1 <?xml version=
"1.0" encoding=
"utf-8"?>
2 <rss version='
2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/
1.0/' xmlns:
atom=
"http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen
</title>
5 <description></description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
7 <atom:link href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel=
"self" type=
"application/rss+xml" />
10 <title>Debian Edu - some ideas for the future versions
</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___some_ideas_for_the_future_versions.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___some_ideas_for_the_future_versions.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Mon,
11 Jun
2012 14:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>During my work on
15 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/
2012/
20120311.nb.html
">Debian Edu
16 based on Squeeze
</a
>, I came across some issues that should be
17 addressed in the Wheezy release. I finally found time to wrap up my
18 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
19 explanation.
</p
>
23 <li
>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
24 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
25 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
26 system depend on tasksel tasks in
27 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
28 installation.
</li
>
30 <li
>Enable Kerberos login for more services. Now with the Kerberos
31 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
32 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions. We should
33 at least try to enable it for these services:
36 <li
>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
38 <li
>Nagios for admins checking the system status.
</li
>
39 <li
>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.
</li
>
40 <li
>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.
</li
>
41 <li
>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.
</li
>
42 <li
>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.
</li
>
44 </ul
></li
>
46 <li
>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
47 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
48 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
49 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind
</li
>
51 <li
>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install. The split made
52 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
53 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.
</li
>
55 <li
>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
56 touching the disk if the disk is too small. This is
57 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
653305">BTS report #
653305</a
> and the
58 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
59 it and upload. After this is done we need to adjust
60 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.
</li
>
62 <li
>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
63 time config). LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
64 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
67 <li
>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
68 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
69 up KDE login on slow networks.
</li
>
71 <li
>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
72 change on first login. This is useful when handing out password on
73 paper, to make sure only the user know the password. This require
74 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.
</li
>
76 <li
>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
77 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
78 familiar with GUIs. This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
79 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..
</li
>
81 <li
>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
82 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses). None of the
83 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.
</li
>
85 <li
>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
86 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
87 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.
</li
>
89 <li
>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
90 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol. The hook was
91 requested in
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
588968">BTS report
92 #
588968</a
> and is now available in Wheezy. We might need to write a
93 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.
</li
>
95 <li
>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
98 <li
>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers
</li
>
99 <li
>consider dropping xpaint
</li
>
100 <li
>and probably more?
</li
>
101 </ul
></li
>
103 <li
>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly. This is
104 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
105 examples too. For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
106 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
107 some GUI to do this. Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
108 could consider using their packages. At the moment we have some
109 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
110 for the LTSP chroot).
</li
>
113 <li
>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options. We
114 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
115 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
118 <li
>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
119 interesting educational packages. We should work on the package
120 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
121 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
122 new applications with a simple mouse click.
</li
>
124 <li
>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
125 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
126 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
127 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled. We should
128 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
129 instead of the
"it is documented
" method of today.
</li
>
131 <li
>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
132 "take over
" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
133 There are at least three implementations,
134 <a href=
"italc.sourceforge.net/
">italc
</a
>,
135 <a href=
"http://www.itais.net/help/en/
">controlaula
</a
> og
136 <a href=
"http://www.epoptes.org/
">epoptes
</a
> and we should pick one of
137 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school. The challenges is
138 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
139 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
140 given room.
</li
>
142 <li
>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
143 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
144 the Debian Edu network. Not quite sure how. Perhaps we should
145 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
146 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
147 configuration and data with the central server. This should be
148 investigated.
