I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
-taken priority. But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
-and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
-communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
-actually started working on the project a while back.
Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
-following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
-at.
You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
-freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
-the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
-in my APT repository. But do not let this stop you. It is only a
-short "apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy" away. :)
Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
-192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
-off the DHCP server by running "update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
-disable" as root.
Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
-problems. We gather on the IRC channel
-#freedombox on
-irc.debian.org and the
-project
-mailing list.
For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
+solution for use at home. My requirements are simple, it must be
+cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
+keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
+One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
+storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
+writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
+service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space. On top
+of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
+lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage. But
+I never found time to implement such system. But the last few weeks I
+have looked at a system called
+S3QL, a locally
+mounted network backed file system with the features I need.
+
+
S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
+handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
+Google Drive or OpenStack API. There are heaps of such storage
+providers. S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
+combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server. S3QL
+include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
+and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
+a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
+while the content is stored in the cloud as well. This allow me to
+have a backup that should survive fire. The file system can not be
+shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
+mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
+access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.
+
+
It is simple to use. I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
+package is included already. So to get started, run apt-get
+install s3ql. Next, pick a storage provider. I ended up picking
+Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
+how
+to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service, because I trust the laws
+in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
+data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
+in Iceland. Another nice recipe is available from the article
+S3QL
+Filesystem for HPC Storage by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
+Admin magazine. When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
+the API key needed to connect to the storage API. With Greencloud,
+the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
+account.
+
+
Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
+system. First, create a new bucket in the cloud. This bucket is the
+file system storage area. I picked a bucket name reflecting the
+machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
+I'll refer to it as bucket-name below. In addition, one need
+the API login and password, and a locally created password. Store it
+all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
+
+
+[s3c]
+storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
+backend-login: API-login
+backend-password: API-password
+fs-passphrase: local-password
+
+
+
I create my local passphrase using pwget 50 or similar,
+but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
+Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
+details and password to create it:
+
+
+# mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
+# mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
+ --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
+Enter backend login:
+Enter backend password:
+Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
+the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
+Enter encryption password:
+Confirm encryption password:
+Generating random encryption key...
+Creating metadata tables...
+Dumping metadata...
+..objects..
+..blocks..
+..inodes..
+..inode_blocks..
+..symlink_targets..
+..names..
+..contents..
+..ext_attributes..
+Compressing and uploading metadata...
+Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
+#
+
+
The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
+
+
+# mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
+ --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
+Using 4 upload threads.
+Downloading and decompressing metadata...
+Reading metadata...
+..objects..
+..blocks..
+..inodes..
+..inode_blocks..
+..symlink_targets..
+..names..
+..contents..
+..ext_attributes..
+Mounting filesystem...
+# df -h /s3ql
+Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
+s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name 1.0T 0 1.0T 0% /s3ql
+#
+
+
+
The file system is now ready for use. I use rsync to store my
+backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
+mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
+running rsync. To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
+command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
+instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
+
+
+# umount.s3ql /s3ql
+#
+
+
+
There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
+correct any problems detected. This can be used if the local server
+crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
+mounted" flag. This is what it look like when processing a working
+file system:
+
+
+# fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
+Using cached metadata.
+File system seems clean, checking anyway.
+Checking DB integrity...
+Creating temporary extra indices...
+Checking lost+found...
+Checking cached objects...
+Checking names (refcounts)...
+Checking contents (names)...
+Checking contents (inodes)...
+Checking contents (parent inodes)...
+Checking objects (reference counts)...
+Checking objects (backend)...
+..processed 5000 objects so far..
+..processed 10000 objects so far..
+..processed 15000 objects so far..
+Checking objects (sizes)...
+Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
+Checking blocks (refcounts)...
+Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
+Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
+Checking inodes (refcounts)...
+Checking inodes (sizes)...
+Checking extended attributes (names)...
+Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
+Checking symlinks (inodes)...
+Checking directory reachability...
+Checking unix conventions...
+Checking referential integrity...
+Dropping temporary indices...
+Backing up old metadata...
+Dumping metadata...
+..objects..
+..blocks..
+..inodes..
+..inode_blocks..
+..symlink_targets..
+..names..
+..contents..
+..ext_attributes..
+Compressing and uploading metadata...
+Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
+#
+
+
+
Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
+quick, about the same speed as local file access. Uploading large
+amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
+house. Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
+which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
+Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
+Both were measured using dd. So for me, the bottleneck is my
+network, not the file system code. I do not know what a good cache
+size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
+working set.
