- <div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a></div>
- <div class="date">11th June 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
-the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
-or on first boot from the hard disk. I've seen it once in a while the
-last few years, but only recently understood the cause. I've seen it
-on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
-The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops. The system to
-control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
-turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead. I do
-not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
-i915 driver used by the
-<a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
-EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
-
-<p>The problem can be worked around two ways. Either by adding
-i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
-/etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
-option when it load the i915 kernel module. On Debian and Ubuntu, it
-can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
-
-<pre>
-echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
-update-initramfs -u -k all
-</pre>
-
-<p>Since March 2012 there is
-<a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
-mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
-hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
-brightness setting automatically. To use it, one need to add a row in
-<a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
-intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
-<tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
-struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
-number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
-number.</p>
-
-<p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
--vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
-
-<p><pre>
-00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
- 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
- (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
- Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
- Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
- ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
- <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
- Latency: 0
- Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
- Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
- Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
- Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
- Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
- Capabilities: <access denied>
- Kernel driver in use: i915
-</pre></p>
-
-<p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
-
-<p><pre>
-struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
- ...
- /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
- { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
- ...
-}
-</pre></p>
-
-<p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
-<tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
-invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
-<a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
-(at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
-developers. But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
-yet shown up in
-<a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
-web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
-emails from non-subscribers. Because of this, I sent my patch also to
-the Debian bug tracking system instead as
-<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
-sure the patch is not lost.</p>
-
-<p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
-with this problem working properly with Linux. If you use Gnome, your
-worries should be over at this point. But if you use KDE, there is
-something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
-the screen during login. I've reported it to Debian as
-<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
-have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
-this. Perhaps you can help? Perhaps you know what the Gnome
-developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
-developers? Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
-during login? If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
-you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
-</div>
- <div class="tags">
-
-
- 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>.
-
-
- </div>
- </div>
- <div class="padding"></div>
-
- <div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Third alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a></div>
- <div class="date">10th June 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><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>
-</div>
- <div class="tags">
-
-
- 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>.
-
-
- </div>
- </div>
- <div class="padding"></div>
-
- <div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_there_a_PHP_expert_in_the_building___Debian_Edu_need_help_.html">Is there a PHP expert in the building? Debian Edu need help!</a></div>
- <div class="date"> 5th June 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
-We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
-hope to get released soon. The two problems require some with PHP
-skills, and we seem to lack anyone with both time and PHP skills in
-the project:
-
-<ol>
-
-<li>It is impossible to log into the slbackup web interface
- (slbackup-php) using the root user and password. This is
- <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">BTS report #700257</a>.
- This used to work, but stopped working some time since Squeeze.
- Perhaps some obsolete PHP feature was used?</li>
-
-<li>It is not possible to "mass import" user lists in Gosa, neither
- using ldif nor using CSV files. The feature was disabled after a
- major rewrite of Gosa, and need to be ported to the new system.
- This is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">BTS report
- #698840</a>.</li>
-
-</ol>
-
-<p>If you can help us, please join us on IRC
-(<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
-irc.debian.org</a>) and provide patches via the BTS.</p>
-</div>
- <div class="tags">
-
-
- 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>.
-
-
- </div>
- </div>
- <div class="padding"></div>
-
- <div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</a></div>
- <div class="date"> 4th June 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>It has been a while since my last English
-<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
-interview last November. But the developers and translators are still
-pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
-time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
-in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
-professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
-mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
-probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
-
-<p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
-and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
-packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
-
-<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
-project?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
-<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
-Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
-then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
-manual.
-
-<p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
-virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
-shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
-how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
-
-<p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
-ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
-by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>. What pleased
-me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
-there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
-to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
-artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
-<a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
-movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
-<a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
-
-<p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
-<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
-Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
-beautiful project.</p>
-
-<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
-Edu?</strong></p>
-
-<p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
-community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
-fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
-
-<p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
-distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
-of educational free software.</p>
-
-<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
-Edu?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
-project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
-not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
-solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
-is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
-
-<p>One can find support from a company by looking at
-<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
-wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
-companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
-Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
-for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
-consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
-support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
-most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
-scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice. I am
-also using the mathematical software
-<a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about">Scilab</a> and
-<a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html">Sage</a> (built from
-source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
-
-<p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
-using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
-statistics?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
-university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/">R</a> and
-Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
-geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
-
-<ul>
-
-<li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
-<a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig">kig</a> to do
-constructions in planar geometry
-
-<li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
-to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
-groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
-
-</ul>
-
-<p>I like also
-<a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
-provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
-<a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
-
-<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
-get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
-
-<p>My suggestions would be to</p>
-
-<ul>
-
-<li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
-
-<li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
- well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
- OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
-
-<li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
-
-<li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
- system.</li>
-
-</ul>
-</div>
- <div class="tags">
-
-
- 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>.
-
-
- </div>
- </div>
- <div class="padding"></div>
-