</li
>
150 </ul
></p
>
152 <p
>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
158 <title>Litt statistikk fra Offentlig Elektronisk postjournal
</title>
159 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Litt_statistikk_fra_Offentlig_Elektronisk_postjournal.html
</link>
160 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Litt_statistikk_fra_Offentlig_Elektronisk_postjournal.html
</guid>
161 <pubDate>Sun,
10 Jun
2012 20:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
162 <description><p
>De siste månedene har jeg sammen med andre i NUUG jobbet med å
163 gjøre det enklere å få innsyn i offentlige dokumenter, og dette
164 inkluderer å gjøre postjournaler enklere tilgjengelig for maskinell
165 analyse og søk. I den forbindelse tok jeg i dag å tittet litt på
166 <a href=
"http://www.oep.no/
">Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal
167 (OEP)
</a
>, FAD/DIFIs fellesløsning for departementer og statlige
170 <p
>Her er antall oppføringer pr. måned det siste året,
171 <a href=
"https://api.scraperwiki.com/api/
1.0/datastore/sqlite?format=htmltable
&name=postliste-oep
&query=select%
20strftime(%
22%
25Y-%
25m%
22%
2C%
20%
60recordpublishdate%
60)%
20as%
20oeppubmonth%
2C%
20count(*)%
20from%
20%
60swdata%
60%
20group%
20by%
20oeppubmonth%
20order%
20by%
20oeppubmonth
">summert
172 opp
</a
> ved hjelp av
173 <a href=
"https://scraperwiki.com/scrapers/postliste-oep/
">en
174 Scraperwiki-database
</a
>. Merk at denne Scraperwikien har
175 ytelsesproblemer pga. mengden data.
</p
>
177 <p
><table border=
"1">
178 <tr
><th
>Måned
</th
><th
>Antall
</th
></tr
>
179 <tr
><td
>2011-
07</td
><td
>164355</td
></tr
>
180 <tr
><td
>2011-
08</td
><td
>153662</td
></tr
>
181 <tr
><td
>2011-
09</td
><td
>173134</td
></tr
>
182 <tr
><td
>2011-
10</td
><td
>170665</td
></tr
>
183 <tr
><td
>2011-
11</td
><td
>198409</td
></tr
>
184 <tr
><td
>2011-
12</td
><td
>175908</td
></tr
>
185 <tr
><td
>2012-
01</td
><td
>206875</td
></tr
>
186 <tr
><td
>2012-
02</td
><td
>202862</td
></tr
>
187 <tr
><td
>2012-
03</td
><td
>204225</td
></tr
>
188 <tr
><td
>2012-
04</td
><td
>207931</td
></tr
>
189 <tr
><td
>2012-
05</td
><td
>223754</td
></tr
>
190 </table
></p
>
192 <p
>Det er også interessant å se hvor ofte ulike etater sender inn sine
193 journaloppføringer til OEP. OEP inneholder en liste med sist
194 innrapporteringsdato for alle som sender til OEP, og ved å se når og
195 hvor ofte det blir sendt inn fra etatene kan
196 <a href=
"https://api.scraperwiki.com/api/
1.0/datastore/sqlite?format=htmltable
&name=postliste-oep-deliverydates
&query=select%
20agency%
2C%
0A(julianday(datetime(
'now
'))%
20-%
20%
0A%
20julianday(min(%
60deliverydate%
60)))%
2Fcount(*)%
20as%
20dayfreq%
2C%
0A%
20count(*)%
0Afrom%
20%
60swdata%
60%
20group%
20by%
20agency%
20order%
20by%
20dayfreq%
20desc
">frekvensen
197 beregnes
</a
>. Her er bunnlista, dvs. de som leverer sjeldnere enn hver
10.