+
+
I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
+time. If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
+busy:
+
+
+# mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
+ --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
+Using 8 upload threads.
+Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
+#
+
+
+
The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
+metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default. To ensure the
+file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
+file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
+s3qlctrl:
+
+
+# s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
+# s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
+#
+
+
+
If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
+cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
+storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
+a report:
+
+
+# s3qlstat /s3ql
+Directory entries: 9141
+Inodes: 9143
+Data blocks: 8851
+Total data size: 22049.38 MB
+After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
+After compression: 21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
+Database size: 2.39 MB (uncompressed)
+(some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
+#
+
+
+
I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
+storage. I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
+Greenqloud,
+Google Drive,
+Amazon S3 web serivces,
+Rackspace and
+Crowncloud. The latter even
+accept payment in Bitcoin. Pick one that suit your need. Some of
+them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
+quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
+best.
+
+
While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
+and posters discussing the S3QL file system. There are several, which
+told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
+science community and increased my confidence in using it. One nice
+poster is titled
+"An
+Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStackâs SwiftObject
+Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach" by Hsing-Bung
+Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
+and Pamela Smith. Please have a look.
+
+
Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
+check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
+a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
+it come to locking and umask handling etc). Running
+my
+test code to check file system semantics, I was happy to discover that
+no error was found. So the file system can be used for home
+directories, if one chooses to do so.
+
+
If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
+work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
+Tarsnap service, which also
+provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client. It have
+a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
+access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
+only read from it.
+
+
As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.
-
-
8th September 2013
-
I 2011 raderte et stortingsflertall bestående av Høyre og
-Arbeiderpartiet vekk en betydelig del av privatsfæren til det norske
-folk. Det ble vedtatt at det skulle registreres og lagres i et halvt
-år hvor alle som bærer på en mobiltelefon befinner seg, hvem de
-snakker med og hvor lenge de snakket sammen. Det skal også
-registreres hvem de sendte SMS-meldinger til, hvem en har sendt epost
-til, og hvilke nett-tjenere en besøkte. Saken er kjent som
-Datalagringsdirektivet
-(DLD), og innebærer at alle innbyggerne og andre innenfor Norges
-grenser overvåkes døgnet rundt. Det ble i praksis innført brev og
-besøkskontroll av hele befolkningen. Rapporter fra de landene som
-allerede har innført slik total lagring av borgernes
-kommunikasjonsmønstre forteller at det ikke hjelper i
-kriminalitetsbekjempelsen. Den norske prislappen blir mange hundre
-millioner, uten at det ser ut til å bidra positivt til politiets
-arbeide. Jeg synes flere hundre millioner i stedet burde vært brukt
-på noe som kan dokumenteres å ha effekt i kriminalitetsbekjempelsen.
-Se mer på
-Wikipedia
-og Jon Wessel-Aas.
-
-
Hva er problemet, tenkter du kanskje? Et åpenbart problem er at
-medienes kildevern i praksis blir radert ut. Den innsamlede
-informasjonen gjør det mulig å finne ut hvem som har snakket med
-journalister på telefon, SMS og epost, og hvem som har vært i nærheten
-av journalister så sant begge bar med seg en telefon. Et annet er at
-advokatvernet blir sterkt redusert, der politiet kan finne ut hvem
-som har snakket med en advokat når, eller vært i møter en med advokat.
-Et tredje er at svært personlig informasjon kan avledes fra hvilke
-nettsteder en har besøkt. Har en besøkt hivnorge.no,
-swingersnorge.com eller andre sider som kan brukes til avlede
-interesser som hører til privatsfæren, vil denne informasjonen være
-tilgjengelig takket være datalagringsdirektivet.
-
-
De fleste partiene var mot, kun to partier stemte for. Høyre og
-Arbeiderpartiet. Og både Høyre og Arbeiderpartiet i Oslo har
-DLD-forkjempere på toppen av sine lister (har ikke sjekket de andre
-fylkene). Det er dermed helt uaktuelt for meg å stemme på disse
-partiene. Her er oversikten over partienes valglister i Oslo, med
-informasjon om hvem som stemte hva i første DLD-votering i Stortinget,
-basert på informasjon fra mine venner i
-Holder de
-Ord samt data.stortinget.no.
