369       </div>
12370     </div>
12371     <div class="padding"></div>
12372
12373     <div class="entry">
12374       <div class="title">
12375         <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>
12376       </div>
12377       <div class="date">
12378          6th March 2010
12379       </div>
12380       <div class="body">
12381         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
12382 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
12383 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
12384 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
12385 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
12386 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
12387
12388 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
12389 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
12390 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
12391 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
12392
12393 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
12394 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
12395 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
12396 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
12397 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
12398 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
12399
12400       </div>
12401       <div class="tags">
12402
12403
12404         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12405
12406
12407       </div>
12408     </div>
12409     <div class="padding"></div>
12410
12411     <div class="entry">
12412       <div class="title">
12413         <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>
12414       </div>
12415       <div class="date">
12416         11th February 2010
12417       </div>
12418       <div class="body">
12419         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
12420 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
12421 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
12422 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
12423 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
12424 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
12425 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
12426
12427 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
12428
12429 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
12430 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
12431 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
12432 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
12433
12434       </div>
12435       <div class="tags">
12436
12437
12438         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12439
12440
12441       </div>
12442     </div>
12443     <div class="padding"></div>
12444
12445     <div class="entry">
12446       <div class="title">
12447         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
12448       </div>
12449       <div class="date">
12450         27th January 2010
12451       </div>
12452       <div class="body">
12453         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
12454 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
12455 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
12456 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
12457 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
12458 further.</p>
12459
12460 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
12461 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
12462 configured to be a server for the
12463 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
12464 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
12465 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
12466 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
12467 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
12468 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
12469 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
12470 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
12471 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
12472 and Nagios configuration.</p>
12473
12474 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
12475 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
12476 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
12477 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
12478
12479 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
12480 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
12481 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
12482 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
12483 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
12484 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
12485 the machine.</p>
12486
12487 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
12488 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
12489 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
12490 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
12491
12492 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
12493 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
12494 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
12495 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
12496 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
12497 everything is taken care of.</p>
12498
12499       </div>
12500       <div class="tags">
12501
12502
12503         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">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>.
12504
12505
12506       </div>
12507     </div>
12508     <div class="padding"></div>
12509
12510     <div class="entry">
12511       <div class="title">
12512         <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>
12513       </div>
12514       <div class="date">
12515         12th August 2009
12516       </div>
12517       <div class="body">
12518         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
12519 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
12520 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
12521 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
12522
12523 <table>
12524 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
12525 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
12526 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
12527 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
12528 </table>
12529
12530 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
12531 got these numbers:</p>
12532
12533 <table>
12534 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
12535 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
12536 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
12537 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
12538 </table>
12539
12540 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
12541
12542 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
12543 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
12544 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
12545 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
12546 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
12547
12548
12549 <table>
12550 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
12551 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
12552 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
12553 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
12554 </table>
12555
12556 <p>And with 'site:no':
12557
12558 <table>
12559 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
12560 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
12561 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
12562 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
12563 </table>
12564
12565 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
12566 numbers.</p>
12567
12568       </div>
12569       <div class="tags">
12570
12571
12572         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>.
12573
12574
12575       </div>
12576     </div>
12577     <div class="padding"></div>
12578
12579     <div class="entry">
12580       <div class="title">
12581         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
12582       </div>
12583       <div class="date">
12584          8th August 2009
12585       </div>
12586       <div class="body">
12587         <p>According to <a
12588 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
12589 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
12590 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
12591 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
12592 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
12593 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
12594 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
12595 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
12596 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
12597 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
12598
12599 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
12600 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
12601 seminar this autumn.</p>
12602
12603       </div>
12604       <div class="tags">
12605
12606
12607         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>.
12608
12609
12610       </div>
12611     </div>
12612     <div class="padding"></div>
12613
12614     <div class="entry">
12615       <div class="title">
12616         <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>
12617       </div>
12618       <div class="date">
12619         27th July 2009
12620       </div>
12621       <div class="body">
12622         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
12623 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
12624 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
12625 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
12626 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
12627 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
12628 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
12629
12630 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
12631 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
12632 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
12633
12634       </div>
12635       <div class="tags">
12636
12637
12638         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>.