199 <a href=
"https://scraperwiki.com/scrapers/postliste-oep-deliverydates/
">en
200 Scraperwiki-database
</a
>:
</p
>
202 <p
><table border=
"1">
204 <tr
> <th
>Etat
</th
> <th
>Frekvens
</th
> <th
>Leveringer
</th
> </tr
>
205 <tr
> <td
>Norges geologiske undersøkelse
</td
> <td
>83.7527546296</td
> <td
>1</td
> </tr
>
206 <tr
> <td
>Medietilsynet
</td
> <td
>33.7527546296</td
> <td
>1</td
> </tr
>
207 <tr
> <td
>Departementenes servicesenter
</td
> <td
>23.8763773148</td
> <td
>2</td
> </tr
>
208 <tr
> <td
>Kunnskapsdepartementet
</td
> <td
>15.8763773148</td
> <td
>2</td
> </tr
>
209 <tr
> <td
>Kompetansesenter for distriktsutvikling
</td
> <td
>15.3763773148</td
> <td
>2</td
> </tr
>
210 <tr
> <td
>Toll- og avgiftsdirektoratet
</td
> <td
>15.3763773148</td
> <td
>2</td
> </tr
>
211 <tr
> <td
>Fredskorpset
</td
> <td
>12.5842515432</td
> <td
>3</td
> </tr
>
212 <tr
> <td
>Statens legemiddelverk
</td
> <td
>12.1881886574</td
> <td
>4</td
> </tr
>
213 <tr
> <td
>Utlendingsnemnda
</td
> <td
>11.5842515432</td
> <td
>3</td
> </tr
>
214 <tr
> <td
>Politidirektoratet
</td
> <td
>10.9175848765</td
> <td
>3</td
> </tr
>
215 <tr
> <td
>Skattedirektoratet
</td
> <td
>10.9175848765</td
> <td
>3</td
> </tr
>
216 <tr
> <td
>Statens innkrevingssentral
</td
> <td
>10.5842515432</td
> <td
>3</td
> </tr
>
217 <tr
> <td
>Barne-, ungdoms- og familiedirektoratet
</td
> <td
>10.2509182099</td
> <td
>3</td
> </tr
>
218 <tr
> <td
>Kunst i offentlige rom
</td
> <td
>10.2509182099</td
> <td
>3</td
> </tr
>
220 </table
></p
>
222 <p
>En kan beregne lignende frekvenser ved å sammenligne
223 journalføringsdato med publiseringsdato for hver enkelt oppføring i
224 OEP, men den lenken legger jeg ikke ved her for å unngå at
225 søkemotorroboter begynner å overbelaste Scraperwiki-databasen.
</p
>
227 <p
>Jeg har spurt Norges geologiske undersøkelse om hvorfor de leverer
228 så sjelden, og det kommer av at de har problemer etter oppgradering av
229 arkivsystemet sitt og jobber med å fikse det slik at de kan gå tilbake
230 til å levere hver uke. Har ikke undersøkt noen av de andre.
</p
>
235 <title>TV with face recognition, for improved viewer experience
</title>
236 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TV_with_face_recognition__for_improved_viewer_experience.html
</link>
237 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TV_with_face_recognition__for_improved_viewer_experience.html
</guid>
238 <pubDate>Sat,
9 Jun
2012 22:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
239 <description><p
>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
240 <a href=
"http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/
12/
06/
09/
0012247/intel-to-launch-tv-service-with-facial-recognition-by-end-of-the-year
">TV
241 with face recognition
</a
> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
242 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
243 recognition on the TV image itself. It could let the viewer know who
244 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
245 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
246 evaluate what is being said and done. That would be a feature I would
247 be willing to pay for.
</p
>
249 <p
>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
250 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
251 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
252 <a href=
"http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/
0100021.txt
">1984 by George
253 Orwell
</a
>.
</p
>
258 <title>Web service to look up HP and Dell computer hardware support status
</title>
259 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Web_service_to_look_up_HP_and_Dell_computer_hardware_support_status.html
</link>
260 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Web_service_to_look_up_HP_and_Dell_computer_hardware_support_status.html
</guid>
261 <pubDate>Wed,
6 Jun
2012 23:
15:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
262 <description><p
>A few days ago
263 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html
">I
264 reported how to get
</a
> the support status out of Dell using an
265 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
266 <a href=
"http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/
2012-February/
045959.html
">discovered
267 by Daniel De Marco in february
</a
>. Combined with my web scraping
268 code for HP, Dell and IBM
269 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html
">from
270 2009</a
>, I got inspired and wrote
271 <a href=
"https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/
">a
272 web service
</a
> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
273 support status and get a machine readable result back.
</p
>
275 <p
>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
278 <blockquote
><pre
>
279 % GET
<a href=
"https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/?format=json
&vendor=Dell
&servicetag=
2v1xwn1
">https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/?format=json
&vendor=Dell
&servicetag=
2v1xwn1
</a
>
280 supportstatus({
"servicetag
":
"2v1xwn1
",
"warrantyend
":
"2013-
11-
24",
"shipped
":
"2010-
11-
24",
"scrapestamputc
":
"2012-
06-
06T20:
26:
56.965847",
"scrapedurl
":
"http://
143.166.84.118/services/assetservice.asmx?WSDL
",
"vendor
":
"Dell
",
"productid
":
""})
282 </pre
></blockquote
>
284 <p
>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
285 support for other vendors. The python source is available on
286 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.
