- <title>What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sat, 30 Jul 2011 14:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
-are started from /etc/rcS.d/. In fact, there is a bite more of them
-than make sense, and this causes a few problems. What kind of
-problems, you might ask. There are at least two problems. The first
-is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
-runlevel 1. One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
-the expected state. The other is that single user boot will sometimes
-run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
-the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
-machine from a problem in that subsystem. A minor additional point is
-that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
-directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
-parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
-
-<p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/. In short, only the
-scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
-presented during a single user boot should go there. Everything else
-should go into the numeric runlevels. This means things like
-lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
-the numeric runlevels. Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
-scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
-out. Do your package have one of them? Please help us make single
-user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
-
-<p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
-etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
-need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
-is presented.</p>
-
-<p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound. To keep
-Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
-scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
-order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
-and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
-moved first. This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
-that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
-the system state correct. This will require some coordination when it
-comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
-scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
-on them. Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
-package, while others are still left to do. I wish I had time to work
-on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
-find time to push this forward.</p>
+ <title>Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sun, 1 Apr 2012 23:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Germany is a core area for the
+<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
+user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
+Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
+
+<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
+
+<p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
+Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
+"<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
+Dortmund</a>", a second chance school. Here, young adults is given
+the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
+examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
+second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
+or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
+
+<p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
+blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
+information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
+teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
+school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
+the end of April this year.</p>
+
+<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
+project?</strong></p>
+
+<p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
+attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
+Project). At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
+using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
+2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
+clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
+reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
+Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
+two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
+known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
+Skolelinux.</p>
+
+<p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
+better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
+clients. The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
+was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
+and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
+the admin teachers.</p>
+
+<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
+Edu?</strong></p>
+
+<p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
+Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
+So it was a perfect choice.</p>
+
+<p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
+possible to point teachers and students to programs like
+OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp. It's of
+high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
+a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
+
+<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
+Edu?</strong></p>
+
+<p>Nothing yet.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
+
+<p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
+Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
+Annotator). At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
+LibreOffice.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
+get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
+
+<p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
+that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
+interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>