<div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_intervju__Nirosan_Thiyagalingam.html">Skolelinux-intervju: Nirosan Thiyagalingam</a></div>
- <div class="date">24th May 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>En ting
-<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>-prosjektet</a> har
-hatt mye glede av er studentprosjekter. F.eks. er
-<a href="http://linuxstopmotion.org/">stillbildeanimasjonssystemet
-Stopmotion</a> resultat av et studentprosjekt i Skolelinux. De siste
-månedene har en ivrig student veiledet av Marius Kotsbak i
-<a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/">FRiSK</a> testet hva en
-kan få til med en datamaskin til NOK 400,- (antagelig 1700,- med
-skjerm, tastatur og mus) når det brukes i Skolelinux. Jeg spurte han
-om et intervju.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Hvem er du, og hva driver du med til daglig?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Jeg heter Nirosan Thiyagalingam. Jeg er 24 år og studerer
-dataingeniør studiet ved Høgskolen i Sør Trøndelag. Interessen for
-data har siden ung alder vært tilstede og jeg har i tillegg alltid
-vært glad i å lære nye ting. Med teknologi som endres svært hurtig er
-det alltid noe nytt å lære. Noe som igjen har gjort det svært
-interessant å følge med på utviklingen. Jeg valgte dataingeniør
-studiet grunnet ønske om å lære enda mer om programmering og utvikling
-av store systemer.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Hvordan kom du i kontakt med Skolelinux-prosjektet?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Skolelinux prosjektet hørte jeg først om i media. Men det var først
-når jeg skulle velge bacheloroppgave at jeg fattet mer interesse for
-prosjektet. Et enkelt søk på nettet førte meg til skolelinux sine
-hjemmesider. Informasjonen jeg fant der gjorde meg enda nysgjerrig og
-jeg valgte derfor en oppgave som gikk ut på å få en
-<a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry PI</a>. Altså en
-ultra-billig datamaskin til å kjøre Debian Edu på lik linje med
-vanlige datamaskiner. I løpet av prosjektet ble det gjort mye
-forskning på nettet. Det var mye jeg måtte forstå rundt hvordan
-operativsystemet Linux fungerte før jeg kunne angripe
-problemet. Prøvde først å finne ut hvordan man kunne transformere en
-vanlig installasjon av Skolelinux til Raspberry PI, men dette var
-altfor vanskelig å jeg endte opp med mer spørsmål enn svar. Det ble
-videre opprettet kontakt med Skolelinux utviklere på IRC der jeg fikk
-diskutert hvilken retning jeg burde gå for å få til en fullverdig
-løsning. Det ble bestemt at jeg skulle gå for å først installere
-<a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspian</a>. Dette er et
-operativsystem basert på Debian spesiallaget for Raspberry Pi sin
-maskinvare. Nå som Debian var installert på datamaskinen gjenstod det
-å installere de nødvendige Skolelinux pakkene for å få til et
-fullverdig system. Disse pakkene ble installert manuelt i første
-omgang, men ble senere installert automatisk via et script som Petter
-Reinholdtsen laget. Dette scriptet er så enkel å bruke at man er i
-gang med installasjonen i løpet av bare 5 minutter. Ikke nok med det,
-alt skjer helt automatisk. Alt i alt er jeg veldig fornøyd med
-resultatet av installasjonsprosessen. Raspberry Pi er en veldig svak
-maskin og det merkes godt når man har installert Skolelinux på
-den. Video og 3D-rendering fungerer utrolig dårlig, men nettsurfing og
-kontorprogrammer fungerer godt. Det kan derfor konkluderes med at
-datamaskinen er egnet for enkle oppgaver.