</p
>
291 <title>Kommentar til artikkel i Adresseavisa som omtaler FiksGataMi
</title>
292 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kommentar_til_artikkel_i_Adresseavisa_som_omtaler_FiksGataMi.html
</link>
293 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kommentar_til_artikkel_i_Adresseavisa_som_omtaler_FiksGataMi.html
</guid>
294 <pubDate>Sat,
2 Jun
2012 19:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
295 <description><p
>Jeg oppdaget nylig en
296 <a href=
"http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/trondheim/article1831198.ece
">artikkel
297 i Adresseavisa
</a
> i Trondheim som nevner FiksGataMi, og der Trondheim
298 kommune ser ut til å fortelle at de ikke følger forvaltningslovens
299 krav ved mottak av meldinger sendt inn via FiksGataMi. La derfor
300 nettopp inn denne kommentaren til artikkelen:
<p
>
302 <p
><blockquote
>
304 <p
>Her er en liten faktaoppdatering om FiksGataMi-tjenesten, da noen
305 ser ut til å ha misforstått hvordan den fungerer.
</p
>
307 <p
>FiksGataMi er et privat initiativ opprettet og drevet av
308 medlemsforeningen NUUG. FiksGataMi tar imot meldinger om feil i
309 offentlig infrastruktur, og sender meldingen skriftlig videre på vegne
310 av innmelder til aktuell aktør i det offentlige, det være seg kommune,
311 fylke eller vegvesenregion. Offentlig etat blir valgt ut fra
312 geografisk plassering og kategori valgt av innsender. Offentlige
313 etater er i følge forvaltningsloven pliktig å følge opp og besvare
314 skriftlige henvendelser, og hvis noen av mottakerne ikke gjør dette
315 kan en klage på lovbrudd i det offentlige. FiksGataMi fungerer dermed
316 som en slags epostklient for innbyggerne der kopi av innsendte
317 meldinger gjøres tilgjengelig og knyttes til kartplassering for enkel
318 gjenfinning. Å sende inn nye problemrapporter via FiksGataMi er
319 dermed ikke avhengig av at kommunen aktivt må følge med på meldinger
320 hos FiksGataMi, da de får dem tilsendt på sine offisielle
321 epostmottakspunkter. Hvorvidt noe blir fikset og om innbyggerne er
322 opp til mottaker av meldingene. For Trondheim kommune er
323 mottaksadressen bydrift.vegdrift@trondheim.kommune.no, en adresse jeg
324 inntil jeg leste denne artikkelen trodde ble håndtert i henhold til
325 forvaltningslovens krav.
</p
>
327 <p
>Kan ellers fortelle at
57 kommuner lenker til FiksGataMi fra sine
328 nettsider, og at
37 % (
4182 av
11266 ) av problemrapportene sendt inn
329 via FiksGataMi er markert som løst i løsningen. Trondheim kommune har
330 fått tilbud om å få rapportene levert på datamaskinlesbart format i
331 stedet for epost, men har ikke takket ja så langt.
</p
>
333 <p
>Vennlig hilsen Petter Reinholdtsen, en av NUUG-folkene bak FiksGataMi.no
</p
>
335 </blockquote
></p
>
337 <p
>Det høres for meg ut som om innbyggerne i Trondheim burde klage på
338 kommunens potensielle lovbrudd.
</p
>
343 <title>Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel
</title>
344 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html
</link>
345 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html
</guid>
346 <pubDate>Sat,
2 Jun
2012 15:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
347 <description><p
>Back in
2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
348 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a
>
349 mailing list. He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
350 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
351 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/
2012/
20120311.html
">Debian Edu
352 Squeeze
</a
> version.
</p
>
354 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
356 <p
>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am
38 years old and live near Kiel,
357 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
358 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
359 by Angela).
</p
>
361 <p
>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
362 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
363 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
364 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
365 becoming an osteopath.
