+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_release__beta_1__of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second beta release (beta 1) of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a></div>
+ <div class="date">22nd August 2013</div>
+ <div class="body"><p>The second wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
+today, slightly delayed because of some bugs in the initial Windows
+integration fixes . This is the release announcement:</p>
+
+<p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b1 released 2013-08-22</strong></p>
+
+<p>These are the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
+7.1+edu0~b1, 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 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 sixth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically this
+is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the Squeeze
+release.</p>
+
+<p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
+versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
+release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
+deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
+gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined
+<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/08/msg00127.html">on
+the mailing list</a>. (2) Accept the new version of gosa.conf and
+replace both contained admin password placeholders with the password
+hashes found in the old one (backup copy!). In both cases every user
+need to change their their password to make sure a password is set for
+CIFS access to their home directory.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>Added ssh askpass packages to default installation, to ensure ssh
+ work also without a attached tty.</li>
+<li>Add the command-not-found package to the default installation to
+ make it easier to figure out where to find missing command line
+ tools. Please note, that the command 'update-command-not-found'
+ has to be run as root to actually make it useful (internet access
+ required).</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>Adjusted the USB stick ISO image build to include every tool
+needed for desktop=xfce installations.</li>
+<li>Adjust thin-client-server task to work when installing from USB
+stick ISO image.</li>
+<li>Made new grub artwork (changed png from indexed to RGB format).</li>
+<li>Minor cleanup in the CUPS setup.</li>
+<li>Make sure that bootstrapping of the Samba domain really happens
+ during installation of the main server and adjust SID handling to
+ cope with this.</li>
+<li>Make Samba passwords changeable (again) via GOsa².</li>
+<li>Fix generation of LM and NT password hashes via GOsa² to avoid
+ empty password hashes.</li>
+<li>Adapted Samba machine domain joining to latest change in the
+ smbldap-tools Perl package, fixing bugs blocking Windows machines
+ from joining the Samba domain.</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>KDE fails to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
+ not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
+<li>Chromium also fails to use the proxy when using the KDE desktop
+ (using the KDE configuration).</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-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
+
+<li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso .</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 1e357f80b55e703523f2254adde6d78b
+<br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 7157f9be5fd27c7694d713c6ecfed61c3edda3b2</p>
+
+<p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
+<li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
+<li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso .</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 7a8408ead59cf7e3cef25afb6e91590b
+<br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: f1817c031f02790d5edb3bfa0dcf8451088ad119</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/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a></div>
+ <div class="date">18th August 2013</div>
+ <div class="body"><p>Earlier, I reported about
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
+problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>. Friday I was
+told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away. And as
+there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
+today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
+currently on the disk.</p>
+
+<p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
+<a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
+(aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
+according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
+disks. I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
+booted the ISO from a USB stick. The disk was recognized, but the
+program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
+to insert any Intel firmware. So no change, and the disk is still
+unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
+working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware. No idea how likely
+that is. Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness. I
+got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
+the broken disks.</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/90_percent_done_with_the_Norwegian_draft_translation_of_Free_Culture.html">90 percent done with the Norwegian draft translation of Free Culture</a></div>
+ <div class="date"> 2nd August 2013</div>
+ <div class="body"><p>It has been a while since my last update. Since last summer, I
+have worked on a Norwegian
+<a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
+<a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
+to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright
+law. Yesterday, I finally broken the 90% mark, when counting the
+number of strings to translate. Due to real life constraints, I have
+not had time to work on it since March, but when the summer broke out,
+I found time to work on it again. Still lots of work left, but the
+first draft is nearing completion. I created a graph to show the
+progress of the translation:</p>
+
+<p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
+
+<p>When the first draft is done, the translated text need to be
+proof read, and the remaining formatting problems with images and SVG
+drawings need to be fixed. There are probably also some index entries
+missing that need to be added. This can be done by comparing the
+index entries listed in the SiSU version of the book, or comparing the
+English docbook version with the paper version. Last, the colophon
+page with ISBN numbers etc need to be wrapped up before the release is
+done. I should also figure out how to get correct Norwegian sorting
+of the index pages. All docbook tools I have tried so far (xmlto,
+docbook-xsl, dblatex) get the order of symbols and the special
+Norwegian letters ÆØÅ wrong.</p>
+
+<p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
+knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
+with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
+translation and proof reading. And I would like the figures to be
+redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them. Any SVG master
+around? There are also some legal terms that are unfamiliar to me.