-
-<p>Jeg syns det er viktig påpeke at dette kun er startfasen av en slik
-løsning. På markedet finnes det nå maskiner som har bedre hardware enn
-Raspberry Pi. Det er store muligheter for at man kan klare å
-installere Skolelinux på disse også, og da forsvinner nok mest
-sannsynlig ytelsesproblemene med Video og 3D rendering også.</p>
-
-<p>Det ble også prøvd med en løsning som gjorde at Raspberry Pi
-fungerte som en tynnklient. Denne løsningen hadde langt bedre ytelse
-med tanke på hastighet og brukeropplevelse. Men også her var video og
-3D rendering dårlig. Det ble brukt en liten Linux distribusjon kalt
-<a href="http://www.berryterminal.com/">BerryTerminal</a> for å få til
-dette.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Hva er fordelene med Skolelinux slik du ser det?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Fordelen med Skolelinux er mange. At det er gratis er en stor
-fordel, men at det er så mange som er med på å utvikle det og
-vedlikeholde det er en enda større fordel. Allerede før jeg startet
-med prosjektet så jeg mange fordeler, og når jeg nærmet meg sluttfasen
-så jeg langt flere. At prosjektet skulle inneha en så høy kvalitet
-hadde jeg aldri trodd. En vanlig Skolelinux installasjon har de
-nødvendige programmene og funksjonen som både små og store skoler i
-tillegg til organisasjoner kan klare seg med. At prosjektet tilbyr en
-så komplett løsning er en kjempefordel. Installasjonen er knirkefri
-og det er svært enkelt å installere og komme i gang.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Hva er ulempene med Skolelinux slik du ser det?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Ulempene jeg ser med prosjektet er ryddigheten av websidene. Selv
-om websidene er enkle og konsise er det allikevel ikke appellerende i
-like stor grad som for eksempel
-<a href="http://www.ubuntu.com">Ubuntu</a> sine sider. Deres side
-tilbyr, i tillegg til godt design og presentasjon, en nettbasert
-emulator av deres operativsystem. Dette er en stor fordel slik jeg ser
-det. Bortsett fra dette ser jeg absolutt ingen ulemper med
-Skolelinux-prosjektet.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Hvilken fri programvare bruker du til daglig?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Til daglig er jeg en flittig bruker av det åpne media
-sentersystemet <a href="http://xbmc.org/">XBMC</a>. Det enorme
-samfunnet rundt dette prosjektet har gjort dette til et program som
-dekker alles behov. Man kan tilpasse det akkurat slik man vil både med
-tanke på utseende og funksjoner ved installere plug-ins eller
-scripts.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Hvilken strategi tror du er den rette å bruke for å få
-skoler til å ta i bruk fri programvare?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Strategien som burde brukes sett fra mine øyne er
-markedsføring. Jeg er sikker på at om flere skoler fikk et lite innsyn
-i hvor bra Skolelinux er så ville de ikke nølt med å gå over fra noe
-annet som koster de store summer. At skolelinux til de grader tilbyr
-en så komplett løsning bure komme frem. Enten via reklamekampanjer
-eller ved å sende ut folk til skoler for så å la skolenettverk
-ansvarlige får teste ut hvordan Skolelinux fungerer i praksis. Om det
-i tillegg ble utviklet gode websider og en emulator for å la brukere
-prøve operativsystemet ville nok dette ha styrket inntrykket
-betraktelig.</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/intervju">intervju</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
-
-
- </div>
- </div>
- <div class="padding"></div>
-
- <div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a></div>
- <div class="date">17th May 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
-an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools. It
-contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
-pupils in the primary schools. It provide both the central server,
-network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
-educational software. The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
-2001-07-02. If you want to support the project, which is in need for
-cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
-<a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
-donate some money</a>.