</p
>
367 <p
>Starting in
2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
368 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
369 introducing free software into schools. The project
's name is
370 "IT-Zukunft Schule
" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
371 skills with communication skills.
</p
>
373 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
374 project?
</strong
></p
>
376 <p
>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
377 "IT-Zukunft Schule
" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
378 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
379 people said. From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
380 distributions that target being used for school networks.
</p
>
382 <p
>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
383 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
384 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between
12/
2010 and
03/
2011 we
385 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
386 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
387 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
388 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
389 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
390 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.
</p
>
392 <p
>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
393 people. People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
394 protection experts, other IT professionals.
</p
>
396 <p
>We came to two conclusions:
</p
>
398 <p
>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
399 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
400 by
100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
401 whereas most of each school
's requirements could mapped by a standard
402 IT solution. The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
403 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
404 possible. In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
405 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
406 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
407 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
410 <p
>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
411 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
412 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
413 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
414 of people into using IT and teaching with IT.
"IT-Zukunft Schule
"
415 tries to provide an approach for this.
</p
>
417 <p
>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
418 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
419 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school
's IT
420 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
421 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
422 spare time.
</p
>
424 <p
>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
425 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
426 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
427 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
428 non-existent until
2010/
2011.
</p
>
430 <p
>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
431 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
432 avoidance do exist.
</p
>
434 <p
>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
435 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
436 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
437 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
438 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
439 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
440 and probably a gain for all.
</p
>
442 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
443 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
445 <p
>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
446 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
447 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
448 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
449 project communication, honest communication within the group of
450 developers, etc.
</p
>
452 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
453 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
455 <p
>Every coin has two sides:
</p
>
457 <p
>Technically:
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
311188">BTS issue
458 #
311188</a
>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
459 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
460 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
461 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
462 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
463 contribute).
</p
>
465 <p
>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
466 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
467 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
468 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
469 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
470 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
471 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
472 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
473 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
474 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.
</p
>
476 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
478 <p
>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.
</p
>
480 <p
>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
481 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
482 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.
</p
>
484 <p
>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In
2010 I started the
485 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
486 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
487 is being integrated in Ubuntu
's software center.
</p
>
489 <p
>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
490 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
491 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
492 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
493 whiteboard.
</p
>
495 <p
>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE
's Yakuake.
</p
>
497 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
498 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
500 <p
>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
501 enrol people.