+If you want to help, please get in touch with me, and check out the
+project files currently available from
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
+
+<p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
+the updated
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
+and
+<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
+are published on github. The HTML version is published as well, but
+github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
+saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
+</div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ 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>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First beta release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a></div>
+ <div class="date">27th July 2013</div>
+ <div class="body"><p>The first wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
+today. This is the release announcement:</p>
+
+<p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b0 released
+2013-07-27</strong></p>
+
+<p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
+7.1+edu0~b0, 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 fifth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
+this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
+Squeeze release.</p>
+
+<p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
+versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
+release.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>Switched roaming workstation profiles from wicd to network-manager
+ for network configuration, as wicd didn't work any more.</li>
+<li>Changed version numbers of patched gosa and libpam-mklocaluser
+ packages to make sure our locally patched versions will be replaced
+ by the official packages when they are released from Debian. Those
+ installing alpha version need to reinstall or manually downgrade gosa
+ and libpam-mklocaluser.</li>
+<li>Added bluetooth tools to the default desktop (bluedevil, blueman).</li>
+<li>Added tools for sharing the desktop on KDE (krdc, krfb).</li>
+<li>Added valgrind to the default installation for easier debugging of
+ crash bugs.</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>Fixed artwork package to work with gnome, no longer break
+ desktop=gnome installations.</li>
+<li>Adjusted installer to now work when forced to use a proxy with the
+ netinst CD.</li>
+<li>Fixed code detecting and setting/loading hardware specific
+ setup/firmware to work more robust out of the box.</li>
+<li>Adjusted Kerberos setup to detect realm and server settings at
+ install time instead of dynamically at run time. This avoid a crash
+ with krb5-auth-dialog on diskless workstations without a DNS name.</li>
+<li>Worked around misfeature in network-manager not calling the dhclient
+ exit hooks, causing automatic proxy configuration and automatic host
+ name setting at run time to work again.</li>
+<li>Fixed feature setting the default Iceweasel start page from URL
+ fetched from LDAP, to allow schools to set the global default by
+ updating the dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no LDAP object.</li>
+<li>Changed default host name on all networked machines to be unique
+ (generated from MAC or reverse DNS) after boot.</li>
+<li>Adjusted partition sizes to make sure they are big enough.</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>Grub is missing the new artwork.</li>
+<li>KDE fail to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
+ not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
+<li>Chromium also fail to use the proxy.</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-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
+
+<li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso .</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 55d5de9765b6dccd5d9ec33cf1a07109
+<br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 996a1d9517740e4d627d100de2d12b23dd545a3f</p>
+
+<p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
+<li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
+<li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso .</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>The MD5SUM of this image is: d8f0818c51a78d357de794066f289f69
+<br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 49185ca354e8d0543240423746924f76a6cee733</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/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a></div>
<div class="date">17th July 2013</div>
</div>
<div class="padding"></div>
- <div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a></div>
- <div class="date">25th June 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><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>
-</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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
-
-
- </div>
- </div>
- <div class="padding"></div>
-
- <div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_value_of_a_good_distro_wide_test_suite___.html">The value of a good distro wide test suite...</a></div>
- <div class="date">22nd June 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>In the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
-Skolelinux</a> project, we include a post-installation test suite,
-which check that services are running, working, and return the
-expected results. It runs automatically just after the first boot on
-test installations (using test ISOs), but not on production
-installations (using non-test ISOs). It test that the LDAP service is
-operating, Kerberos is responding, DNS is replying, file systems are
-online resizable, etc, etc. And it check that the PXE service is
-configured, which is the topic of this post.</p>
-
-<p>The last week I've fixed the DVD and USB stick ISOs for our Debian
-Edu Wheezy release. These ISOs are supposed to be able to install a
-complete system without any Internet connection, but for that to
-happen all the needed packages need to be on them. Thanks to our test
-suite, I discovered that we had forgotten to adjust our PXE setup to
-cope with the new names and paths used by the netboot d-i packages.