-
-<p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
-lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
-Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation. It isn't very
-hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
-the Debian Edu installer.</p>
-
-<p>The script,
-<a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
-in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
-transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
-into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
-
-<ol>
-
-<li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
-<li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
-<li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
- our configuration.</li>
-<li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
- /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
- according to the profile specified in the config above,
- overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
-<li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
- that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
-<li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
-
-</ol>
-
-<p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
-replicated like this. Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
-So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
-the needed packages.</p>
-
-<p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
-setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
-Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
-<a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage">Raspbian</a> installation and
-transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
-Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
-
-<p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
-If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
-PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
+ <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 class="body"><p>Today I switched to
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
+new laptop</a>. I've previously written about the problems I had with
+my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
+GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
+sustained writes. My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
+trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
+identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
+disk instead to fix it once and for all. The Samsung disk survived
+the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
+random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
+decided to trust it with my data. I have installed it as a Debian Edu
+Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
+server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
+station from now on.</p>
+
+<p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
+Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
+performance and increase life time of the disk. The Linux kernel and
+user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
+environment. To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
+package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning. The
+<a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
+for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
+is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
+package. If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
+will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
+file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
+
+<p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
+set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD. It is adjusted to my use case,
+where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
+addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
+top of this again. See the README file in the package source for the
+references I used to pick the settings. At the moment these
+parameters are tuned:</p>
-<p><pre>
-PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
-DESKTOP="lxde"
-</pre></p>
-
-<p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
-the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
-virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
-boot.</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/Second_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a></div>
- <div class="date">14th May 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
-project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
-release today. This is the release announcement:</p>
-
-<p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
-2013-05-14</strong></p>
-
-<p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
-alpha1, based on <ahref="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a> with
-codename "Wheezy".</p>
-
-<p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
-
-<p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
-on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
-configured school network. Immediatly 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.</p>
-
-<p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
-not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
-version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
<ul>
- <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
- default.</li>
- <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
- <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
- <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
- ibus-anthy.</li>
-</ul>
-<p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
-<ul>
+<li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
+ (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
- <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
- reliability improvements.</li>
- <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
- of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
- <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
- problems.</li>
- <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
- direct:// URL.</li>
- <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
- <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
- <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
- <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
- servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
- <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
- log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
-</ul>
+<li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
+ this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
+ 0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
-<p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
-<ul>
+<li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
+ systems.</li>
- <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
- (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>). Only install
- libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
- <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
- <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
- available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
- <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
- <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
- <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
- (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
- <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
- password submission problem
- (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
+<li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
+ /etc/fstab.</li>
-</ul>
+<li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
-<p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
-
-<p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
-<ul>
+<li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
+ cron.daily).</li>
- <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</a></li>
- <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</li>
+<li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
+ to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
</ul>
-<p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
-
-<p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</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></p>
+<p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
+the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
+little gain. My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
+those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
+computer. I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
+from getting the data on the disk (see
+<a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
+Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
+right thing to do.</p>
+
+<p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
+it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
+indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
+
+<p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
+and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
+file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
+instead of during my work.</p>
+
+<p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
+this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
+
+<p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning. I expect
+iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
+have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
+
+<p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
+there.</p>
+
+<p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
+as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
+disk. It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
+the Lenovo firmware. But I have not tried and did not want to do so
+without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
+disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
+back.</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>.
+ 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 class="padding"></div>
<div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a></div>
- <div class="date">11th May 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><P>In January,
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
-announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
-channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
-community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
-marvellous construction system from Denmark. We also created
-<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
-a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes. And several
-people showed up to help. I was very happy to see the effect of my
-call. Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
-<a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
-tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
-LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
-
-<p><table>
-<tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos">brickos</a></td><td>alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++</td></tr>
-<tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
-<tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt">libnxt</a></td><td>utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX</td></tr>
-<tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
-<tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
-<tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
-<tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt">python-nxt</a></td><td>python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot</td></tr>
-<tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer">python-nxt-filer</a></td><td>simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT</td></tr>
-<tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch">scratch</a></td><td>easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up</td></tr>
-<tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
-</table></p>
-
-<p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
-currently available in Jessie/testing. leocad is so far only
-available in experimental.</p>
-
-<p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
-adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
-for LEGO designers.</p>
+ <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a></div>
+ <div class="date">10th July 2013</div>
+ <div class="body"><p>A few days ago, I wrote about
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
+problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
+was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
+sustained write. My supplier is in contact with
+<a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
+replacement disk to try to fix the problem. They decided to send an
+identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
+Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it. The new disk have the
+same firmware version as the original. This time my hope raised
+slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
+die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
+going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%. But around 60%, the disk
+died again and I was back on square one. I still do not have a new
+laptop with a disk I can trust. I can not live with a disk that might
+lock up when I download a new
+<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
+other large files. I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
+the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
+
+<p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
+11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
+LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
+Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
+SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
+P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
+
+<p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
+11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
+LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
+Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
+SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
+P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
+
+<p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
+SA, date and WNPP values. Mentioning all the details here in case
+someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
+failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
+exist).</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/robot">robot</a>.