</p
>
506 <title>SOAP based webservice from Dell to check server support status
</title>
507 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html
</link>
508 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html
</guid>
509 <pubDate>Fri,
1 Jun
2012 15:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
510 <description><p
>A few years ago I wrote
511 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html
">how
512 to extract support status
</a
> for your Dell and HP servers. Recently
513 I have learned from colleges here at the
514 <a href=
"http://www.uio.no/
">University of Oslo
</a
> that Dell have
515 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service. Given
516 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
517 readable information about the support status. This perl code
518 demonstrate how to do it:
</p
>
525 my $GUID =
'11111111-
1111-
1111-
1111-
111111111111';
526 my $App =
'test
';
527 my $servicetag = $ARGV[
0] or die
"Please supply a servicetag. $!\n
";
528 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
530 -
> uri(
'http://support.dell.com/WebServices/
')
531 -
> on_action( sub { join
'', @_ } )
532 -
> proxy(
'http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx
')
534 my $a = $s-
>GetAssetInformation(
535 SOAP::Data-
>name(
'guid
')-
>value($GUID)-
>type(
''),
536 SOAP::Data-
>name(
'applicationName
')-
>value($App)-
>type(
''),
537 SOAP::Data-
>name(
'serviceTags
')-
>value($servicetag)-
>type(
''),
539 print Dumper($a -
> result) ;
540 </pre
></p
>
542 <p
>The output can look like this:
</p
>
546 'Asset
' =
> {
547 'Entitlements
' =
> {
548 'EntitlementData
' =
> [
550 'EntitlementType
' =
> 'Expired
',
551 'EndDate
' =
> '2009-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
552 'Provider
' =
> '',
553 'StartDate
' =
> '2006-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
554 'DaysLeft
' =
> '0'
557 'EntitlementType
' =
> 'Expired
',
558 'EndDate
' =
> '2009-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
559 'Provider
' =
> '',
560 'StartDate
' =
> '2006-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
561 'DaysLeft
' =
> '0'
564 'EntitlementType
' =
> 'Expired
',
565 'EndDate
' =
> '2007-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
566 'Provider
' =
> '',
567 'StartDate
' =
> '2006-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
568 'DaysLeft
' =
> '0'
572 'AssetHeaderData
' =
> {
573 'SystemModel
' =
> 'GX620
',
574 'ServiceTag
' =
> '8DSGD2J
',
575 'SystemShipDate
' =
> '2006-
07-
29T19:
00:
00-
05:
00',
576 'Buid
' =
> '2323',
577 'Region
' =
> 'Europe
',
578 'SystemID
' =
> 'PLX_GX620
',
579 'SystemType
' =
> 'OptiPlex
'
583 </pre
></p
>
585 <p
>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
587 <a href=
"http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation
">inline
588 documentation
</a
>, and according to
589 <a href=
"http://iboyd.net/index.php/
2012/
02/
14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/
">one
590 comment
</a
> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
591 scraping HTML pages. :)
</p
>
593 <p
>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service. If
594 you know of one, drop me an email. :)
</p
>
599 <title>Veileder fra DIFI om publisering av offentlige data
</title>
600 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Veileder_fra_DIFI_om_publisering_av_offentlige_data.html
</link>
601 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Veileder_fra_DIFI_om_publisering_av_offentlige_data.html
</guid>
602 <pubDate>Fri,
1 Jun
2012 10:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
603 <description><p
>På onsdag rakk jeg såvidt innom
604 <a href=
"http://www.meetup.com/osloopendata/
">Oslo Open Data Forums
</a
>
605 møte, og fikk lagt hendene mine på DIFIs helt nye veileder
606 "<a href=
"http://veileder.data.norge.no/
">Åpne data. Del og skap
607 verdier. Veileder i tilgjengeliggjøring av offentlig data
</a
>" (også
608 <a href=
"http://www.difi.no/filearchive/veileder-i-tilgjengeliggjoring-av-offentlig-data-web.pdf
">tilgjengelig
609 som PDF
</a
> fra DIFI).
</p
>
611 <p
>Veilederen er veldig bra, og nevner viktige problemstillinger og
612 skisserer f.eks. både verdiskapningspotensialet og formatmulighetene
613 som en bør ha i bakhodet når en publiserer offentlig informasjon på
614 maskinlesbart format. Kildekoden til veilederen er
615 <a href=
"https://github.com/difi/veileder-opnedata
">tilgjengelig via
616 github
</a
>, og en kan rapportere tilbakemeldinger og forslag til
617 forbedringer der (eller via epost og twitter for de som ønsker
620 <p
>Det eneste jeg virkelig savnet i veilederen var omtale av
621 <a href=
"http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html
">w3cs
622 stjerneklassifisering
</a
> av åpne datakilder, som jeg tror ville være
623 nyttige mentale knagger for de som vurderer å publisere sin
624 informasjon på som åpne data. Jeg har
625 <a href=
"https://github.com/difi/veileder-opnedata/issues/
1">rapportert
626 en github-bug
</a
> om dette, så får vi se hvordan den blir behandlet.
</p
>
628 <p
>Det slo meg at det var veldig lite konkret i veilederen om valg av
629 bruksvilkår ved publisering (aka lisens), men jeg er ikke sikker på om
630 det hører hjemme der, da det er et vanskelig tema som kanskje heller
631 hører hjemme i sin egen veileder. Uansett, anbefaler alle å ta en
632 titt på veilederen og sikre at alle offentlige etater en har kontakt
633 med får en kopi.
</p
>
638 <title>First monitor calibration using ColorHug
</title>
639 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html
</link>
640 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html
</guid>
641 <pubDate>Thu,
31 May
2012 22:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
642 <description><p
>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
643 <a href=
"http://www.hughski.com/index.html
">ColorHug
</a
> arrived in the
644 mail, and I
've had a few days to test it. As all my machines are
645 running Debian Squeeze, where
646 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html
">the
647 calibration software
</a
> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
648 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD. This worked
649 just fine. So far I have only done the quick calibration. It was
650 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
651 another day.
