X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/38fec72de86ee84093487d9e4aa4a83bb80b9062..f903b45d9035366579aaf3a6ec97c99fcc960fe6:/blog/index.rss diff --git a/blog/index.rss b/blog/index.rss index 2c2f58ccaf..eee9b9eb6e 100644 --- a/blog/index.rss +++ b/blog/index.rss @@ -6,6 +6,257 @@ http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ + + ColorHug - USB and free software based screen color calibration + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColorHug___USB_and_free_software_based_screen_color_calibration.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColorHug___USB_and_free_software_based_screen_color_calibration.html + Fri, 18 May 2012 10:00:00 +0200 + <p>In january, I +<a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered +the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from +<a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate +the color on a computer screen. The software required is +<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included +in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next +batch. Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the +opportunity to order. Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the +delivery. I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it +should go in the mail on monday. :)</p> + +<p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended +colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software +drivers. :)</p> + + + + + Dør Unix, eller lever den videre som Linux? + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/D_r_Unix__eller_lever_den_videre_som_Linux_.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/D_r_Unix__eller_lever_den_videre_som_Linux_.html + Tue, 15 May 2012 10:20:00 +0200 + <p>Peter Hidas fra Gartner melder i Computerworld at +<a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article245011.ece">Unix +nedkjempes av Linux og Windows</a>. For meg er påstanden meningsløs, +da Linux er en variant av Unix, og hele diskusjonen om Linux er Unix +eller ikke er utdatert og uinteressant. Jeg ser at Helge Skrivervik +deler mitt syn på saken i sin kommentar fra i går om at +"<a href="http://www.mymayday.com/blogs/2012/unix-linux">Unix vs. Linux += uinteressant"</a>.</p> + +<p>I <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>-sammenheng møter jeg av og +til folk som tror NUUG er for avdankede folk som driver med den samme +Unix-varianten som Peter Hidas skriver om i sin kommentar, og dermed +er en foreningen for avdankede teknologer interessert i døende +teknologi. Intet kunne være lengre fra sannheten.</p> + +<p>NUUG er en forening for oss som har sans for fri programvare, åpne +standarder og Unix-lignende operativsystemer, som Ubuntu, FreeBSD, +Debian, Mint, Gentoo, Android, Gnome, KDE, LXDE, Firefox, LibreOffice, +ODF, HTML, C++, ECMA-Script, etc. Kort sagt der nyskapning skjer på +IT-fronten i dag. Det innebærer selvfølgelig også de som er +interessert i de "gamle" Unix-ene som Solaris og HP-UX, men de er bare +et lite mindretall blant NUUGs medlemmer. De aller fleste medlemmene +har i dag fokus på Linux.</p> + + + + + Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html + Sun, 13 May 2012 20:30:00 +0200 + <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to +publish another interview with the people behind +<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>. +This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the +years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor +details get right before release. + +<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p> + +<p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in +Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany. I worked nearly 20 years as +certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an +international company for machinery and equipment. Since 2011 I'm a +certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical +documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer. From April this year +I will manage the department of technical documentation at a +manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p> + +<p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used +it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at +home since 2006.</p> + +<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu +project?</strong></p> + +<p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my +daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the +middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped +him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she +asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old +computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p> + +<p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer +running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as +gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer +network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time +and with a lot of fun. About one year later the school was connected +to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school +building. That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a +Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and +being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra +costs for things like licence and software. So I searched for a +school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of +people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux +prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school. I +managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over +the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in +Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p> + +<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian +Edu?</strong></p> + +<p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages +for me as today.</p> + +<p>In the past there were advantages like:</p> + +<p><ul> + +<li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as +they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li> + +<li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without +cost.</li> + +<li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for +schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows +clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a +infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a +server</li> + +<li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the +school.</li> + +</ul></p> + +<p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones +came up in this way:</p> + +<p><ul> + +<li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software +now.</li> + +<li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which +have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts +because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li> + +<li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for +management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the +interfaces used in the past.</li> + +<li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the +different needs.</li> + +<li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li> + +<li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the +world and so the community, which is an very important part I think, +is sharing knowledge and minds.</li> + +<li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are +solved today by Debian Edu. </li> + +</ul></p> + +<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian +Edu?