+ 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 class="padding"></div>
<div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Narvik_sparer_minst_9_millioner_p____bruke_Skolelinux.html">Narvik sparer minst 9 millioner på å bruke Skolelinux</a></div>
- <div class="date">10th May 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>I fjor sommer ble jeg
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gladoppslag_om_Skolelinux_i_avisen_Fremover.html">gledelig
-overrasket</a> over et oppslag i avisen Fremover om Narvik kommunes
-bruk av <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>. Oppslaget
-var basert på et notat som besvarte spørsmål fra ordfører Tor Nysæter
-og rådgiver for skolesektoren, Petter Falkbu, om bruken av Skolelinux
-i Narvikskolene og konstnaden ved å gå over til Windows. For litt
-over en uke siden siden fikk jeg endelig bedt kommunen om å få innsyn
-i dette notatet, og det ble oversendt på epost tirsdag. Jeg fikk
-<a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/offentliginnsyn/from-Narvik-kommune/2013-04-29-09:12-skolelinux-notat/PetterFalkbuogwindowsfornarvikskolen%20(L)351310.pdf">lagt
-ut notatet</a> samme dag, og fikk i dag sjekket postlista til Narvik,
-der jeg fant notatet som
-<a href="https://www.narvik.kommune.no/innsyn.aspx?response=arkivsak_detaljer&arkivsakid=2013001023&scripturi=/innsyn.aspx&skin=infolink&Mid1=301&">sak
-2013/1023</a>.</p>
-
-<p>Notatet forteller at Narvik ville måtte betalt minst 9 millioner
-for å gå over til Windows på skolene. I tillegg dokumenterer notatet
-at læreplanens krav oppfylles uten problemer ved bruk av Skolelinux.
-Jeg anbefaler alle å lese de 10 sidene med gode argumenter for å kutte
-unødige utgifter på IT i skoleverket. :)</p>
+ <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a></div>
+ <div class="date"> 9th July 2013</div>
+ <div class="body"><p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
+Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
+party in Oslo. It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
+member assosiation NUUG</a> and
+<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
+project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
+Bitraf</a>.</p>
+
+<p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening. Everyone is
+welcome, and there is no fee to participate. There is on the other
+hand limited space, and only room for 30 people. Please put your name
+on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
+wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</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/norsk">norsk</a>.
+ 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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
</div>
<div class="padding"></div>
<div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a></div>
- <div class="date"> 5th May 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
-<a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
-for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box. This is a great
-Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
-soon.</p>
-
-<p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
-in particular make me very happy to see included. The
-<a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
-the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
-included for the first time. Alongside similar programs like
-<a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
-<a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
-it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
-and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
-computer. Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
-Edu.</a>
-
-<p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
-Edu/Skolelinux release too. The
-<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
-alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
-follow.<p>
+ <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a></div>
+ <div class="date"> 5th July 2013</div>
+ <div class="body"><p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
+for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>. Unfortunately I did not have much
+time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
+will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived. I
+ended up picking a
+<a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
+with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
+a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly. But my
+second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful. More
+on that below.</p>
+
+<p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
+important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
+listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
+feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
+allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
+requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
+to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
+disks from my search parameters. I also asked around among friends to
+get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
+
+<p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
+X41. I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
+significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
+hand a lot more to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly
+good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
+I will get used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
+needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
+
+<p>Turning off the touch pad was simple. All it took was a quick
+visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
+
+<p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop. The 180 GB SSD disk
+lock up during load. And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
+with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
+I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
+reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
+default in Ubuntu). And the bug with is already known. It was
+reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
+report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
+Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD). It is also reported to the Linux
+kernel developers as
+<a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
+report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
+(SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
+Lenovo forums, both for
+<a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
+2012-11-10</a> and for
+<a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
+03-20-2013</a>. The problem do not only affect installation. The
+reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
+on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
+problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
+There is even a
+<a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
+available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
+minutes by writing to a file.</p>
+
+<p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
+contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
+requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
+firmware. Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
+Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i). I
+hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
+fixed. :)</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>.
+ 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 class="padding"></div>
<div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/V_rt_konkurransebidrag_til__apps4norge_bruker__opnedata.html">Vårt konkurransebidrag til #apps4norge bruker @opnedata</a></div>
- <div class="date"> 1st May 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>For noen uker siden, innen fristen 2013-04-15, leverte jeg og
-Morten Kjelkenes vårt bidrag til
-<a href="http://www.apps4norge.no/">DIFIs apps4norge-konkurranse</a>
-under lagnavnet <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>s tannlegeteam.