12639
12640
12641       </div>
12642     </div>
12643     <div class="padding"></div>
12644
12645     <div class="entry">
12646       <div class="title">
12647         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
12648       </div>
12649       <div class="date">
12650         22nd July 2009
12651       </div>
12652       <div class="body">
12653         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
12654 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
12655 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
12656 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
12657 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
12658 the package up to date.</p>
12659
12660 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
12661 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
12662 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
12663 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
12664 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
12665 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
12666 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
12667 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
12668 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
12669 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
12670 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
12671 working on the future release.</p>
12672
12673 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
12674 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
12675
12676       </div>
12677       <div class="tags">
12678
12679
12680         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>.
12681
12682
12683       </div>
12684     </div>
12685     <div class="padding"></div>
12686
12687     <div class="entry">
12688       <div class="title">
12689         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
12690       </div>
12691       <div class="date">
12692         24th June 2009
12693       </div>
12694       <div class="body">
12695         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
12696 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
12697 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
12698 funded
12699 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
12700 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
12701 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
12702 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
12703 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
12704 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
12705
12706 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
12707 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
12708 boot:</p>
12709
12710 <ul>
12711
12712 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
12713
12714 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
12715    clock is in UTC.</li>
12716
12717 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
12718    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
12719    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
12720
12721 </ul>
12722
12723 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
12724 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
12725 Villegas</a>.
12726
12727 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
12728 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
12729 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
12730 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
12731 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
12732 using this.</p>
12733
12734 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
12735 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
12736 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
12737 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
12738 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
12739 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
12740 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
12741
12742       </div>
12743       <div class="tags">
12744
12745
12746         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>.
12747
12748
12749       </div>
12750     </div>
12751     <div class="padding"></div>
12752
12753     <div class="entry">
12754       <div class="title">
12755         <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>
12756       </div>
12757       <div class="date">
12758          2nd May 2009
12759       </div>
12760       <div class="body">
12761         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
12762 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
12763 do not yet know them.</p>
12764
12765 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
12766 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
12767 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
12768 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
12769 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
12770 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
12771 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
12772 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
12773 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
12774 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
12775 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
12776
12777 <p>The second one is
12778 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
12779 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
12780 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
12781 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
12782 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
12783 and the company behind it is running
12784 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
12785 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
12786 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
12787 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
12788 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
12789 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
12790 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
12791 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
12792
12793 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
12794 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
12795 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
12796 surrounded by today.</p>
12797
12798       </div>
12799       <div class="tags">
12800
12801
12802         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>.
12803
12804
12805       </div>
12806     </div>
12807     <div class="padding"></div>
12808
12809     <div class="entry">
12810       <div class="title">
12811         <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>
12812       </div>
12813       <div class="date">
12814         28th April 2009
12815       </div>
12816       <div class="body">
12817         <p>Julien Blache
12818 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
12819 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
12820 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
12821 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
12822 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
12823 properties.</p>
12824
12825       </div>
12826       <div class="tags">
12827
12828
12829         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>.
12830
12831
12832       </div>
12833     </div>
12834     <div class="padding"></div>
12835
12836     <div class="entry">
12837       <div class="title">
12838         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
12839       </div>
12840       <div class="date">
12841          5th April 2009
12842       </div>
12843       <div class="body">
12844         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
12845 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
12846 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
12847 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
12848 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
12849 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
12850 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
12851 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
12852
12853 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
12854 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
12855 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
12856   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
12857   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
12858
12859 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
12860 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
12861 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
12862 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
12863
12864 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
12865 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
12866 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
12867 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
12868
12869 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
12870 set -e
12871 URL="$1"
12872 SAVEFILE="$2"
12873 DURATION="$3"
12874 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
12875   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
12876   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
12877 pid=$!
12878 sleep $DURATION
12879 kill $pid
12880 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
12881
12882       </div>
12883       <div class="tags">
12884
12885
12886         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>.