</p
>
653 <p
>After calibration, I get a
654 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile
">ICC color
655 profile
</a
> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
656 tools. KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
657 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
658 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
659 monitor setups. But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
660 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
661 monitor. After searching a bit, I
662 <a href=
"http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=
1347896">discovered
</a
>
663 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
664 and a simple
</p
>
667 dispwin -d
1 profile.icc
668 </pre
></p
>
670 <p
>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor. The
671 result was a bit more pink than I expected. I guess I picked the
672 wrong monitor type for the
"led
" monitor I got, but the result is good
673 enough for now.
</p
>
678 <title>Hvor samles det inn bensinpriser for Norge?
</title>
679 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvor_samles_det_inn_bensinpriser_for_Norge_.html
</link>
680 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvor_samles_det_inn_bensinpriser_for_Norge_.html
</guid>
681 <pubDate>Thu,
31 May
2012 13:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
682 <description><p
>Det finnes i følge de som har talt ca.
1600 bensinstasjoner i
683 Norge. Daglig innsamling av informasjon fra alle disse vil antagelig
684 kreve noen tusen frivillige. Dugnadsbasert innsamling av bensinpriser
685 for å gjøre det enklere å sammenligne priser og dermed bedre
686 konkurransen i bensinmarkedet er en idé som mange har gjennomført de
687 siste årene. Her er et forsøk på en oversikt over de som finnes i
692 <dt
>Dinside.no nettside
</dt
>
694 <dd
>Nettavisen dinside startet for noen år siden en dugnad for å
695 <a href=
"http://www.dinside.no/
1931/her-faar-du-billigst-bensin-diesel
">samle
696 inn drivstoffpriser
</a
>. Tjenesten samler inn med et nettsideskjema
697 der en må registrere seg for å delta. En SMS-tjeneste har visst
698 eksistert tidligere, men er ute av drift
2012-
05-
31. Listen over
699 bensinstasjoner er kun tilgjengelig for registrerte brukere, og
700 mangler geografiske koordinater for fremvisning på kart. Listen over
701 innsamlede bensinpriser er tilgjengelig som nettside i litt over
24
702 timer etter registrering. Antall innsamlede priser pr. dag ligger i
703 området
10-
35, og jeg har startet på
704 <a href=
"https://scraperwiki.com/scrapers/dinside-bensinpriser/
">en
705 database over de publiserte prisene
</a
> hos Scraperwiki.
</dd
>
707 <dt
>Bitfactorys mobilapp
</dt
>
709 <dd
>I fjor lanserte
710 <a href=
"http://www.bitfactory.no/bensinpris.html
">selskapet Bitfactory
711 sin landsdekkende mobilapp
</a
> (først for iphone, siden også for
712 Android) for å samle inn drivstoffpriser og gjøre det enkelt å finne
713 billigste stasjon i nærområdet ved hjelp av smarttelefon. Den
714 innsamlede informasjonen er ikke publisert på web, men dagens priser
715 kan hentes ut ved hjelp av et
716 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Litt_informasjon_om_Bitfactorys_Bensinpris_API.html
">web-API
717 som jeg har dokumentert med reversutvikling
</a
>. Stasjonslisten
718 inneholder geografiske koordinater for fremvisning på kart. Antall
719 innsamlede priser pr. dag ser ut til å ligge rundt
200.
</dd
>
723 <dt
>NAF Bergens nettside og iphone-app
</dt
>
725 <dd
>I år lanserte NAF Bergen
<a href=
"http://www.drivstoffpriser.no/
">en
726 landsdekkende iphone-app
</a
> koblet til NAF Bergens tjeneste for å
727 samle inn og varsle brukerne om bensinpriser. Nettstedet har
728 publisert listen over bensinstasjoner, men ikke en komplett oversikt
729 over innsamlede priser. De har interessant statistikk over
730 prisutviklingen som går tilbake til
2009.