-Vi leverte følgende i idé-kategorien:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p><strong>Tittel: Stikk innom tannlegen</strong><p>
-
-<p><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-05-01-tannlegeportal.jpeg"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-05-01-tannlegeportal.jpeg"></a></p>
-
-<p><strong>Beskrivelse:</strong><p>
-
-<p><em>Idéen</em>
-
-<p>Gjøre det enklere å finne en tannlege som er praktisk for deg, der
-pris og reisetid med kollektivt, til fots eller med bil er tatt med i
-beregningen, ved å oppgi hvor en bor og jobber, og få forslag til
-tannleger både i nærheten og på veien mellom disse stedene.</p>
-
-<p>Brukeren oppgir hjemmeadresse og jobbadresse, og kanskje også
-barnehage. Så kan en også oppgi egen timelønn (for å beregne taps
-arbeidsfortjeneste) og om en reiser med kollektivt, til fots eller
-kjører bil. Så trykker en søk, og får opp en todelt side med kart og
-tekstliste. I kartdelen vises aktuelle tannleger (for eksempel maks
-7), og i tekstdelen er de samme tannlegene listet opp, med pris og
-reisetid for kollektivtransport, og pris pluss reisekostnad hvis en
-reiser med bil. En kan endre sorteringsrekkefølge for listen ved å
-trykke på aktuell kolonne, og velge om en skal sortere på pris,
-reisetid eller totalkostnad. Kun tannleger som tar imot nye kunder tas
-i utganspunktet med i listen. Når brukeren trykker med musa en
-tannlegemarkør på kartet kommer det en popup med detaljer om
-tannlegen, den samme informasjonen som finnes i listen under kartet,
-og lenke til mer informasjon om tannlegen.</p>
-
-<p>For hvert enkelt tannlegekontor er det tilgjengelig en
-informasjonsside med adresse, hjemmesideurl, telefonnummer, lenke til
-side for å finne reisebeskrivelse, åpningstider, etc.</p>
-
-<p><em>Nytteverdi for brukeren</em></p>
-
-<ul>
-<li>sparer tid på tannlegebesøk</li>
-<li>kan utnytte normal reisevei mellom hjem/jobb/barnehage</li>
-<li>kan finne aktuell tannlege basert på flere kriterier</li>
-<li>sile bort tannleger som ikke tar imot flere kunder</li>
-<li>får kart som viser tannleger i nærheten, på tvers av kommunegrenser</li>
-</ul>
-
-<p><em>Grad av innovasjon, nytenkning og kreativitet</em></p>
-
-<p>Enkel tjeneste som fokuserer på det vi selv mener er relevant ved valg
-av tannlege.</p>
-
-<p>Tjenestekonseptet kan også brukes til andre næringer, f.eks. lege,
-butikk, leiebiler, hvis en har aktuell datakilde å koble med.</p>
-
-<p>Skulle gjerne hatt med vurdering av tannlegene tilgjengelig, slik
-at en kunne finne "flinke" tannleger basert på et eller annet
-kriterium.</p>
-
-<p><em>Markedspotensiale - potensiale for å slå gjennom hos mange
-brukere</em></p>
-
-<ul>
-<li>Alle som ønsker eller vurderer å skaffe seg ny tannlege, f.eks. nyinnflyttede og studenter</li>
-<li>Familier med en travel hverdag</li>
-</ul>
-
-<p>Felles er at den gjør tannlegen lettere tilgjengelig for de som vil spare tid eller penger.</p>
-
-<p><em>Samfunnsøkonomisk nytte - bidrar til å løse
-samfunnsutfordringer</em></p>
-
-<p>Kutter tid brukt på tannlegebesøk, og penger frigjøres som kan brukes på andre områder. Oppfordrer til bedre bruk av kollektivtransport ved å gi tips om tannleger i nærheten av allerede brukt reisevei mellom hjemme og jobb når en reiser kollektivt.</p>
-
-<p><em>X-faktor - “Det lille ekstra...”</em></p>
-
-<p>Denne tjenesten gir det lille ekstra ved at den ikke slår opp
-avstand til tannlege fra et enkelt punkt men avstand fra en reisevei,
-slik at en får flere tannleger å velge imellom og kanskje kan spare
-enda mer tid og penger enn en ville gjort ved å sjekke kun de nærmest
-hjemme eller jobb.</p>
-
-<p>Tjenesten gir informasjonen både som kart og som tekstlig oversikt, for å sikre at blinde og svaksynte kan få tilgang til informasjonen selv om de ikke får brukt kartvisningen.</p>
-
-<p><em>Datasett brukt</em></p>
-
-<ul>
-
-<li><a href="http://www.hvakostertannlegen.no/">http://www.hvakostertannlegen.no/</a>
-(Ikke-publisert JSON-API), se f.eks. JSON-output fra