-When Internet connectivity was available, the installer fall back to
-using wget to fetch d-i boot images, but when offline it require
-working packages to get it working. And ad the packages changed name
-from debian-installer-6.0-netboot-$arch to
-debian-installer-7.0-netboot-$arch, we no longer pulled in the
-packages during installation. Without our test suite, I suspect we
-would never have discovered this before release. Now it is fixed
-right after we got the ISOs operational.</p>
-
-<p>Another by-product of the test suite is that we can ask system
-administrators with problems getting Debian Edu to work, to run the
-test suite using <tt>/usr/sbin/debian-edu-test-install</tt> and see if
-any errors are detected. This usually pinpoint the subsystem causing
-the problem.</p>
-
-<p>If you want to help us help kids learn how to share and create,
-please join us on
-<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
-irc.debian.org</a> and the
-<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@</a> mailing
-list.</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__Victor_Ni_u.html">Debian Edu interview: Victor Nițu</a></div>
- <div class="date">17th June 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
-Skolelinux</a> distribution have users and contributors all around the
-globe. And a while back, an enterprising young man showed up on
-<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">our IRC channel
-#debian-edu</a> and started asking questions about how Debian Edu
-worked. We answered as good as we could, and even convinced him to
-help us with translations. And today I managed to get an interview
-with him, to learn more about him.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I'm a 25 year old free software enthusiast, living in Romania,
-which is also my country of origin. Back in 2009, at a New Year's Eve
-party, I had a very nice <strike>beer</strike> discussion with a
-friend, when we realized we have no organised Debian community in our
-country. A few days later, we put together the infrastructure for such
-community and even gathered a nice Debian-ish crowd. Since then, I
-began my quest as a free software hacker and activist and I am
-constantly trying to cover as much ground as possible on that
-field.</p>
-
-<p>A few years ago I founded a small web development company, which
-provided me the flexible schedule I needed so much for my
-activities. For the last 13 months, I have been the Technical Director
-of <a href="http://ceata.org/">Fundația Ceata</a>, which is a free
-software activist organisation endorsed by the FSF and the FSFE, and
-the only one we have in our country.</p>
-
-<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
-project?</strong></p>
-
-<p>The idea of participating in the Debian Edu project was a surprise
-even to me, since I never used it before I began getting involved in
-it. This year I had a great opportunity to deliver a talk on
-educational software, and I knew immediately where to look. It was a
-love at first sight, since I was previously involved with some of the
-technologies the project incorporates, and I rapidly found a lot of
-ways to contribute.</p>
-
-<p>My first contributions consisted in translating the installer and
-configuration dialogs, then I found some bugs to squash (I still
-haven't fixed them yet though), and I even got my eyes on some other
-areas where I can prove myself helpful. Since the appetite for free
-software in my country is pretty low, I'll be happy to be the first
-one around here advocating for the project's adoption in educational
-environments, and maybe even get my hands dirty in creating a flavour
-for our own needs. I am not used to make very advanced plannings, so
-from now on, time will tell what I'll be doing next, but I think I
-have a pretty consistent starting point.</p>
-
-<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
-Edu?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Not a long time ago, I was in the position of configuring and
-maintaining a LDAP server on some Debian derivative, and I must say it
-took me a while. A long time ago, I was maintaining a bigger
-Samba-powered infrastructure, and I must say I spent quite a lot of
-time on it. I have similar stories about many of the services included
-with Skolelinux, and the main advantage I see about it is the
-out-of-the box availability of them, making it quite competitive when
-it comes to managing a school's network, for example.</p>
-
-<p>Of course, there is more to say about Skolelinux than the
-availability of the software included, its flexibility in various
-scenarios is something I can't wait to experiment "into the wild" (I
-only played with virtual machines so far). And I am sure there is a
-lot more I haven't discovered yet about it, being so new within the
-project.</p>
-
-<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
-Edu?</strong></p>
-
-<p>As usual, when it comes to Debian Blends, I see as the biggest
-disadvantage the lack of a numerous team dedicated to the
-project. Every day I see the same names in the changelogs, and I have
-a constantly fear of the bus factor in this story. I'd like to see
-Debian Edu advertised more as an entry point into the Debian
-ecosystem, especially amongst newcomers and students. IMHO there are a
-lot low-hanging fruits in terms of bug squashing, and enough
-opportunities to get the feeling of the Debian Project's dynamics. Not
-to mention it's a very fun blend to work on!</p>
-
-<p>Derived from the previous statement, is the delay in catching up
-with the main Debian release and documentation. This is common though
-to all blends and derivatives, but it's an issue we can all work
-on.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I can hardly imagine myself spending a day without Vim, since my
-daily routine covers writing code and hacking configuration files. I
-am a fan of the Awesome window manager (but I also like the
-Enlightenment project a lot!),
-<a href="http://www.claws-mail.org/">Claws Mail</a> due to its ease of
-use and very configurable behaviour. Recently I fell in love with
-<a href="https://launchpad.net/redshift">Redshift</a>, which helps me
-get through the night without headaches. Of course, there is much more
-stuff in this bag, but I'll need a blog on my own for doing this!</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, on this field, I cannot do much more than experiment right
-now. So, being far from having a recipe for success, I can only assume
