+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html">How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</a></div>
+ <div class="date">2010-12-22 14:55</div>
+ <div class="body">
+<p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
+href="http://www.uio.no/">University of oslo</a> testing if the new
+batch of computers will work with Linux. Every year for the last few
+years the university have organized shared bid of a few thousand
+computers, and this year HP won the bid. Two different desktops and
+five different laptops are on the list this year. We in the UNIX
+group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
+and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
+university.</p>
+
+<p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
+perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well. To test, I PXE
+install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
+a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware. When
+something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
+on. If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
+vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
+have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post. Here is the simple tests
+I perform on a new model.</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>Is PXE installation working? I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
+and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment. If I feel like it, I also test with
+RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
+
+<li>Is X.org working? If the graphical login screen show up after
+installation, X.org is working.</li>
+
+<li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working? Running glxgears (in
+package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
+reported by the program.</li>
+
+<li>Is sound working? With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
+logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful. If there
+are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
+the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound. I
+normally test this by playing
+<a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
+video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
+
+<li>Is the USB subsystem working? I test this by plugging in a USB
+memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
+
+<li>Is the CD/DVD player working? I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
+I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
+
+<li>Is any built in camera working? Test using cheese, and see if a
+picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
+
+<li>Is bluetooth working? Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
+any bluetooth devices are discovered. In my office, I normally see a
+few.</li>
+
+<li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working. I have
+memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
+notice this.</li>
+
+<li>For laptops, is suspecd/hibernate working? I'm testing if the
+special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
+resume.</li>
+
+<li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
+adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
+switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc? The set of buttons differ from
+laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
+not.</li>
+
+<li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
+acceleration sensors etc. I rarely test these, as I do not know how
+to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
+existence.</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
+for the HP machines I am testing. I'm not done yet, so I will report
+the test results later. For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
+fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
+and audio fail on RHEL6. Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p. As you
+can see, I have most machines left to test. One interesting
+observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the framerate than
+RHEL6 with glxgears. No idea why.</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/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/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a></div>
<div class="date">2010-12-11 15:10</div>
easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really
a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
-so I wonder when my kind of show would start accepting BitCoins. I
+so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins. I
would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
<p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
-to see which one get the next lump of cash. The "winner" get 50
+to see which one get the next lump of cash). The "winner" get 50
BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
BitCoins. Check out
<a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a
-machine to participate there yet.</p>
+machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
+own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
+yet.</p>
+
+<p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
+href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
+criticism</a> of bitcoin. Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
+it was interesting to read. The arguments presented seem to be
+equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
</div>
<div class="tags">
</div>
<div class="padding"></div>
- <div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a></div>
- <div class="date">2010-12-10 08:20</div>
- <div class="body">
-<p>With this weeks lawless
-<a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
-attacks</a> on Wikileak and
-<a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
-speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
-not be trusted to handle money transactions.
-A blog post from
-<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
-Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
-mine mentioned earlier. I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
-involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>. I got
-some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
-some bitcoins to get started. I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
-for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
-
-<p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder? It is a digital
-crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
-networks. It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
-control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
-and companies alike to block donations and other transactions. The
-source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
-for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
-line client builds just fine. Hopefully Jonas
-<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
-Debian</a> soon.</p>
-
-<p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
-There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
-bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
-currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided. There
-are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising. If you
-want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
-you can even get
-<a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
-bitcoin at the time of writing). Use
-<a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
-on the current exchange rates.</p>
-
-<p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
-machines. If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
-donations to the address
-<b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>. Thank you!</p>
-</div>
- <div class="tags">
-
-
-
- Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <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/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
-
- </div>
- </div>
- <div class="padding"></div>
-
<div class="entry">
<div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Martin_Bekkelund__En_stille_b__nn_om_Datalagringsdirektivet.html">Martin Bekkelund: En stille bønn om Datalagringsdirektivet</a></div>
<div class="date">2010-12-09 21:25</div>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (2)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (1)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (10)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (45)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (52)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (53)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (76)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (18)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (30)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (29)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (22)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (21)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (3)</a></li>
</div>
<p style="text-align: right">
-Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v3.7</a>
+Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v3.2</a>
</p>
</body>
</html>
projects / homepage.git / blobdiff