- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Handling_non_free_firmware_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Handling non-free firmware in Debian Edu/Squeeze</a></div>
- <div class="date">27th January 2012</div>
- <div class="body"><p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
-This is the sad fact of todays computers. In the next version of
-<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
-on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
-firmware blobs easier to handle. The common use case I run into is a
-laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
-work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
-
-<p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
-with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
-included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
-during installation. This take care firmware for network devices used
-by the installer when installing from from local media. But for
-example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
-not taken care of by this.</p>
-
-<p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
-<tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
-search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
-firmware. The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
-file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
-the requested firmware file(s) is installed. I have proposed to do
-something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
-<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
-installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better. Run the
-script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
-firmware packages.</p>
-
-<p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
-because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
-working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
-included to be able to install at all. To fill the PXE installation
-initrd with extra firmware, the
-<tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
-provided. Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
-PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
-
-<p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
-network cards working. For this,
-<tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
-provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs. It is used
-the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
-
-<p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation. We
-do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
-non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
-
-<p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend. You might want to give it a
-try.</p>
+ <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a></div>
+ <div class="date">27th May 2012</div>
+ <div class="body"><p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
+<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
+mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
+up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils. His name was Ralf
+Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
+since then, helping to make sure the
+<a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
+Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
+
+<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
+
+<p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
+Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
+years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
+also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
+O- or A-level ("Abitur"). For quite as long, I've been taking care of
+our computer network.</p>
+
+<p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
+spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
+(4 months).</p>
+
+<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
+project?</strong></p>
+
+<p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
+my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
+very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
+("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
+to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
+months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
+(Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others. For more
+than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
+our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
+approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
+locally installed Skolelinux image. As a consequence, I joined quite
+a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
+(Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
+one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
+
+<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
+Edu?</strong></p>
+
+<p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
+project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
+the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
+computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
+free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
+up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
+labs). Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
+administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
+
+<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
+Edu?</strong></p>
+
+<p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
+might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
+budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
+supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
+office packages or desktop environments. These schools have the
+option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
+capacity to do so. Another issue is that Debian release cycles
+include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
+power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
+within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
+the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
+i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
+
+<p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
+KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
+PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
+
+<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
+get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
+
+<p><ol>
+
+<li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
+people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
+difference between proprietary software products, and free software
+developing.</li>
+
+<li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
+there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
+licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
+privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
+share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
+
+<li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
+trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
+decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
+
+<li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
+free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
+general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
+shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
+
+<li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
+office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
+need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
+
+<li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
+
+<li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
+for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
+Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials. And
+keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
+
+</ol></p>