12887
12888
12889       </div>
12890     </div>
12891     <div class="padding"></div>
12892
12893     <div class="entry">
12894       <div class="title">
12895         <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>
12896       </div>
12897       <div class="date">
12898         30th March 2009
12899       </div>
12900       <div class="body">
12901         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
12902 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
12903 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
12904 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
12905 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
12906 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
12907 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
12908 application.</p>
12909
12910 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
12911 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
12912 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
12913 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
12914 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
12915 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
12916 blocked from doing so.</p>
12917
12918 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
12919 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
12920 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
12921 requirements change.</p>
12922
12923 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
12924 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
12925 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
12926
12927       </div>
12928       <div class="tags">
12929
12930
12931         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>.
12932
12933
12934       </div>
12935     </div>
12936     <div class="padding"></div>
12937
12938     <div class="entry">
12939       <div class="title">
12940         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
12941       </div>
12942       <div class="date">
12943         29th March 2009
12944       </div>
12945       <div class="body">
12946         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
12947 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
12948 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
12949 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
12950 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
12951 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
12952 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
12953 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
12954 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
12955 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
12956 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
12957 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
12958 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
12959 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
12960 now. :)</p>
12961
12962       </div>
12963       <div class="tags">
12964
12965
12966         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>.
12967
12968
12969       </div>
12970     </div>
12971     <div class="padding"></div>
12972
12973     <div class="entry">
12974       <div class="title">
12975         <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>
12976       </div>
12977       <div class="date">
12978         29th March 2009
12979       </div>
12980       <div class="body">
12981         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
12982 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
12983 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
12984 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
12985 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
12986 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
12987
12988 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
12989 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
12990 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
12991 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
12992 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
12993 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
12994 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
12995 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
12996 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
12997 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
12998 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
12999 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
13000 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
13001
13002 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
13003 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
13004 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
13005 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
13006
13007 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
13008 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
13009
13010 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
13011 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
13012 new IETF work group?</p>
13013
13014       </div>
13015       <div class="tags">
13016
13017
13018         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>.
13019
13020
13021       </div>
13022     </div>
13023     <div class="padding"></div>
13024
13025     <div class="entry">
13026       <div class="title">
13027         <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>
13028       </div>
13029       <div class="date">
13030         28th February 2009
13031       </div>
13032       <div class="body">
13033         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
13034 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
13035 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
13036 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
13037 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
13038 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
13039 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
13040 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
13041 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
13042 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
13043 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
13044 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
13045 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
13046 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
13047 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
13048 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
13049 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
13050 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
13051 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
13052 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
13053 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
13054 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
13055 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
13056 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
13057 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
13058 machine.</p>
13059
13060 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
13061 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
13062 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
13063 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
13064 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
13065 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
13066 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
13067
13068 <pre>
13069 use LWP::Simple;
13070 use POSIX;
13071 use WWW::Mechanize;
13072 use Date::Parse;
13073 [...]
13074 sub get_support_info {
13075     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
13076     my $str;
13077
13078     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
13079         # fetch website from Dell support
13080         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";
13081         my $webpage = get($url);
13082         return undef unless ($webpage);
13083
13084         my $daysleft = -1;
13085         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
13086         foreach my $line (@lines) {
13087             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
13088             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
13089             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
13090
13091             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
13092             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
13093             my $lastend = "";
13094             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
13095                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
13096
13097                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
13098                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
13099                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
13100                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
13101                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
13102                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
13103                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
13104             }
13105             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
13106             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
13107                 if ($lastend lt $today);
13108         }
13109     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
13110         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
13111         my $url =
13112             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
13113         $mech->get($url);
13114         my $fields = {
13115             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
13116             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
13117             'country' => 'NO',
13118             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
13119             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
13120         };
13121         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
13122                             fields      => $fields );
13123         # Next step is screen scraping
13124         my $content = $mech->content();
13125
13126         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
13127         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
13128         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
13129         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
13130
13131         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
13132
13133         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
13134             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
13135                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
13136             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
13137             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
13138                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
13139             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
13140                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
13141
13142             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
13143
13144             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
13145                 if ($end lt $today);
13146         }
13147     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
13148         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
13149         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
13150         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
13151             my $content =
13152                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
13153             if ($content) {
13154                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
13155                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
13156                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
13157                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
13158
13159                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
13160                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
13161
13162                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
13163
13164                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
13165                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
13166                     if ($end lt $today);
13167             }
13168         }
13169     }
13170     return $str;
13171 }
13172 </pre>
13173
13174 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
13175 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
13176 from dmidecode.</p>
13177
13178 <pre>
13179 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
13180                        "447707-B21");
13181 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
13182 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
13183                        "1234567");
13184 </pre>
13185
13186 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
13187 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
13188
13189 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
13190 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
13191 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
13192 do so.</p>
13193
13194       </div>
13195       <div class="tags">
13196
13197
13198         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>.