-<a href="http://www.hvakostertannlegen.no/services/klinikker/oslo/undersokelse-med-2-rontgenbilder">http://www.hvakostertannlegen.no/services/klinikker/oslo/undersokelse-med-2-rontgenbilder</a></li>
-
-<li>Kartdata,
-<a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">http://www.openstreetmap.org/</a>
-<a href="http://mapit.nuug.no/">http://mapit.nuug.no/</a> (nabokommuner, postnummer)</li>
-
-<li><a href="http://labs.trafikanten.no/how-to-use-the-api.aspx">http://labs.trafikanten.no/how-to-use-the-api.aspx</a>
-(reisetid med kollektivtrafikk på Østlandet),
-<a href="http://data.norge.no/data/ruter-kollektivtrafikkdata">http://data.norge.no/data/ruter-kollektivtrafikkdata</a></li>
-
-<li><a href="http://reiseregningen.no">http://reiseregningen.no</a>
-(data om statens satser for biltransport)</li>
-
-<li>Kollektivtrafikkkart,
-<a href="http://öpnvkarte.de/?zoom=17&lat=59.91056&lon=10.75641&layers=BT">http://öpnvkarte.de/?zoom=17&lat=59.91056&lon=10.75641&layers=BT</a></li>
-
-<li>Routing med OpenStreetmap-data,
-<a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Routing/OnlineRouters">http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Routing/OnlineRouters</a></li>
-
-<li>Bilveiruting med OpenStreetmap-data, <a href="http://map.project-osrm.org/">http://map.project-osrm.org/</a></li>
-<li>Kollektivtrafikkruting for Norge med uviss datakilde, <a href="http://dit.no/">http://dit.no/</a></li>
-</ul>
-
-<p><strong>Åpne offentlige datasett brukt i applikasjonen:</strong></p>
-
-<ul>
-<li>Reisetid med kollektivtrafikk på Østlandet</li>
-</ul>
-
-<p><strong>Øvrige datasett brukt i appen/tjenesten:</strong></p>
-<ul>
-<li>Fakta om tannleger, priser etc (upublisert JSON-API)</li>
-<li>Data om statens satser for biltransport</li>
-<li>Kartbilder, kartdata</li>
-<li>Kommunegrenser, nabokommuner, postnummer</li>
-<li>Bilveiruting med OpenStreetmap-data</li>
-<li>Kollektivtrafikkkart</li>
-<li>Routing med OpenStreetmap-data</li>
-<li>Kollektivtrafikkruting for Norge med uviss dataopphav</li>
-</ul>
-
-<p><strong>Kategori: </strong></p>
-<ul>
-<li>Arbeid og velferd</li>
-<li>Forbruker</li>
-<li>Økonomi</li>
-</ul>
-
-<p><strong>Geografi (dekningsområde for app): </strong></p>
-
-<p>Hele landet</p>
-
-</blockquote>
-
-<p>Vinneren annonseres 2013-05-08 ved
-<a href="http://www.apps4norge.no/arrangement/2013-05-08-invitasjon-til-prisutdeling-apps4norge-8mai-2013">prisutdelingen
-hos DIFI 09:00 til 12:00</a>. Konkurransen blir hard. Det meldes at
-38 apper og 50 ideer er registrert som kandidater. Jeg frykter at jeg
-ikke rekker innom selv, på grunn av jobb og forpliktelser på
-hjemmebanen.</p>
+ <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a></div>
+ <div class="date"> 4th July 2013</div>
+ <div class="body"><p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
+trusty old Thinkpad X41. Unfortunately I did not have much time to
+spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived. I ended up
+picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
+X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu
+Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly. As I write
+this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
+with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
+with an expencive door stop.</p>
+
+<p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
+important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
+listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
+feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
+allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
+requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
+to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
+
+<p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
+wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
+to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly good and the
+individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
+used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
+new laptop now. :)</p>
+
+<p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
</div>
<div class="tags">
- Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>.