-Først ut er stortingslista fra Høyre for Oslo:
-
-
-
-
-| # | Navn, fødselsår og valgkrets | Stemme/kommentar |
|---|
-
-| 1. |
-Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide (1976), Gamle Oslo |
-Stemte for DLD |
-
-| 2. |
-Nikolai Astrup (1978), Frogner |
-Stemte mot DLD |
-
-| 3. |
-Michael Tetzschner (1954), Vestre Aker |
-Stemte mot DLD |
-
-
| 4. |
-Kristin Vinje (1963), Nordre Aker |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 5. |
-Mudassar Hussain Kapur (1976), Nordstrand |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 6. |
-Stefan Magnus B. Heggelund (1984), Grünerløkka |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 7. |
-Heidi Nordby Lunde (1973), Grünerløkka |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 8. |
-Frode Helgerud (1950), Frogner |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 9. |
-Afshan Rafiq (1975), Stovner |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 10. |
-Astrid Nøklebye Heiberg (1936), Frogner |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 11. |
-Camilla Strandskog (1984) St.Hanshaugen |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 12. |
-John Christian Elden (1967), Ullern |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 13. |
-Berit Solli (1972), Alna |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 14. |
-Ola Kvisgaard (1963), Frogner |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 15. |
-James Stove Lorentzen (1957), Vestre Aker |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 16. |
-Gülsüm Koc (1987), Stovner |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 17. |
-Jon Ole Whist (1976), Grünerløkka |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 18. |
-Maren Eline Malthe-Sørenssen (1971), Vestre Aker |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 19. |
-Ståle Hagen (1968), Søndre Nordstrand |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 20. |
-Kjell Omdal Erichsen (1978), Sagene |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 21. |
-Saida R. Begum (1987), Grünerløkka |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 22. |
-Torkel Brekke (1970), Nordre Aker |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 23. |
-Sverre K. Seeberg (1950), Vestre Aker |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 24. |
-Julie Margrethe Brodtkorb (1974), Ullern |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 25. |
-Fabian Stang (1955), Frogner |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-
-
-
Deretter har vi stortingslista fra Arbeiderpartiet for Oslo:
-
-
-
-| # | Navn, fødselsår og valgkrets | Stemme/kommentar |
|---|
-
-| 1. |
-Jens Stoltenberg (1959), Frogner |
-Ikke til stede i Stortinget, leder av regjeringen som fremmet forslaget |
-
-| 2. |
-Hadia Tajik (1983), Grünerløkka |
-Stemte for DLD |
-
-| 3. |
-Jonas Gahr Støre (1960), Vestre Aker |
-Ikke til stede i Stortinget, medlem av regjeringen som fremmet forslaget |
-
-| 4. |
-Marianne Marthinsen (1980), Grünerløkka |
-Stemte for DLD |
-
-| 5. |
-Jan Bøhler (1952), Alna |
-Stemte for DLD |
+
+ 8th April 2014
+ I dag kom endelig avgjørelsen fra EU-domstolen om
+datalagringsdirektivet, som ikke overraskende ble dømt ulovlig og i
+strid med borgernes grunnleggende rettigheter. Hvis du lurer på hva
+datalagringsdirektivet er for noe, så er det
+en
+flott dokumentar tilgjengelig hos NRK som jeg tidligere
+har
+anbefalt alle å se.
-
| 6. |
-Marit Nybakk (1947), Frogner |
-Stemte for DLD |
+
Her er et liten knippe nyhetsoppslag om saken, og jeg regner med at
+det kommer flere ut over dagen. Flere kan finnes
+via
+mylder.