13199
13200
13201       </div>
13202     </div>
13203     <div class="padding"></div>
13204
13205     <div class="entry">
13206       <div class="title">
13207         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
13208       </div>
13209       <div class="date">
13210         20th February 2009
13211       </div>
13212       <div class="body">
13213         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
13214 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
13215 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
13216 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
13217 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
13218 the "missing" computer.</p>
13219
13220 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
13221 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
13222 code blocks as defined in the
13223 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
13224 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
13225 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
13226 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
13227 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
13228 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
13229 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
13230 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
13231 codes.</p>
13232
13233 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
13234 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
13235 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
13236 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
13237 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
13238 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
13239
13240 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
13241 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
13242 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
13243 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
13244 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
13245 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
13246 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
13247 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
13248 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
13249 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
13250
13251 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
13252 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
13253 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
13254
13255       </div>
13256       <div class="tags">
13257
13258
13259         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>.
13260
13261
13262       </div>
13263     </div>
13264     <div class="padding"></div>
13265
13266     <div class="entry">
13267       <div class="title">
13268         <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>
13269       </div>
13270       <div class="date">
13271         17th January 2009
13272       </div>
13273       <div class="body">
13274         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
13275 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
13276 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
13277 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
13278 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
13279 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
13280 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
13281 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
13282 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
13283 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
13284 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
13285 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
13286 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
13287 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
13288
13289 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
13290 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
13291 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
13292 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
13293 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
13294 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
13295 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
13296 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
13297 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
13298 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
13299 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
13300 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
13301 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
13302 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
13303 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
13304 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
13305 playing when the download is done.</p>
13306
13307 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
13308 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
13309 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
13310 too.</p>
13311
13312 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
13313 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
13314 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
13315 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
13316
13317       </div>
13318       <div class="tags">
13319
13320
13321         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>.
13322
13323
13324       </div>
13325     </div>
13326     <div class="padding"></div>
13327
13328     <div class="entry">
13329       <div class="title">
13330         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
13331       </div>
13332       <div class="date">
13333         28th December 2008
13334       </div>
13335       <div class="body">
13336         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
13337 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
13338 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
13339 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
13340 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
13341 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
13342 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
13343 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
13344 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
13345 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
13346 source, sink and mixer applications and
13347 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
13348 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
13349 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
13350 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
13351 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
13352 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
13353 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
13354 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
13355 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
13356
13357 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
13358 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
13359 larger stick as well.</p>
13360
13361       </div>
13362       <div class="tags">
13363
13364
13365         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>.
13366
13367
13368       </div>
13369     </div>
13370     <div class="padding"></div>
13371
13372     <div class="entry">
13373       <div class="title">
13374         <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>
13375       </div>
13376       <div class="date">
13377          7th December 2008
13378       </div>
13379       <div class="body">
13380         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
13381 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
13382 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
13383 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
13384 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
13385 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
13386 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
13387 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
13388
13389 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
13390 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
13391 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
13392 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
13393 of these cards.</p>
13394
13395       </div>
13396       <div class="tags">
13397
13398
13399         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>.