+ 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 class="padding"></div>
<div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a></div>
- <div class="date">26th April 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
-its first Wheezy based release today. This is the release
-announcement:</p>
+ <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fourth_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Fourth alpha release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a></div>
+ <div class="date"> 3rd July 2013</div>
+ <div class="body"><p>The fourth 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 alpha0 released
-2013-04-26</strong></p>
+<p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~alpha3 released
+2013-07-03</strong></p>
-<p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
-edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
+<p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
+7.1+edu0~alpha3, 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. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
+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.</p>
-
-<p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
-not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
-version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
+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 fourth 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>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
- <ul>
- <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
- <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
- (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
- manual.)</li>
- <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
- <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
- <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
- <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
- <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
- <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
- <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
- <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
- <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
- <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
- <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
- <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
- <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
- manual</a> for more details.</li>
- <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
- installation.</li>
- <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
- <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/releasenotes">release notes</a> and the <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation manual</a>.</li>
- </ul></li>
-</ul>
-
-<p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
<ul>
-<li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
- German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
- for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
+ <li>Dropped ispell dictionaries from our default installation.</li>
+ <li>Dropped menu-xdg from the KDE desktop option, to drop the Debian
+ submenu. It was not included with Gnome, LXDE or Xfce, so this
+ brings KDE in line with the others.</li>
+ <li>Dropped xdrawchem, xjig and xsok from our default installation as
+ they don't have a desktop menu entry and thus won't show up in the
+ menu now that menu-xdg was removed.</li>
+ <li>Removed the killer system to kill left behind processes on
+ multi-user machines, as it was no longer able to understand when a
+ X display was in use and killed the processes of the active users
+ too.</li>
+ <li>Dropped the golearn (from goplay) package as the debtags in wheezy
+ are too few to make the package useful.</li>
</ul>
-
-<p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
-<ul>
-<li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
- choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
- server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
-</ul>
-
<p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
<ul>
-<li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
- configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
- entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
-<li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
- functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
- completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
+ <li>Updated artwork matching http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/Joy
+ <li>Multi-arch i386/amd64 USB stick ISO available.</li>
+ <li>Got rid of ispell/wordlist related debconf questions that showed
+ up for some language options.</li>
+ <li>Switched to using http.debian.net as APT source by default.</li>
+ <li>Fixed proxy configuration on Main Server installations.</li>
+ <li>Changed LTSP setup to ask dpkg to use force-unsafe-io the same way
+ d-i is doing it.</li>
+ <li>Made sure root and user passwords were not left behind in the
+ debconf database after installation on Main Server installations.</li>
+ <li>Made Roaming Workstation dynamic setup more robust and added draft
+ script setup-ad-client to hook a Roaming Workstation up to a
+ Active Directory server instead of a Debian Edu Main Server.</li>
+ <li>Update system to install needed firmware packages during
+ installation, to work properly in Wheezy.</li>
+ <li>Update system to handle hardware quirks (debian-edu-hwsetup).</li>
+ <li>Corrected PXE installation setup to properly pass selected desktop
+ and keymap settings to PXE installation clients.</li>
+ <li>LTSP diskless workstations use sshfs by default, allowing them to
+ work without adding them to DNS and NIS netgroups for NFS access.</li>
</ul>
-
-<p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
+<p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
<ul>
-<li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
- yet.</li>
