X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/195464becae82126c24a8d6d6f520ca069437413..eb973c52f2e5a325c7ca6df9b9ff95d4f0dc3100:/blog/archive/2012/12/12.rss diff --git a/blog/archive/2012/12/12.rss b/blog/archive/2012/12/12.rss index 32d1736c01..61077fed88 100644 --- a/blog/archive/2012/12/12.rss +++ b/blog/archive/2012/12/12.rss @@ -6,6 +6,145 @@ http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ + + A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html + Fri, 28 Dec 2012 09:20:00 +0100 + <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the +<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> +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&nbsp;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. :)</p> + +<p>The public list of donors can be found on +<a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the +donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if +you want to donate to the project.</p> + + + + + How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html + Tue, 25 Dec 2012 20:50:00 +0100 + <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new +year! I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p> + +<p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital +decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins +between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting +experiment. And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in +<a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit. +The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source +package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting +in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A> +for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package +name.</p> + +<p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin +team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze +using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p> + +<blockquote><pre> +git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin +cd bitcoin +DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean +DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new +</pre></blockquote> + +<p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well. The +list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and +bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment. Note that the +client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need +around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment. Make sure your +~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download +all the blocks. The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so +there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will +not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p> + +<p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my +activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address +<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p> + + + + + A word on bitcoin support in Debian + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html + Fri, 21 Dec 2012 23:59:00 +0100 + <p>It has been a while since I wrote about +<a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised +peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I +have been busy elsewhere. But two days ago, I started looking at the +state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in +Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet. The package +is now maintained by a +<a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of +people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team. We +owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :) +But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in +Wheezy. It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from +backports). The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking +it from entering testing. To try to help the team and improve the +situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug +reports. I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt +Corallo in a +<a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for +Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the +Debian package.</p> + +<p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on +IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to +improve the package. It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from +me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client +package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion +setup. As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created +<a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a +patch to backport</a> the latest version. Jonas is going to look at +it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a +new version to unstable. + +<p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the +centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system. I +find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting +transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and +that the major credit card companies can block legal money +transactions to Wikileaks. But for bitcoin to succeed, more people +need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when +they sell products and services. Improving the bitcoin support in +Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough. +Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to +pay with bitcoin is still not very good. The bitcoin: URI is a step +in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in +use. Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a +quick transaction. I believe there are other clients available, but +have not tested them.</p> + +<p>My +<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment +with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin. +I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two +years ago, as can be +<a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen +on the blockexplorer service</a>. Thank you everyone for your +donation. The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that +bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the +number of users have gone up since then. If you use bitcoin and want +to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to +the same address as last time, +<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p> + + + Piratpartiet på opphavs-retrett? http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Piratpartiet_p__opphavs_retrett_.html