13400
13401
13402       </div>
13403     </div>
13404     <div class="padding"></div>
13405
13406     <div class="entry">
13407       <div class="title">
13408         <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>
13409       </div>
13410       <div class="date">
13411         25th November 2008
13412       </div>
13413       <div class="body">
13414         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
13415 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
13416 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
13417 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
13418 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
13419 notes are available on
13420 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
13421 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
13422 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
13423 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
13424 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
13425 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
13426 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
13427 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
13428 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
13429
13430 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
13431 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
13432
13433       </div>
13434       <div class="tags">
13435
13436
13437         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>.
13438
13439
13440       </div>
13441     </div>
13442     <div class="padding"></div>
13443
13444     <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>
13445     <div id="sidebar">
13446
13447
13448
13449 <h2>Archive</h2>
13450 <ul>
13451
13452 <li>2013
13453 <ul>
13454
13455 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (10)</a></li>
13456
13457 </ul></li>
13458
13459 <li>2012
13460 <ul>
13461
13462 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
13463
13464 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
13465
13466 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
13467
13468 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
13469
13470 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
13471
13472 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
13473
13474 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
13475
13476 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
13477
13478 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
13479
13480 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
13481
13482 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
13483
13484 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
13485
13486 </ul></li>
13487
13488 <li>2011
13489 <ul>
13490
13491 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
13492
13493 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
13494
13495 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
13496
13497 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
13498
13499 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
13500
13501 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
13502
13503 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
13504
13505 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
13506
13507 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
13508
13509 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
13510
13511 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
13512
13513 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
13514
13515 </ul></li>
13516
13517 <li>2010
13518 <ul>
13519
13520 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
13521
13522 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
13523
13524 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
13525
13526 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
13527
13528 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
13529
13530 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
13531
13532 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
13533
13534 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
13535
13536 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
13537
13538 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
13539
13540 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
13541
13542 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
13543
13544 </ul></li>
13545
13546 <li>2009
13547 <ul>
13548
13549 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
13550
13551 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
13552
13553 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
13554
13555 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
13556
13557 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
13558
13559 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
13560
13561 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
13562
13563 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
13564
13565 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
13566
13567 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
13568
13569 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
13570
13571 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
13572
13573 </ul></li>
13574
13575 <li>2008
13576 <ul>
13577
13578 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
13579
13580 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
13581
13582 </ul></li>
13583
13584 </ul>
13585
13586
13587
13588 <h2>Tags</h2>
13589 <ul>
13590
13591  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
13592
13593  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
13594
13595  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
13596
13597  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
13598
13599  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (5)</a></li>
13600
13601  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
13602
13603  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
13604
13605  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (68)</a></li>
13606
13607  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (118)</a></li>
13608
13609  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (9)</a></li>
13610
13611  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (7)</a></li>
13612
13613  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
13614
13615  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (174)</a></li>
13616
13617  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
13618
13619  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
13620
13621  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (10)</a></li>
13622
13623  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (9)</a></li>
13624
13625  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (32)</a></li>
13626
13627  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (17)</a></li>
13628
13629  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
13630
13631  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
13632
13633  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
13634
13635  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
13636
13637  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (219)</a></li>
13638
13639  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (148)</a></li>
13640
13641  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (6)</a></li>
13642
13643  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
13644
13645  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (41)</a></li>
13646
13647  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (61)</a></li>
13648
13649  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
13650
13651  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
13652
13653  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
13654
13655  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (6)</a></li>
13656
13657  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
13658
13659  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
13660
13661  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
13662
13663  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (28)</a></li>
13664
13665  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
13666
13667  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
13668
13669  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (39)</a></li>
13670
13671  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
13672
13673  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (5)</a></li>
13674
13675  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (12)</a></li>
13676
13677  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
13678
13679  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (7)</a></li>
13680
13681  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (35)</a></li>
13682
13683  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
13684
13685  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (26)</a></li>
13686
13687 </ul>
13688
13689
13690     </div>
13691     <p style="text-align: right">
13692  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.4</a>
13693 </p>
13694
13695   </body>
13696 </html>