-
| 7. |
-Truls Wickholm (1978), Sagene |
-Stemte for DLD |
+
-| 8. |
-Prableen Kaur (1993), Grorud |
-Ikke til stede |
+- EU-domstolen:
+Datalagringsdirektivet er ugyldig - e24.no 2014-04-08
-
| 9. |
-Vegard Grøslie Wennesland (1983), St.Hanshaugen |
-Ikke til stede |
+ - EU-domstolen:
+Datalagringsdirektivet er ulovlig - aftenposten.no 2014-04-08
-
| 10. |
-Inger Helene Vaaten (1975), Grorud |
-Ikke til stede |
+ - Krever
+DLD-stopp i Norge - aftenposten.no 2014-04-08
-
| 11. |
-Ivar Leveraas (1939), Alna |
-Ikke til stede |
+ - Apenes: - En
+gledens dag - p4.no 2014-04-08
-
| 12. |
-Grete Haugdal (1971), Gamle Oslo |
-Ikke til stede |
+ - EU-domstolen:
+â Datalagringsdirektivet er ugyldig - nrk.no 2014-04-08
-| 13. |
-Olav Tønsberg (1948), Alna |
-Ikke til stede |
+- EU-domstolen:
+Datalagringsdirektivet er ugyldig - vg.no 2014-04-08
-| 14. |
-Khamshajiny Gunaratnam (1988), Grorud |
-Ikke til stede |
+- -
+Vi bør skrote hele datalagringsdirektivet - dagbladet.no
+2014-04-08
-| 15. |
-Fredrik Mellem (1969), Sagene |
-Ikke til stede |
+- EU-domstolen:
+DLD er ugyldig - digi.no 2014-04-08
-| 16. |
-Brit Axelsen (1945), Stovner |
-Ikke til stede |
+- European
+court declares data retention directive invalid - irishtimes.com
+2014-04-08
-| 17. |
-Dag Bayegan-Harlem (1977), Ullern |
-Ikke til stede |
+- EU
+court rules against requirement to keep data of telecom users -
+reuters.com 2014-04-08
-| 18. |
-Kristin Sandaker (1963), Ãsteinsjø |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 19. |
-Bashe Musse (1965), Grünerløkka |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 20. |
-Torunn Kanutte Husvik (1983), St. Hanshaugen |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 21. |
-Steinar Andersen (1947), Nordstrand |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 22. |
-Anne Cathrine Berger (1972), Sagene |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 23. |
-Khalid Mahmood (1959), Ãstensjø |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 24. |
-Munir Jaber (1990), Alna |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-| 25. |
-Libe Solberg Rieber-Mohn (1965), Frogner |
-Ikke til stede |
-
-
-
-
Hvilket parti får så min stemme i år. Jeg tror det blir
-Piratpartiet. Hvis de kan bidra
-til at det kommer noen inn på Stortinget med teknisk peiling, så får
-kanskje ikke overvåkningsgalskapen like fritt spillerom som det har
-hatt så langt.
+
+
+
Jeg synes det er veldig fint at nok en stemme slår fast at
+totalitær overvåkning av befolkningen er uakseptabelt, men det er
+fortsatt like viktig å beskytte privatsfæren som før, da de
+teknologiske mulighetene fortsatt finnes og utnyttes, og jeg tror
+innsats i prosjekter som
+Freedombox og
+Dugnadsnett er viktigere enn
+noen gang.
+
+
Update 2014-04-08 12:10: Kronerullingen for å
+stoppe datalagringsdirektivet i Norge gjøres hos foreningen
+Digitalt Personvern,
+som har samlet inn 843 215,- så langt men trenger nok mye mer hvis
+
+ikke Høyre og Arbeiderpartiet bytter mening i saken. Det var
+kun
+partinene Høyre og Arbeiderpartiet som stemte for
+Datalagringsdirektivet, og en av dem må bytte mening for at det skal
+bli flertall mot i Stortinget. Se mer om saken
+Holder
+de ord.
@@ -877,138 +783,62 @@ hatt så langt.
-
-
22nd August 2013
-
The second wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
-today, slightly delayed because of some bugs in the initial Windows
-integration fixes . This is the release announcement:
-
-
New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b1 released 2013-08-22
-
-
These are the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
-7.1+edu0~b1, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".
-
-
About Debian Edu and Skolelinux
-
-
Debian Edu, also known as
-Skolelinux, 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 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
-more
-than 60 educational software packages and more are available from
-the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
-and Xfce desktop environment.
-
-
This is the sixth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically this
-is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the Squeeze
-release.
-
-
ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
-versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
-release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
-deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
-gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined
-on
-the mailing list. (2) Accept the new version of gosa.conf and
-replace both contained admin password placeholders with the password
-hashes found in the old one (backup copy!). In both cases every user
-need to change their their password to make sure a password is set for
-CIFS access to their home directory.
-
-
Software updates
-
-
-
-- Added ssh askpass packages to default installation, to ensure ssh
- work also without a attached tty.
-- Add the command-not-found package to the default installation to
- make it easier to figure out where to find missing command line
- tools. Please note, that the command 'update-command-not-found'
- has to be run as root to actually make it useful (internet access
- required).