-that:</p>
-
-<ul>
-
-<li>schools would like to get rid of proprietary software</li>
-
-<li>students will love the openness of the system, and will want to
- experiment with it - maybe we need to harvest the native curiosity
- of teenagers more?</li>
-
-<li>there is no "right one" when it comes to strategies, but it would
- be useful to have some success stories published somewhere, so
- other can get some inspiration from them (I know I'd promote
- them!)</li>
-
-<li>more active promotion - talks, conferences, even small school
- lectures can do magical things if they encounter at least one
- person interested. Who knows who that person might be? ;-)</li>
-
-</ul>
-
-<p>I also see some problems in getting Skolelinux into schools; for
-example, in our country we have a great deal of corruption issues, so
-it might be hard(er) to fight against proprietary solutions. Also,
-people who relied on commercial software for all their lives, would be
-very hard to convert against their will.</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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
-
-
- </div>
- </div>
- <div class="padding"></div>
-
- <div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html">Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</a></div>
- <div class="date">12th June 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>There is a certain cross-over between the
-<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
-project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
-project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
-effort between the projects. One person with a foot in both camps is
-Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
-days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
-getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>
-
-<p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
-opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
-each other.</p>
-
-<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
-project?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
-first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
-[Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
-London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
-Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
-it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
-was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
-day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
-over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
-been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
-still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
-we'll get there one day.</p>
-
-<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
-Edu?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
-it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
-that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
-very high quality work.</p>
-
-<p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
-set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
-with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
-helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
-community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>
-
-<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
-Edu?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
-separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
-what I originally rambled on about)</p>
-
-<p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
-project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
-think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
-content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
-on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
-years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
-concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
-more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
-myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
-currently.</p>
-
-<p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
-for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
-their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
-educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
-have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
-much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
-autonomous.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
-
-<p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
-Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
-some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
-particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
-so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>
-
-<p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
-git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
-which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
-while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
-Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
-it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
-up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
-X.</p>
-
-<p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
-using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
-people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
-it :p)
-
-<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
-get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
-many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
-don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
-that.</p>
-
-<p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
-problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
-advantage of that.</p>
-
-<p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
-some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
-Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
-general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
-Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
-that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
-best solution for them.</p>
-
-<p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
-educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
-make a decision that would work for them.</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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
-
-
- </div>
- </div>
- <div class="padding"></div>
-
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