- <title>Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sun, 27 Oct 2013 17:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>The
-<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
-program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images. It
-create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
-debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
-stick. Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
-<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
-of a plan to simplify the build system for
-<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
-project</a>. The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
-the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
-based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
-Raspberry Pi.</p>
-
-<p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
-architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
-code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
-Debian laptop. I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
-allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
-Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>. First, the
-<tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
-call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
-generated chroot before running the second stage. This allow
-vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host. Next I added
-two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
-fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
-given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
-partition for the /boot/ stuff. I also added a <tt>--variant
-variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
-Debian base system packages installed. Finally, I added an option
-<tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
-as a boot loader. It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
-most other non-x86 architectures. The changes were accepted by the
-upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
-available from
-<a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
-upstream project page</a>.</p>
-
-<p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
-create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
-binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
-list:</p>
-
-<p><pre>
-#!/bin/sh
-set -e # Exit on first error
-rootdir="$1"
-cd "$rootdir"
-cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
-deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
-EOF
-# Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi. This
-# install a kernel somewhere too.
-wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
- -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
-chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
-mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
-touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
-chroot $rootdir rpi-update
-</pre></p>
-
-<p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
-to build the image:</p>
-
-<pre>
-sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
- --variant minbase \
- --arch armel \
- --distribution jessie \
- --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
- --image test.img \
- --size 600M \
- --bootsize 64M \
- --boottype vfat \
- --log-level debug \
- --verbose \
- --no-kernel \
- --no-extlinux \
- --root-password raspberry \
- --hostname raspberrypi \
- --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
- --customize `pwd`/customize \
- --package netbase \
- --package git-core \
- --package binutils \
- --package ca-certificates \
- --package wget \
- --package kmod
-</pre></p>
-
-<p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
-rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
-exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
-/etc/hosts with the minbase variant. I really wish there was a way to
-set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
-that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
-using a non-free binary blob.</p>
-
-<p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
-probably a few others installed. I have not checked the complete
-build dependency list.</p>
-
-<p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
-on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
-optimized for that use. So the images created will be a bit slower
-than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
+ <title>Debian Edu interview: Dominik George</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Dominik_George.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Dominik_George.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Wed, 25 Dec 2013 13:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
+project</a> consist of both newcomers and old timers, and this time I
+was able to get an interview with a newcomer in the project who showed
+up on the IRC channel a few weeks ago to let us know about his
+successful installation of Debian Edu Wheezy in his School. Say hello
+to <a href="https://www.ohloh.net/accounts/Natureshadow">Dominik
+George</a>.</p>
+
+<!-- http://www.dominik-george.de/images/foto.jpg -->
+
+<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
+
+<p>I am a 23 year-old student from Germany who has spent half of his
+life with open source. In "real life", I am, as already mentioned, a
+student in the fields of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering,
+Information Technologies and Anglistics. Due to my (only partially
+voluntary) huge engagement in the open source world, these things are
+a bit vacant right now however.</p>
+
+<p>I also have been working as a project teacher at a Gymasnium
+(public school) for various years now. I took up that work some time
+around 2005 when still attending that school myself and have continued
+it until today. I also had been running the (kind of very advanced)
+network of that school together with a team of very interested and
+talented students in the age of 11 to 15 years, who took the chance to
+learn a lot about open source and networking before I left the school
+to help building another school's informational education concept from
+scratch.</p>
+
+<p>That said, one might see me as a kind of "glue" between school kids
+and the elderly of teachers as well as between the open source
+ecosystem and the (even more complex) educational ecosystem.</p>
+
+<p>When I am not busy with open source or education, I like Geocaching
+and cycling.</p>
+
+<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
+project?</strong></p>
+
+<p>I think that happened some time around 2009 when I first attended
+<a href="http://www.froscon.org">FrOSCon</a> and visited the project
+booth. I think I wasn't too interested back then because I used to
+have an attitude of disliking software that does too much stuff on its
+own. Maybe I was too inexperienced to realise the upsides of an
+"out-of-the-box" solution ;).</p>
+
+<p>The first time I actively talked to Skolelinux people was at
+<a href="http://www.openrheinruhr.de">OpenRheinRuhr</a> 2011 when the
+BiscuIT project, a home-grewn software used by my school for various
+really cool things from timetables and class contact lists to lunch
+ordering, student ID card printing and project elections first got to
+a stage where it could have been published. I asked the Skolelinux
+guys running the booth if the project were interested in it and gave a
+small demonstration, but there wasn't any real feedback and the guys
+seemed rather uninterested.</p>
+