-
-
-
-
Other changes
-
-
-
-- Adjusted the USB stick ISO image build to include every tool
-needed for desktop=xfce installations.
-- Adjust thin-client-server task to work when installing from USB
-stick ISO image.
-- Made new grub artwork (changed png from indexed to RGB format).
-- Minor cleanup in the CUPS setup.
-- Make sure that bootstrapping of the Samba domain really happens
- during installation of the main server and adjust SID handling to
- cope with this.
-- Make Samba passwords changeable (again) via GOsa².
-- Fix generation of LM and NT password hashes via GOsa² to avoid
- empty password hashes.
-- Adapted Samba machine domain joining to latest change in the
- smbldap-tools Perl package, fixing bugs blocking Windows machines
- from joining the Samba domain.
-
-
-
-
Known issues
-
-
-
-- KDE fails to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
- not use the http proxy as it should.
-- Chromium also fails to use the proxy when using the KDE desktop
- (using the KDE configuration).
-
-
-
-
Where to get it
-
-
To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
-
-
-
-
The MD5SUM of this image is: 1e357f80b55e703523f2254adde6d78b
-
The SHA1SUM of this image is: 7157f9be5fd27c7694d713c6ecfed61c3edda3b2
-
-
To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use
-
-
-
-
The MD5SUM of this image is: 7a8408ead59cf7e3cef25afb6e91590b
-
The SHA1SUM of this image is: f1817c031f02790d5edb3bfa0dcf8451088ad119
-
-
-
How to report bugs
-
-
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs
+
+
1st April 2014
+
Microsoft have announced that Windows XP reaches its end of life
+2014-04-08, in 7 days. But there are heaps of machines still running
+Windows XP, and depending on Windows XP to run their applications, and
+upgrading will be expensive, both when it comes to money and when it
+comes to the amount of effort needed to migrate from Windows XP to a
+new operating system. Some obvious options (buy new a Windows
+machine, buy a MacOSX machine, install Linux on the existing machine)
+are already well known and covered elsewhere. Most of them involve
+leaving the user applications installed on Windows XP behind and
+trying out replacements or updated versions. In this blog post I want
+to mention one strange bird that allow people to keep the hardware and
+the existing Windows XP applications and run them on a free software
+operating system that is Windows XP compatible.
+
+
ReactOS is a free software
+operating system (GNU GPL licensed) working on providing a operating
+system that is binary compatible with Windows, able to run windows
+programs directly and to use Windows drivers for hardware directly.
+The project goal is for Windows user to keep their existing machines,
+drivers and software, and gain the advantages from user a operating
+system without usage limitations caused by non-free licensing. It is
+a Windows clone running directly on the hardware, so quite different
+from the approach taken by the Wine
+project, which make it possible to run Windows binaries on
+Linux.
+
+
The ReactOS project share code with the Wine project, so most
+shared libraries available on Windows are already implemented already.
+There is also a software manager like the one we are used to on Linux,
+allowing the user to install free software applications with a simple
+click directly from the Internet. Check out the
+screen shots on the
+project web site for an idea what it look like (it looks just like
+Windows before metro).
+
+
I do not use ReactOS myself, preferring Linux and Unix like
+operating systems. I've tested it, and it work fine in a virt-manager
+virtual machine. The browser, minesweeper, notepad etc is working
+fine as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, my main test application
+is the software included on a CD with the Lego Mindstorms NXT, which
+seem to install just fine from CD but fail to leave any binaries on
+the disk after the installation. So no luck with that test software.
+No idea why, but hope someone else figure out and fix the problem.
+I've tried the ReactOS Live ISO on a physical machine, and it seemed
+to work just fine. If you like Windows and want to keep running your
+old Windows binaries, check it out by
+downloading the
+installation CD, the live CD or the preinstalled virtual machine
+image.
@@ -1016,34 +846,132 @@ stick ISO image.
-
-
18th August 2013
-
Earlier, I reported about
-my
-problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk. Friday I was
-told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away. And as
-there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
-today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
-currently on the disk.
-
-
I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
-issdfut_2.0.4.iso
-(aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
-according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
-disks. I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
-booted the ISO from a USB stick. The disk was recognized, but the
-program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
-to insert any Intel firmware. So no change, and the disk is still
-unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
-working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware. No idea how likely
-that is. Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness. I
-got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
-the broken disks.
