- <title>Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Tue, 25 Jun 2013 11:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
-perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
-working. One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
-needed to get the hardware on my computer working. Most often this
-affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
-controller or the ethernet card. Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
-<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
-including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
-process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
-they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
-debian packages. Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
-
-<p><pre>
-# isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
-info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
-info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
-info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
-info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
-info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
-firmware-ipw2x00
-firmware-ipw2x00
-Preconfiguring packages ...
-Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
-(Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
-Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
-Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
-#
-</pre></p>
-
-<p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
-printed instead:</p>
-
-<p><pre>
-# isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
-info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules. exiting
-#
-</pre></p>
-
-<p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
-me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
-
-<p>So, how does it work? It look at the set of currently loaded
-kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
-the firmware files listed in the module meta-information. Next, it
-download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
-the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
-requested firmware file. If the package is in the non-free section, a
-non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
-<tt>apt-get install</tt>. The end result is a slightly better working
-machine.</p>
-
-<p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
-this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
-finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
-#655507</a>. There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
-firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
-from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
+ <title>Debian Edu interview: Dominik George</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Dominik_George.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Dominik_George.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Wed, 25 Dec 2013 13:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
+project</a> consist of both newcomers and old timers, and this time I
+was able to get an interview with a newcomer in the project who showed
+up on the IRC channel a few weeks ago to let us know about his
+successful installation of Debian Edu Wheezy in his School. Say hello
+to <a href="https://www.ohloh.net/accounts/Natureshadow">Dominik
+George</a>.</p>
+
+<!-- http://www.dominik-george.de/images/foto.jpg -->
+
+<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
+
+<p>I am a 23 year-old student from Germany who has spent half of his
+life with open source. In "real life", I am, as already mentioned, a
+student in the fields of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering,
+Information Technologies and Anglistics. Due to my (only partially
+voluntary) huge engagement in the open source world, these things are
+a bit vacant right now however.</p>
+
+<p>I also have been working as a project teacher at a Gymasnium
+(public school) for various years now. I took up that work some time
+around 2005 when still attending that school myself and have continued
+it until today. I also had been running the (kind of very advanced)
+network of that school together with a team of very interested and
+talented students in the age of 11 to 15 years, who took the chance to
+learn a lot about open source and networking before I left the school
+to help building another school's informational education concept from
+scratch.</p>
+
+<p>That said, one might see me as a kind of "glue" between school kids
+and the elderly of teachers as well as between the open source
+ecosystem and the (even more complex) educational ecosystem.</p>
+
+<p>When I am not busy with open source or education, I like Geocaching
+and cycling.</p>
+
+<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
+project?</strong></p>
+
+<p>I think that happened some time around 2009 when I first attended
+<a href="http://www.froscon.org">FrOSCon</a> and visited the project
+booth. I think I wasn't too interested back then because I used to
+have an attitude of disliking software that does too much stuff on its
+own. Maybe I was too inexperienced to realise the upsides of an
+"out-of-the-box" solution ;).</p>
+
+<p>The first time I actively talked to Skolelinux people was at
+<a href="http://www.openrheinruhr.de">OpenRheinRuhr</a> 2011 when the
+BiscuIT project, a home-grewn software used by my school for various
+really cool things from timetables and class contact lists to lunch
+ordering, student ID card printing and project elections first got to
+a stage where it could have been published. I asked the Skolelinux
+guys running the booth if the project were interested in it and gave a
+small demonstration, but there wasn't any real feedback and the guys
+seemed rather uninterested.</p>
+
+<p>After I left the school where I developed the software, it got
+mostly lost, but I am now reimplementing it for my new school. I have
+reusability and compatibility in mind, and I hop there will be a new
+basis for contributing it to the Skolelinux project ;)!</p>
+
+<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
+Edu?</strong></p>
+
+<p>The most important advantage seems to be that it "just
+works". After overcoming some minor (but still very annoying) glitches
+in the installer, I got a fully functional, working school network,
+without the month-long hassle I experienced when setting all that up
+from scratch in earlier years. And above that, it rocked - I didn't
+have any real hardware at hand, because the school was just founded
+and has no money whatsoever, so I installed a combined server (main
+server, terminal services and workstation) in a VM on my personal
+notebook, bridging the LTSP network interface to the ethernet port,