+ <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
+ available yet (698840).</li>
+ <li>Artwork not enabled for all desktops.</li>
</ul>
-
-<p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
+<p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
+<p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
<ul>
-<li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
- screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
- had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
+ <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
+ <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso .</li>
</ul>
-
-<p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
-To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
+<p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 2b161a99d2a848c376d8d04e3854e30c
+<br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 498922e9c508c0a7ee9dbe1dfe5bf830d779c3c8</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/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
-<li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
-<li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
+ <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
+ <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso .</li>
</ul>
-
-<p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
-
-<p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
-
+
+<p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 25e808e403a4c15dbef1d13c37d572ac
+<br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 15ecfc93eb6b4f453b7eb0bc04b6a279262d9721</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></p>
<div class="padding"></div>
<div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_er_ikke_anonymt___f_res_Stortinget_bak_lyset_av_finansministeren_.html">Bitcoin er ikke anonymt - føres Stortinget bak lyset av finansministeren?</a></div>
- <div class="date">22nd April 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p><a href="http://bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a> er mye i mediene for
-tiden. Jeg følger med via Mylder for å finne
-<a href="http://mylder.no/?drill=bitcoin">artikler som omtaler
-temaet</a>, og takket være dette oppdaget jeg at stortingsrepresentant
-Ketil Solvik-Olsen fra FrP nylig har spurt finansminister Sigbjørn
-Johnsen om hans syn på Bitcoin, og
-<a href="http://www.stortinget.no/no/Saker-og-publikasjoner/Sporsmal/Skriftlige-sporsmal-og-svar/Skriftlig-sporsmal/?qid=57052">fått
-svar for noen dager siden</a>. Jeg bet meg spesielt merke til
-følgende formulering fra finansministeren:</p>
-
-<p><blockquote>
-«Det er også utfordringer ved at handel med Bitcoins er uregulert og
-at transaksjonene er anonyme.»
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>At Bitcoin er anonymt er en myte som spres av både journalister og
-andre, så det er ikke veldig overraskende at også finansministeren har
-gått på limpinnen. Det er dog litt rart, da jeg håper at
-finansdepartementet ikke baserer seg på rykter og myter når de
-besvarer Stortinget. Men du trenger ikke bare tro på meg som kilde
-til påstanden om at Bitcoin ikke er anonymt. Sondre Rønjom har
-<a href="http://blogg.nsm.stat.no/archives/3241">via Sikkerhetsbloggen
-hos Nasjonal Sikkerhetsmyndighet</a> uttalt følgende:</p>
-
-<p><blockquote>
-«At [bitcoin] i utgangspunktet
-<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.4524"><em>ikke</em> er anonymt</a>,
-kommer kanskje som en overraskelse på mange.»
-</blockquote></p>
-
-<p>Enhver bevegelse av Bitcoin er offentlig tilgjengelig for alle på
-Internet, og en må legge svært mye innsats inn hvis en skal hindre at
-nettverksanalyse av transaksjonsloggene kan brukes til å identifisere
-brukerne. F.eks. kan en enkelt se hva jeg har mottatt til min
-offentliggjorte mottaksadresse ved å besøke blockexplorer og slå opp
-adressen
-<a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>.
-Det virker dermed på meg ganske klart at å påstå at
-Bitcoin-transaksjoner er anonyme strengt tatt er å føre Stortinget bak
-lyset.</p>
-
-<p>Finansministeren er ikke den eneste som har latt seg forlede av
-medieomtalen. I spørsmålet fra Hr. Solvik-Olsen skriver han at «For
-noen dager siden kom den første bitcoin-minibanken på Kypros», hvilket
-så vidt jeg har klart å finne ut ikke er riktig. Det er annonsert
-planer om en slik minibank (fra
-<a href="http://www.bitcoinatm.com/">BitcoinATM</a>), men jeg finner
-intet tegn til at en slik minibank er utplassert noe sted.</p>
-
-<p>Som vanlig, hvis du bruker Bitcoin og ønsker å vise din støtte til
-mine aktiviteter, så setter jeg pris på Bitcoin-donasjoner til min
-adresse
-<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
+ <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/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget</a>.
+ 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 class="padding"></div>
<div class="entry">
- <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_developer_gathering_in_2013_take_place_in_Trondheim.html">First Debian Edu / Skolelinux developer gathering in 2013 take place in Trondheim</a></div>
- <div class="date">16th April 2013</div>
- <div class="body"><p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
-Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
-Details about the gathering can be found
-<a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
-the FRiSK wiki</a>. The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
-participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
-and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
-weekend.</p>
-
-<p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
-infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
-Edu release.</p>
-
-<p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
+ <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">
</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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