+
+
30th March 2014
+
Debian Edu / Skolelinux
+keep gaining new users. Some weeks ago, a person showed up on IRC,
+#debian-edu, with a
+wish to contribute, and I managed to get a interview with this great
+contributor Roger Marsal to learn more about his background.
+
+
Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
+
+
My name is Roger Marsal, I'm 27 years old (1986 generation) and I
+live in Barcelona, Spain. I've got a strong business background and I
+work as a patrimony manager and as a real estate agent. Additionally,
+I've co-founded a British based tech company that is nowadays on the
+last development phase of a new social networking concept.
+
+
I'm a Linux enthusiast that started its journey with Ubuntu four years
+ago and have recently switched to Debian seeking rock solid stability
+and as a necessary step to gain expertise.
+
+
In a nutshell, I spend my days working and learning as much as I
+can to face both my job, entrepreneur project and feed my Linux
+hunger.
+
+
How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
+project?
+
+
I discovered the LTSP advantages
+with "Ubuntu 12.04 alternate install" and after a year of use I
+started looking for an alternative. Even though I highly value and
+respect the Ubuntu project, I thought it was necessary for me to
+change to a more robust and stable alternative. As far as I was using
+Debian on my personal laptop I thought it would be fine to install
+Debian and configure an LTSP server myself. Surprised, I discovered
+that the Debian project also supported a kind of Edubuntu equivalent,
+and after having some pain I obtained a Debian Edu network up and
+running. I just loved it.
+
+
What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
+Edu?
+
+
I found a main advantage in that, once you know "the tips and
+tricks", a new installation just works out of the box. It's the most
+complete alternative I've found to create an LTSP network. All the
+other distributions seems to be made of plastic, Debian Edu seems to
+be made of steel.
+
+
What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
+Edu?
+
+
I found two main disadvantages.
+
+
I'm not an expert but I've got notions and I had to spent a considerable
+amount of time trying to bring up a standard network topology. I'm quite
+stubborn and I just worked until I did but I'm sure many people with few
+resources (not big schools, but academies for example) would have switched
+or dropped.
+
+
It's amazing how such a complex system like Debian Edu has achieved
+this out-of-the-box state. Even though tweaking without breaking gets
+more difficult, as more factors have to be considered. This can
+discourage many people too.
+
+
Which free software do you use daily?
+
+
I use Debian, Firefox, Okular, Inkscape, LibreOffice and
+Virtualbox.
+
+
+
Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
+get schools to use free software?
+
+
I don't think there is a need for a particular strategy. The free
+attribute in both "freedom" and "no price" meanings is what will
+really bring free software to schools. In my experience I can think of
+the "R" statistical language; a
+few years a ago was an extremely nerd tool for university people.
+Today it's being increasingly used to teach statistics at many
+different level of studies. I believe free and open software will
+increasingly gain popularity, but I'm sure schools will be one of the
+first scenarios where this will happen.
+
+
+
+
+
+
26th March 2014
+
Foreningen NUUG melder i natt at
+NRK nå har bestemt seg for
+når
+den norske dokumentarfilmen om datalagringsdirektivet skal
+sendes (se IMDB
+for detaljer om filmen) . Første visning blir på NRK2 mandag
+2014-03-31 kl. 19:50, og deretter visninger onsdag 2014-04-02
+kl. 12:30, fredag 2014-04-04 kl. 19:40 og søndag 2014-04-06 kl. 15:10.
+Jeg har sett dokumentaren, og jeg anbefaler enhver å se den selv. Som
+oppvarming mens vi venter anbefaler jeg Bjørn Stærks kronikk i
+Aftenposten fra i går,
+Autoritær
+gjøkunge, der han gir en grei skisse av hvor ille det står til med
+retten til privatliv og beskyttelsen av demokrati i Norge og resten
+verden, og helt riktig slår fast at det er vi i databransjen som
+sitter med nøkkelen til å gjøre noe med dette. Jeg har involvert meg
+i prosjektene dugnadsnett.no
+og FreedomBox for å
+forsøke å gjøre litt selv for å bedre situasjonen, men det er mye
+hardt arbeid fra mange flere enn meg som gjenstår før vi kan sies å ha
+gjenopprettet balansen.
+
+
Jeg regner med at nettutgaven dukker opp på
+NRKs
+side om filmen om datalagringsdirektivet om fem dager. Hold et
+øye med siden, og tips venner og slekt om at de også bør se den.
+
+
@@ -1058,6 +986,21 @@ the broken disks.
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