732 <dt
>bensinpris.net
</dt
>
734 <dd
>Nettside med prisinformasjon for Trondheimsområdet. Informasjonen
735 registreres via web og SMS, og krever ikke registrering. Nettsiden
736 viser de tre siste prisene registret for bensin og disel. Har liste
737 over kjente stasjoner tilgjengelig. Svært lite oppdatert for
742 <p
>I tillegg er jeg kjent med drivstoffguiden.no som ser ut til å være
743 nedlagt, og at SSB som del av beregningen av konsumprisindeksen samler
744 inn driftstoffpriser hver måned og
745 <a href=
"http://www.ssb.no/petroleumsalg/
">legger dem ut i
746 PDF-format
</a
>.
</p
>
748 <p
>Det jeg ikke forstår er hvorfor det stadig opprettes nye nett- og
749 mobiltjenester for å samle inn bensinpriser, i stedet for å samarbeide
750 med de eksisterende løsninger for å gjøre de gode nok til nye
751 bruksområder. Jobben med å samle inn priser er formidabel, og hvis
752 målet er bedre konkurranse på bensinmarkedet ville jeg tro det beste
753 var om kundene samlet seg om _ett_ nettsted og samlet alle prisene
754 der, i stedet for å spre innsatsen på mange nettsteder. Jeg mistenker
755 årsaken ligger i at de aktørene som har satt opp tjenester så langt
756 ikke har lagt opp til deling og samarbeid på like vilkår med andre
757 aktører, og dermed gjort det vanskelig å legge til funksjonalitet som
758 presentasjon på kart, statistisk analyse eller kvalitetssikring av
759 bensinstasjonslisten og prisinformasjonen.
</p
>
764 <th
>Tjeneste
</th
>
765 <th
>Offentlig stasjons-liste
</th
>
766 <th
>Publisert stasjons-geopunkt
</th
>
767 <th
>Publisert API for inn-legging
</th
>
768 <th
>Publisert API for ut-henting
</th
>
769 <th
>Publisert alle priser
</th
>
770 <th
>Publisert database
</th
>
771 <th
>Lands-dekkende
</th
>
775 <td
>Dinside
</td
>
776 <td
>(ja)
</td
>
777 <td
>nei
</td
>
778 <td
>nei
</td
>
779 <td
>nei
</td
>
780 <td
>ja
</td
>
781 <td
>(ja)
</td
>
782 <td
>ja
</td
>
786 <td
>Bitfactorys mobilapp
</td
>
787 <td
>nei
</td
>
788 <td
>ja
</td
>
789 <td
>(ja)
</td
>
790 <td
>(ja)
</td
>
791 <td
>nei
</td
>
792 <td
>nei
</td
>
793 <td
>ja
</td
>
797 <td
>drivstoffpriser.no
</td
>
798 <td
>ja
</td
>
799 <td
>ja
</td
>
800 <td
>nei
</td
>
801 <td
>nei
</td
>
802 <td
>nei
</td
>
803 <td
>nei
</td
>
804 <td
>ja
</td
>
808 <td
>bensinpris.net
</td
>
809 <td
>ja
</td
>
810 <td
>nei
</td
>
811 <td
>nei
</td
>
812 <td
>nei
</td
>
813 <td
>nei
</td
>
814 <td
>nei
</td
>
815 <td
>nei
</td
>
820 <p
>Dinside mangler dugnadsbasert kvalitetssikring av stasjonslista,
821 georeferert informasjon og API for innlegging og uthenting av
822 informasjon. Bitfactory mangler publisering av all innsamlet
823 informasjon, dugnadsbasert kvalitetssikring av stasjonslista og
824 dokumentert API for innlegging og uthenting av informasjon. NAFs
825 løsning mangler publisering av all innsamlet informasjon og API for
826 innlegging og uthenting av informasjon.
</p
>
828 <p
>Jeg har nylig spurt folkene bak dinside.nos oversikt og
829 drivstoffpriser.no om de er villige til å gi ut sine innsamlede data
830 uten bruksbegresninger og tilby et dokumentert og publisert API for å
831 legge inn og hente ut informasjon. Så får vi se hva de sier.
</p
>