X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/af24adfa744cfef43b9764366459fb11ca5f8cbb..21c8b6463fd65b6e35f2c9be2730113447f9dfd0:/blog/index.rss diff --git a/blog/index.rss b/blog/index.rss index b6b11dce03..0da772d2f0 100644 --- a/blog/index.rss +++ b/blog/index.rss @@ -6,6 +6,245 @@ http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ + + First beta release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html + Sat, 27 Jul 2013 20:30:00 +0200 + <p>The first wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up +today. This is the release announcement:</p> + +<p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b0 released +2013-07-27</strong></p> + +<p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux +7.1+edu0~b0, 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. 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. 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 fifth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically +this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the +Squeeze release.</p> + +<p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the +versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta +release.</p> + +<p><strong>Software updates</strong></p> + +<ul> + +<li>Switched roaming workstation profiles from wicd to network-manager + for network configuration, as wicd didn't work any more.</li> +<li>Changed version numbers of patched gosa and libpam-mklocaluser + packages to make sure our locally patched versions will be replaced + by the official packages when they are released from Debian. Those + installing alpha version need to reinstall or manually downgrade gosa + and libpam-mklocaluser.</li> +<li>Added bluetooth tools to the default desktop (bluedevil, blueman).</li> +<li>Added tools for sharing the desktop on KDE (krdc, krfb).</li> +<li>Added valgrind to the default installation for easier debugging of + crash bugs.</li> + +</ul> + +<p><strong>Other changes</strong></p> + +<ul> + +<li>Fixed artwork package to work with gnome, no longer break + desktop=gnome installations.</li> +<li>Adjusted installer to now work when forced to use a proxy with the + netinst CD.</li> +<li>Fixed code detecting and setting/loading hardware specific + setup/firmware to work more robust out of the box.</li> +<li>Adjusted Kerberos setup to detect realm and server settings at + install time instead of dynamically at run time. This avoid a crash + with krb5-auth-dialog on diskless workstations without a DNS name.</li> +<li>Worked around misfeature in network-manager not calling the dhclient + exit hooks, causing automatic proxy configuration and automatic host + name setting at run time to work again.</li> +<li>Fixed feature setting the default Iceweasel start page from URL + fetched from LDAP, to allow schools to set the global default by + updating the dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no LDAP object.</li> +<li>Changed default host name on all networked machines to be unique + (generated from MAC or reverse DNS) after boot.</li> +<li>Adjusted partition sizes to make sure they are big enough.</li> + +</ul> + +<p><strong>Known issues</strong></p> + +<ul> + +<li>Grub is missing the new artwork.</li> +<li>KDE fail to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to + not use the http proxy as it should.</li> +<li>Chromium also fail to use the proxy.</li> + +</ul> + +<p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p> + +<p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p> + +<ul> + +<li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li> + +<li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li> + +<li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso .</li> + +</ul> + +<p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 55d5de9765b6dccd5d9ec33cf1a07109 +<br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 996a1d9517740e4d627d100de2d12b23dd545a3f</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/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li> +<li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li> +<li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso .</li> + +</ul> + +<p>The MD5SUM of this image is: d8f0818c51a78d357de794066f289f69 +<br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 49185ca354e8d0543240423746924f76a6cee733</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> + + + + + How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html + Wed, 17 Jul 2013 23:50:00 +0200 + <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> + +<ul> + +<li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk + (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li> + +<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> + +<li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file + systems.</li> + +<li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to + /etc/fstab.</li> + +<li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li> + +<li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from + cron.daily).</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>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> + + + Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html @@ -382,7 +621,7 @@ 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 +working packages to get it working. And 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 @@ -542,234 +781,5 @@ very hard to convert against their will.</p> - - Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html - Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:50:00 +0200 - <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> - - - - - Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html - Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:00:00 +0200 - <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines, -the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation -or on first boot from the hard disk. I've seen it once in a while the -last few years, but only recently understood the cause. I've seen it -on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop. -The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops. The system to -control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to -turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead. I do -not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the -i915 driver used by the -<a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell -EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p> - -<p>The problem can be worked around two ways. Either by adding -i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in -/etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1 -option when it load the i915 kernel module. On Debian and Ubuntu, it -can be done by running these commands as root:</p> - -<pre> -echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf -update-initramfs -u -k all -</pre> - -<p>Since March 2012 there is -<a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a -mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which -hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the -brightness setting automatically. To use it, one need to add a row in -<a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the -intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source -<tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static -struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device -number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device -number.</p> - -<p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci --vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p> - -<p><pre> -00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \ - 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \ - (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) - Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688] - Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \ - ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+ - Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \ - <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx- - Latency: 0 - Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42 - Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M] - Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M] - Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64] - Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] - Capabilities: <access denied> - Kernel driver in use: i915 -</pre></p> - -<p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p> - -<p><pre> -struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = { - ... - /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */ - { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness }, - ... -} -</pre></p> - -<p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using -<tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the -invert_brightness flag should be sent to the -<a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel -(at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel -developers. But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not -yet shown up in -<a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the -web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept -emails from non-subscribers. Because of this, I sent my patch also to -the Debian bug tracking system instead as -<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make -sure the patch is not lost.</p> - -<p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops -with this problem working properly with Linux. If you use Gnome, your -worries should be over at this point. But if you use KDE, there is -something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on -the screen during login. I've reported it to Debian as -<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and -have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing -this. Perhaps you can help? Perhaps you know what the Gnome -developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE -developers? Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed -during login? If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if -you do not know how to update BTS).</p> - - -