</strong></p> + +<p><ul> + +<li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into +their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even +whole municipality areas.</li> + +<li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not +enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to +politicians.</li> + +<li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li> + +</ul></p> + +<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p> + +<p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop +computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I +use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel, +KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I +need from the KDE environment. On console I use newsbeuter, mutt, +screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p> + +<p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube +and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS, +rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services +with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me +and the whole family. I probably forgot something.</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 believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate +Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different +countries and areas all over the world.</p> + + + + + Intervju med digi.no om Norge Digitalt og Openstreetmap + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intervju_med_digi_no_om_Norge_Digitalt_og_Openstreetmap.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intervju_med_digi_no_om_Norge_Digitalt_og_Openstreetmap.html + Fri, 11 May 2012 23:40:00 +0200 + <p>I går ble jeg kontaktet på epost av +<a href="http://www.digi.no">digi.no</a>s Eirik Rossen som lurte på om +jeg hadde noen kommentarer til +<a href="http://www.statkart.no/statkart.ny.no/nor/Statens_kartverk/Om_Statens_kartverk/Pressesenter/Nyhetsarkiv/Nyheter_2012/mai/Norge+i+tet+på+digitale+kartdata.d25-SwZLMWg.ips">kartverkets +pressemelding</a> om Norges tetplassering når det gjelder +kart-tilgjengelighet. Jeg svarte følgende, som resulterte i noen +sitater i +<a href="http://www.digi.no/895420/norge-i-tet-paa-digitale-kartdata#debatt">Digis +dekning</a> av kartverkets pressemelding.</p> + +<p><blockquote> +<p>Takk for muligheten til å kommentere.</p> + +<p>Pressemeldingen omhandler tilgjengeligheten av kart for aktører som er +medlem i kartellet Norge Digitalt. Det er ingen overraskelse for meg +at tilgjengeligheten til kart hos disse medlemmene er god. Men for +oss på utsiden av kartellet er tilgjengelighet av det som burde være +felleskapets og innbyggernes kart dårlig.</p> + +<p>Bruksvilkårene til kartene fra medlemmene i Norge Digital hindrer +nyskapning og selv om en er villig til å betale den ublu prisen som +forlanges får en fortsatt ikke tilgang til kartdata uten +bruksbegresninger. Derfor bruker jeg heller tid på å gjøre +fribrukskartet OpenStreetmap bedre. Der fremmer bruksvilkårene +nyskapning og lar meg skape nye tjenester uten å måtte søke om +tillatelse fra det offentlige.</p> + +<p>En annen problemstilling er jo sikkerhet til fjells og til sjøs. +Mon tro hvor mange ulykker på sjøen som kunne vært unngått hvis +sjøkartdata var tilgjengelig uten bruksbegrensninger, slik at enhver +med GPS eller kartplotter tilnærmet kostnadsfritt kunne sikre seg mest +mulig oppdaterte sjøkart? Det hjelper jo ikke at offentlige etater +har enkel tilgang til sjøkartene når det samme ikke gjelder hver +båtkaptein og småbåtfører. Jeg tror samfunnet som helhet hadde tjent +på å unngå kostnadene ved disse ulykkene ved å tvinge sjøkartverket +til å publisere sine kartdata på Internet uten bruksbegresninger.</p> +</blockquote></p> + + + Cutting it short - and picking the right tool for the job http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Cutting_it_short___and_picking_the_right_tool_for_the_job.html @@ -278,211 +529,6 @@ komplett oppgave tilgjengelig. På tide å holde et øye med <a href="http://www.duo.uio.no/sok/search.html?q=skolelinux">Skolelinux-søket</a> til DUO...</p> - - - - - Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html - Sun, 15 Apr 2012 12:10:00 +0200 - <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and -Skolelinux</a> 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. He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set -up in the recently released -<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian -Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p> - -<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu -project?</strong></p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?</strong></p> - -<p>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!</p> - -<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?</strong></p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a> -project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p> - -<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to -get schools to use free software?</strong></p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - - - - - Jeg skal på konferansen Go Open 2012 - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jeg_skal_p__konferansen_Go_Open_2012.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jeg_skal_p__konferansen_Go_Open_2012.html - Fri, 13 Apr 2012 11:30:00 +0200 - <p>Jeg har tenkt meg på konferansen <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go -Open 2012</a> i Oslo 23. april. -<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Medlemsforeningen NUUG</a> deler ut -<a href="http://www.nuug.no/prisen/">prisen for fremme av fri -programvare i Norge</a> der i år. Kommer du?</p> - - - - - Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html - Sun, 8 Apr 2012 10:50:00 +0200 - <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution -like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, -and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big -contributor to the -<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian -Edu Squeeze release manual</a>. - -<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p> - -<p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has -occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p> - -<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu -project?</strong></p> - -<p>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".</p> - -<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?</strong></p> - -<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?</strong></p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p> - -<p>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).</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, 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.</p> - - - - - Why the KDE menu is slow when /usr/ is NFS mounted - and a workaround - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_the_KDE_menu_is_slow_when__usr__is_NFS_mounted___and_a_workaround.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_the_KDE_menu_is_slow_when__usr__is_NFS_mounted___and_a_workaround.html - Fri, 6 Apr 2012 22:40:00 +0200 - <p>Recently I have spent time with -<a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding -up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> -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.</p> - -<p>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 -<a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report -from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>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.</p> - -<p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu -(at) lists.debian.org.</p>