+<p>After I left the school where I developed the software, it got
+mostly lost, but I am now reimplementing it for my new school. I have
+reusability and compatibility in mind, and I hop there will be a new
+basis for contributing it to the Skolelinux project ;)!</p>
+
+<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
+Edu?</strong></p>
+
+<p>The most important advantage seems to be that it "just
+works". After overcoming some minor (but still very annoying) glitches
+in the installer, I got a fully functional, working school network,
+without the month-long hassle I experienced when setting all that up
+from scratch in earlier years. And above that, it rocked - I didn't
+have any real hardware at hand, because the school was just founded
+and has no money whatsoever, so I installed a combined server (main
+server, terminal services and workstation) in a VM on my personal
+notebook, bridging the LTSP network interface to the ethernet port,
+and then PXE-booted the Windows notebooks that were lying around from
+it. I could use 8 clients without any performance issues, by using a
+tiny little VM on a tiny little notebook. I think that's enough to say
+that it rocks!</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, there are marketing reasons. Life's bad, and so no
+politician will ever permit a setup described as "Debian, an universal
+operating system, with some really cool educational tools" while they
+will be jsut fine with "Skolelinux, a single-purpose solution for your
+school network", even if both turn out to be the very same thing (yes,
+this is unfair towards the Skolelinux project, and must not be taken
+too seriously - you get the idea, anyway).</p>
+
+<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
+Edu?</strong></p>
+
+<p>I have not been involved with Skolelinux long enough to really
+answer this question in a fair way. Thus, please allow me to put it in
+other words: "What do you expect from Skolelinux to keep liking it?" I
+can list a few points about that:</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+ <li>always strive to get all things integrated into Debian upstream
+ <li>be open to discussion about changes and the like, even with newcomers
+ <li>be helpful at being helpful ;)
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>I'm really sorry I cannot say much more about that :(!</p>
+
+<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
+
+<p>First of all, all software I use is free and open. I have abandoned
+all non-free software (except for firmware on my darned phone) this
+year.</p>
+
+<p>I run Debian GNU/Linux on all PC systems I use. On that, I mostly
+run text tools. I use
+<a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm">mksh</a> as shell,
+<a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/jupp.htm">jupp</a> as very advanced
+text editor (I even got the developer to help me write a script/macro
+based full-featured student management software with the two),
+<a href="http://mcabber.com/">mcabber</a> for XMPP and
+<a href="http://www.irssi.org/">irssi</a> for IRC. For that overly
+coloured world called the WWW, I use
+<a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/">Iceweasel
+(Firefox)</a>. Oh, and <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</a> for
+e-mail.</p>
+
+<p>However, while I am personally aware of the fact that text tools
+are more efficient and powerful than anything else, I also use (or at
+least operate) some tools that are suitable to bring open source to
+kids. One of these things is <a href="http://jappix.org/">Jappix</a>,
+which I already introduced to some kids even before they got aware of
+Facebook, making them see for themselves that they do not need
+Facebook now ;).</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, that's a two-sided thing. One side is what I believe, and one
+side is what I have experienced.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that the right strategy is showing them the benefits. But
+that won't work out as long as the acceptance of free alternatives
+grows globally. What I mean is that if all the kids are almost forced
+to use Windows, Facebook, Skype, you name it at home, they will not
+see why they would want to use alternatives at school. I have seen
+students take seat in front of a fully-functional, modern Debian
+desktop that could do anything their Windows at home could do, and
+they jsut refused to use it because "Linux sucks". It is something
+that makes the council of our city spend around 600000 € to buy
+software - not including hardware, mind you - for operating school
+networks, and for installing a system that, as has been proved, does
+not work. For those of you readers who are good at maths, have you
+already found out how many lives could have been saved with that money
+if we had instead used it to bring education to parts of the world
+that need it? I have, and found it to be nothing less dramatic than
+plain criminal.</p>
+
+<p>That said, the only feasible way appears to be the bottom up
+method. We have to bring free software to kids and parents. I have
+founded an association named
+<a href="https://www.teckids.org">Teckids</a> here in Germany that does
+just that. We organise several events for kids and adolescents in the
+area of free and open source software, for example the
+<a href="http://kids.froscon.org">FrogLabs</a>, which share staff with
+Teckids and are the youth programme of
+<a href="http://www.froscon.org">the Free and Open Source Software
+Conference (FrOSCon)</a>. We do a lot more than most other conferences
+- this year, we first offered the FrogLabs as a holiday camp for kids
+aged 10 to 16. It was a huge success, with approx. 30 kids taking part
+and learning with and about free software through a whole weekend. All
+of us had a lot of fun, and the results were really exciting.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from that, we are preparing a campaign that is supposed to bring
+the message of free alternatives to stuff kids use every day to them and
+their parents, e.g. the use of Jabber / Jappix instead of Facebook and
+Skype. To make that possible, we are planning to get together a team of
+clever kids who understand very well what their peers need and can bring
+it across to them. So we will have a peer-driven network of adolescents
+who teach each other and collect feedback from the community of minors.
+We then take that feedback and our own experience to work closely with
+open source projects, such as Skolelinux or Jappix, at improving their
+software in a way that makes it more and more attractive for the target
+group. At least I hope that we will have good cooperation with
+Skolelinux in the future ;)!</p>
+
+<p>So in conclusion, what I believe is that, if it weren't for the world
+being so bad, it should be very clear to the political decision makers
+that the only way to go nowadays is free software for various reasons,
+but I have learnt that the only way that seems to work is bottom up.</p>
+
+<!--
+
+> * Who should be interviewed with this questions in the future?
+
+That's probably the hardest question of them all, as I do not know the
+community. However, I would be willing to do the following:
+
+ <li>Run an interview with a German headteacher who is very open to
+ free software, and also prefers it, but cannot really use it because
+ of the decision makers above;
+ <li>Run interviews with some kids, both with and without previous
+ knowledge about free software
+
+If that is wanted, just let me know ;).
+
+-->
projects / homepage.git / blobdiff