+and then PXE-booted the Windows notebooks that were lying around from
+it. I could use 8 clients without any performance issues, by using a
+tiny little VM on a tiny little notebook. I think that's enough to say
+that it rocks!</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, there are marketing reasons. Life's bad, and so no
+politician will ever permit a setup described as "Debian, an universal
+operating system, with some really cool educational tools" while they
+will be jsut fine with "Skolelinux, a single-purpose solution for your
+school network", even if both turn out to be the very same thing (yes,
+this is unfair towards the Skolelinux project, and must not be taken
+too seriously - you get the idea, anyway).</p>
+
+<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
+Edu?</strong></p>
+
+<p>I have not been involved with Skolelinux long enough to really
+answer this question in a fair way. Thus, please allow me to put it in
+other words: "What do you expect from Skolelinux to keep liking it?" I
+can list a few points about that:</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+ <li>always strive to get all things integrated into Debian upstream
+ <li>be open to discussion about changes and the like, even with newcomers
+ <li>be helpful at being helpful ;)
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>I'm really sorry I cannot say much more about that :(!</p>
+
+<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
+
+<p>First of all, all software I use is free and open. I have abandoned
+all non-free software (except for firmware on my darned phone) this
+year.</p>
+
+<p>I run Debian GNU/Linux on all PC systems I use. On that, I mostly
+run text tools. I use
+<a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm">mksh</a> as shell,
+<a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/jupp.htm">jupp</a> as very advanced
+text editor (I even got the developer to help me write a script/macro
+based full-featured student management software with the two),
+<a href="http://mcabber.com/">mcabber</a> for XMPP and
+<a href="http://www.irssi.org/">irssi</a> for IRC. For that overly
+coloured world called the WWW, I use
+<a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/">Iceweasel
+(Firefox)</a>. Oh, and <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</a> for
+e-mail.</p>
+
+<p>However, while I am personally aware of the fact that text tools
+are more efficient and powerful than anything else, I also use (or at
+least operate) some tools that are suitable to bring open source to
+kids. One of these things is <a href="http://jappix.org/">Jappix</a>,
+which I already introduced to some kids even before they got aware of
+Facebook, making them see for themselves that they do not need
+Facebook now ;).</p>
+
+<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
+get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
+
+<p>Well, that's a two-sided thing. One side is what I believe, and one
+side is what I have experienced.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that the right strategy is showing them the benefits. But
+that won't work out as long as the acceptance of free alternatives
+grows globally. What I mean is that if all the kids are almost forced
+to use Windows, Facebook, Skype, you name it at home, they will not
+see why they would want to use alternatives at school. I have seen
+students take seat in front of a fully-functional, modern Debian
+desktop that could do anything their Windows at home could do, and
+they jsut refused to use it because "Linux sucks". It is something
+that makes the council of our city spend around 600000 € to buy
+software - not including hardware, mind you - for operating school
+networks, and for installing a system that, as has been proved, does
+not work. For those of you readers who are good at maths, have you
+already found out how many lives could have been saved with that money
+if we had instead used it to bring education to parts of the world
+that need it? I have, and found it to be nothing less dramatic than
+plain criminal.</p>
+
+<p>That said, the only feasible way appears to be the bottom up
+method. We have to bring free software to kids and parents. I have
+founded an association named
+<a href="https://www.teckids.org">Teckids</a> here in Germany that does
+just that. We organise several events for kids and adolescents in the
+area of free and open source software, for example the
+<a href="http://kids.froscon.org">FrogLabs</a>, which share staff with
+Teckids and are the youth programme of
+<a href="http://www.froscon.org">the Free and Open Source Software
+Conference (FrOSCon)</a>. We do a lot more than most other conferences
+- this year, we first offered the FrogLabs as a holiday camp for kids
+aged 10 to 16. It was a huge success, with approx. 30 kids taking part
+and learning with and about free software through a whole weekend. All
+of us had a lot of fun, and the results were really exciting.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from that, we are preparing a campaign that is supposed to bring
+the message of free alternatives to stuff kids use every day to them and
+their parents, e.g. the use of Jabber / Jappix instead of Facebook and
+Skype. To make that possible, we are planning to get together a team of
+clever kids who understand very well what their peers need and can bring
+it across to them. So we will have a peer-driven network of adolescents
+who teach each other and collect feedback from the community of minors.
+We then take that feedback and our own experience to work closely with
+open source projects, such as Skolelinux or Jappix, at improving their
+software in a way that makes it more and more attractive for the target
+group. At least I hope that we will have good cooperation with
+Skolelinux in the future ;)!</p>
+
+<p>So in conclusion, what I believe is that, if it weren't for the world
+being so bad, it should be very clear to the political decision makers
+that the only way to go nowadays is free software for various reasons,
+but I have learnt that the only way that seems to work is bottom up.</p>
+
+<!--
+
+> * Who should be interviewed with this questions in the future?
+
+That's probably the hardest question of them all, as I do not know the
+community. However, I would be willing to do the following:
+
+ <li>Run an interview with a German headteacher who is very open to
+ free software, and also prefers it, but cannot really use it because
+ of the decision makers above;
+ <li>Run interviews with some kids, both with and without previous
+ knowledge about free software
+
+If that is wanted, just let me know ;).
+
+-->
projects / homepage.git / blobdiff