Behind Debian Edu and -Skolelinux there are a lot of people doing the hard work of -setting together all the pieces. This time I present to you Andreas -Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several -years. We was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set -up in the recently released -Debian -Edu Squeeze version.
- -Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
- -My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany. After -studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in -Quantum Optics. After that I worked some years in an optics company. -Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started -teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school. I teach math, physics, -information technology and science/technology.
- -How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu -project?
- -Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu -project because of my interest in education and Debian. Within the -qualification/training period for the teaching, I started -contributing.
- -What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?
- -The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the -out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the -Debian Project!
- -What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?
- -As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its -downside, too. In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the -setup, if you need or want that. Further more, it is not easily -possible to upgrade the system to a new release. It takes much too -long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps -because the number of developers working on the core of the code is -rather small and often busy elsewhere.
- -The Debian LAN -project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.
- -Which free software do you use daily?
- -I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian -on all my machines. For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then -mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing. At school I -have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.
- -Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to -get schools to use free software?
- -One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom: -Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and -politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader". The school -administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor. -Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats. Even -free browsers do not work for the school administration. Publishers -of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.
- -To change this, political work is very important. Parts of the -political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years. -However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free' -the system. There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and -"Free/Open Standards". I am not sure if all the involved parties have -a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a -fraction takes them seriously. However it might slowly make free -software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.
+ +During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for +LEGO Mindstorm +NXT. My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I +discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were +already in Debian Squeeze. If Debian support for LEGO is something +you care about, please join me on the IRC channel +#debian-lego (server +irc.debian.org). There is a lot that could be done to improve the +situation. :)
Jeg har tenkt meg på konferansen Go -Open 2012 i Oslo 23. april. -Medlemsforeningen NUUG deler ut -prisen for fremme av fri -programvare i Norge der i år. Kommer du?
-It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution -like Debian Edu / Skolelinux, -and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big -contributor to the -Debian -Edu Squeeze release manual. +
+Her er noen lenker til tekster jeg har satt pris på å lese den +siste måneden.
+ +-
+
+
- 2012-12-07 + Myter og + FUD om fri programvare av min venn Christer Gundersen som + kommenterer noen av de påstandene som er spredt via Computerworld + Norge de siste månedene. + +
- BankID er et opplegg der utsteder (dvs. banken eller dens
+ leverandør) sitter på alt som trengs for å bruke BankID, men har
+ lovet å ikke bruke den unntatt på oppdrag fra deg. Det er greit nok
+ for banktjenester, der banken allerede har full kontroll over
+ resultatet, men problematisk når det gjelder tilgang til
+ helseopplysninger og avtaleinngåelse med andre enn banken. Jeg
+ håper protestene brer om seg.
+
+
-
+
+
- 2012-12-11 BankID + blottlegger helseopplysninger + +
- 2012-12-07 - + Helseopplysningene ikke sikre med Bank-ID + +
- 2012-12-07 + PÃ¥peker + alvorlige, men kjente utfordringer er den offisielle + holdningen til de som lager BankID. + +
- 2012-12-08
+ NTNU
+ Researcher Warns against Security of Bank ID Password
-
Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
+
I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has -occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.
+ - 2012-12-11 Norske elever er dårligst i Europa på algebra
-
How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu -project?
+ - 2012-12-11
+ Realfagsdødaren
-
I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user! The only -reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang -around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things -they'd like a native English speaker to proofread... So I did a sweep -through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of -"localisation".
+ - 2012-12-21 + - + Noen må bli skuffet - Politiet i Bergen forteller hvor lavt de + prioriterer hverdagskriminalitet. -
- 2012-05-03 + + Kripos-ansatt dømt for snoking for venn - viser hvor svak + reaksjonen blir når politiet misbruker innsamlet informasjon. En + forvarsel på konsekvensene av nasjonal brev- og besøkskontroll - + ofte kalt Datalagringsdirektivet. -
- 2012-12-14 + à + smøre en forskjell - om ensomhet og jul. -
- 2012-12-18
+ Ãn
+ krise av gangen, takk!
-
I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up -as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do -everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend -money on the latest hardware.
-Which free software do you use daily?
+ - 2012-12-17 + NAV: + Et mangehodet monster -
- 2011-01-12 + Pasienter + uten vern - forteller litt om hvordan Norsk Pasientregister og + andre helseregister raderer bort pasienters privatsfære. -
- 2012-12-19 + Hvorfor + er barnefamilier fattige? + +
- 2012-12-25 + Den + skjulte minoriteten â konservative kristne i Norge - kronikk av + Bjørn Stærk fra aftenposten + +
- 2009-05-04 + Folkebiblioteket + 2.0 - Min venn Sturle om opphavsrett og Internett, i debatt med + Olav Torvund. + +
What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?
+What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?
+These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it! In fact I -had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the -education system.
+I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the -software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other -words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).
+Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to -get schools to use free software?
-Well, I don't know. I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning -with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked -you would hardly need a strategy.
+Og et godt nytt år til dere alle!
Recently I have spent time with -Skolelinux Drift AS on speeding -up a Debian Edu / Skolelinux -Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the -process I discovered something very surprising. The reason the KDE -menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly -due to the way KDE find application icons. I discovered that showing -the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be -passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server. Most of these were - -NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response. Because the -ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20 -ms, the menus would be very slow. Looking at the strace of kicker in -Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that -the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for -non-existing files. KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find -one icon file. In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required -around 230 access(2) calls.
- -The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon -directories, and the list of possible directories is large. In -(almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg -and .xpm. The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS -mounted. Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS -requests. I am not the first one to discover this. I found a -KDE bug report -from 2009 about this problem, and it is still unsolved.
- -My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package -kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files -used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths -for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the -icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/. Finally, I add symlinks to -these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look -for them. This cut down the number of file accesses required to find -one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu -almost instantaneous. I'm not quite sure where to make the package -publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.
- -The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu -and icon handling, but also the login process. Not quite sure how to -speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and -that is not really an option at the moment.
- -If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu -(at) lists.debian.org.
+ +I was happy to discover a few days ago that the +Skolelinux / Debian Edu +project also this year received a Christmas present from Another +Agency in Trondheim. NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account +December 24th. I want to express our thanks for this very welcome +present. As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on +funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer +gatherings, this donation was most welcome. One developer gathering +cost around NOK 15 000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the +development pace we want. Thus, I hope their example this year is +followed by many others. :)
+ +The public list of donors can be found on +the +donation page for the project, which also contain instructions if +you want to donate to the project.