- <title>Third alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Mon, 10 Jun 2013 22:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
-today. This is the release announcement:</p>
-
-<p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
-2013-06-10</strong></p>
-
-<p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
-alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
-
-<p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
-
-<p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
-Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
-out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
-network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
-services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
-and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
-environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
-the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
-installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
-database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
-directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
-desktop contains
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
-than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
-the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
-and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
-
-<p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
-this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
-Squeeze release.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
-
-<ul>
-
-<li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
-<li>Updated libxv (DSA-2674), libxvmc (DSA-2675), libxfixes (DSA-2676), libxrender (DSA-2677), mesa (DSA-2678), xserver-xorg-video-openchrome (DSA-2679), libxt (DSA-2680), libxcursor (DSA-2681), libxext (DSA-2682), libxi (DSA-2683), libxrandr (DSA-2684), libxp (DSA-2685), libxcb (DSA-2686), libfs (DSA-2687), libxres (DSA-2688), libxtst (DSA-2689), libxxf86dga (DSA-2690), libxinerama (DSA-2691), libxxf86vm (DSA-2692), libx11 (DSA-2693), chromium-browser (DSA-2695), gnutls26 (DSA-2697), wireshark (DSA-2700), krb5 (DSA-2701), telepathy-gabble (DSA-2702) and subversion (DSA-2703).
-<li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
-<li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
-<li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
-
-</ul>
-
-<p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
-
-<ul>
-
-<li>The subnet-change script is now able to change all files needing a change on the main-server when changing the IP network used.
-<li>Updated translation of the installation.
-<li>New Romanian translation.
-<li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
-<li>Fix roaming workstation setup (Closed in libpam-mklocaluser/0.8, libpam-mklocaluser/0.8~deb7u1: #706753: libpam-mklocaluser: Fail to create local user during first login).
-<li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
-<li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
-<li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
-<li>More testsuite tests.
-<li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
-<li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
-
-<li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
-LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
-
-<li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
-them up with GOsa².</li>
-
-<li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
-
-<li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
-slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
-entered password). </li>
-
-</ul>
-
-<p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
-
-<ul>
-
-<li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
-
-<li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
-available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
-missing import feature).</li>
-
-<li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
-
-<li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
-own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
-unfixed.</li>
-
-</ul>
-
-<p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
-
-<p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
-
-<ul>
-
-<li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
-
-<li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
-
-<li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
-
-</ul>
-
-<p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
-<br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
-
-<p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
-
-<p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
+ <title>Oslo community mesh network - with NUUG and Hackeriet at Hausmania</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Fri, 11 Oct 2013 14:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
+networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
+areas, depending on the radio technology used. Normal wifi equipment
+can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
+successful examples like
+<a href="http://www.freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a> and
+<a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network</a>
+(see
+<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece">wikipedia
+for a large list</a>) around the globe. To give you an idea how it
+work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
+can be seen from their
+<a href="http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html">dynamically
+updated node graph and map</a>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
+automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
+There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
+and that is the main topic of this blog post.</p>
+
+<p>I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
+to do it as part of my involvement with the <a
+href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member organisation</a> community, and
+my recent involvement in
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the Freedombox project</a>
+finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
+Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
+when possible, given that most communication between people are
+between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
+communication patterns). It also allow people to communicate without
+any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
+private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
+important over the years.</p>
+
+<p>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
+working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
+<a href="http://hackeriet.no/">Hackeriet</a> at Husmania. They seem to
+have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
+<a href="http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page">the Oslo
+Freifunk project</a>, but that effort is now dead and the people
+behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
+<a href="http://meshfx.org/trac">meshfx</a>. Unfortunately the wiki
+site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
+reflect this fact, so the old project page can't be updated to point to
+the new project. A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
+from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks. I
+came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
+speakers about this talk (from
+<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY">youtube</a>):</p>
+
+<p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
+
+<p>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
+There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
+figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but
+given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
+is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
+completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
+batman-adv for now. It sure help me to know that the very cool
+<a href="http://www.servalproject.org/">Serval project in Australia</a>
+is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
+organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
+less industrialized communities. Check out this cool video presenting
+that project (from
+<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qNfzJCQOA">youtube</a>):</p>
+
+<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30qNfzJCQOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
+
+<p>According to the wikipedia page on
+<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network">Wireless
+mesh network</a> there are around 70 competing schemes for routing
+packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
+B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
+based community mesh networks.</p>
+
+<p>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer 2
+(as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
+network. One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
+vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
+computer. The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
+least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up. A
+<a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide">good
+introduction</a> is available from the Open Mesh project. These are
+the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:</p>
+
+<p><table>
+<tr><th>Setting</th><th>Value</th></tr>
+<tr><td>Protocol / kernel module</td><td>batman-adv</td></tr>
+<tr><td>ESSID</td><td>meshfx@hackeriet</td></tr>
+<td>Channel / Frequency</td><td>11 / 2462</td></tr>
+<td>Cell ID</td><td>02:BA:00:00:00:01</td>
+</table></p>
+
+<p>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
+in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers. (See a nice post from
+VillageTelco about
+"<a href="http://tiebing.blogspot.no/2009/12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html">Information
+about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!</a>
+for details.) When these settings are activated and you have some
+other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
+network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
+any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)</p>
+
+<p>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
+but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
+firmware supporting batman-adv. If anyone know how to use that old
+wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.</p>
+
+<p>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
+us on IRC, either channel
+<a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace">#oslohackerspace</a>
+or <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug">#nuug</a> on
+irc.freenode.net.</p>
+
+<p>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
+research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
+and Innovation called
+<a href="http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-2008.pdf">The
+reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks</a> and elsewhere
+learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
+Grünerløkka in Oslo. So mesh networks are also interesting for
+commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
+to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
+know have closed down the experiment. Perhaps Telenor or others would
+be interested in a cooperation?</p>
+
+<p><strong>Update 2013-10-12</strong>: I was just
+<a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2013-October/005900.html">told
+by the Serval project developers</a> that they no longer use
+batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
+mesh system.</p>