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 Debian Edu based on Squeeze, I came across some
15 issues that should be addressed in the Wheezy release. I finally
16 found time to wrap up my notes and provide quick summary of what I
17 found, with a bit explanation.
</p
>
21 <li
>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
22 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
23 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
24 system depend on tasksel tasks in
25 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
26 installation.
</li
>
28 <li
>Enable Kerberos login for more services. Now with the Kerberos
29 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
30 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions. We should
31 at least try to enable it for these services:
34 <li
>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
36 <li
>Nagios for admins checking the system status.
</li
>
37 <li
>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.
</li
>
38 <li
>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.
</li
>
39 <li
>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.
</li
>
40 <li
>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.
</li
>
42 </ul
></li
>
44 <li
>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
45 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
46 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
47 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind
</li
>
49 <li
>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install. The split made
50 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
51 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.
</li
>
53 <li
>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
54 touching the disk if the disk is too small. This is
55 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
653305">BTS report #
653305</a
> and the
56 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
57 it and upload.
</li
>
59 <li
>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
60 time config). LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
61 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
64 <li
>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
65 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
66 up KDE login on slow networks.
</li
>
68 <li
>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
69 change on first login. This is useful when handing out password on
70 paper, to make sure only the user know the password. This require
71 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.
</li
>
73 <li
>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
74 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
75 familiar with GUIs. This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
76 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..
</li
>
78 <li
>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
79 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses). None of the
80 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.
</li
>
82 <li
>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
83 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
84 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.
</li
>
86 <li
>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
87 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol. The hook was
88 requested in
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
588968">BTS report
89 #
588968</a
> and is now available in Wheezy. We might need to write a
90 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.
</li
>
92 <li
>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
95 <li
>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers
</li
>
96 <li
>consider dropping xpaint
</li
>
97 <li
>and probably more?
</li
>
98 </ul
></li
>
100 <li
>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly. This is
101 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
102 examples too. For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
103 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
104 some GUI to do this. Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
105 could consider using their packages. At the moment we have some
106 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
107 for the LTSP chroot).
</li
>
110 <li
>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options. We
111 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
112 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
115 <li
>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
116 interesting educational packages. We should work on the package
117 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
118 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
119 new applications with a simple mouse click.
</li
>
121 <li
>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
122 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
123 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
124 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled. We should
125 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
126 instead of the
"it is documented
" method of today.
</li
>
128 <li
>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
129 "take over
" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
130 There are at least three implementations,
131 <a href=
"italc.sourceforge.net/
">italc
</a
>,
132 <a href=
"http://www.itais.net/help/en/
">controlaula
</a
> og
133 <a href=
"http://www.epoptes.org/
">epoptes
</a
> and we should pick one of
134 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school. The challenges is
135 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
136 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
137 given room.
</li
>
139 <li
>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
140 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
141 the Debian Edu network. Not quite sure how. Perhaps we should
142 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
143 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
144 configuration and data with the central server. This should be
145 investigated.
</li
>
147 </ul
></p
>
149 <p
>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
155 <title>Litt statistikk fra Offentlig Elektronisk postjournal
</title>
156 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Litt_statistikk_fra_Offentlig_Elektronisk_postjournal.html
</link>
157 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Litt_statistikk_fra_Offentlig_Elektronisk_postjournal.html
</guid>
158 <pubDate>Sun,
10 Jun
2012 20:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
159 <description><p
>De siste månedene har jeg sammen med andre i NUUG jobbet med å
160 gjøre det enklere å få innsyn i offentlige dokumenter, og dette
161 inkluderer å gjøre postjournaler enklere tilgjengelig for maskinell
162 analyse og søk. I den forbindelse tok jeg i dag å tittet litt på
163 <a href=
"http://www.oep.no/
">Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal
164 (OEP)
</a
>, FAD/DIFIs fellesløsning for departementer og statlige
167 <p
>Her er antall oppføringer pr. måned det siste året,
168 <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
169 opp
</a
> ved hjelp av
170 <a href=
"https://scraperwiki.com/scrapers/postliste-oep/
">en
171 Scraperwiki-database
</a
>. Merk at denne Scraperwikien har
172 ytelsesproblemer pga. mengden data.
</p
>
174 <p
><table border=
"1">
175 <tr
><th
>Måned
</th
><th
>Antall
</th
></tr
>
176 <tr
><td
>2011-
07</td
><td
>164355</td
></tr
>
177 <tr
><td
>2011-
08</td
><td
>153662</td
></tr
>
178 <tr
><td
>2011-
09</td
><td
>173134</td
></tr
>
179 <tr
><td
>2011-
10</td
><td
>170665</td
></tr
>
180 <tr
><td
>2011-
11</td
><td
>198409</td
></tr
>
181 <tr
><td
>2011-
12</td
><td
>175908</td
></tr
>
182 <tr
><td
>2012-
01</td
><td
>206875</td
></tr
>
183 <tr
><td
>2012-
02</td
><td
>202862</td
></tr
>
184 <tr
><td
>2012-
03</td
><td
>204225</td
></tr
>
185 <tr
><td
>2012-
04</td
><td
>207931</td
></tr
>
186 <tr
><td
>2012-
05</td
><td
>223754</td
></tr
>
187 </table
></p
>
189 <p
>Det er også interessant å se hvor ofte ulike etater sender inn sine
190 journaloppføringer til OEP. OEP inneholder en liste med sist
191 innrapporteringsdato for alle som sender til OEP, og ved å se når og
192 hvor ofte det blir sendt inn fra etatene kan
193 <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
194 beregnes
</a
>. Her er bunnlista, dvs. de som leverer mer enn hver
10
196 <a href=
"https://scraperwiki.com/scrapers/postliste-oep-deliverydates/
">en
197 Scraperwiki-database
</a
>:
</p
>
199 <p
><table border=
"1">
201 <tr
> <th
>Etat
</th
> <th
>Frekvens
</th
> <th
>Leveringer
</th
> </tr
>
202 <tr
> <td
>Norges geologiske undersøkelse
</td
> <td
>83.7527546296</td
> <td
>1</td
> </tr
>
203 <tr
> <td
>Medietilsynet
</td
> <td
>33.7527546296</td
> <td
>1</td
> </tr
>
204 <tr
> <td
>Departementenes servicesenter
</td
> <td
>23.8763773148</td
> <td
>2</td
> </tr
>
205 <tr
> <td
>Kunnskapsdepartementet
</td
> <td
>15.8763773148</td
> <td
>2</td
> </tr
>
206 <tr
> <td
>Kompetansesenter for distriktsutvikling
</td
> <td
>15.3763773148</td
> <td
>2</td
> </tr
>
207 <tr
> <td
>Toll- og avgiftsdirektoratet
</td
> <td
>15.3763773148</td
> <td
>2</td
> </tr
>
208 <tr
> <td
>Fredskorpset
</td
> <td
>12.5842515432</td
> <td
>3</td
> </tr
>
209 <tr
> <td
>Statens legemiddelverk
</td
> <td
>12.1881886574</td
> <td
>4</td
> </tr
>
210 <tr
> <td
>Utlendingsnemnda
</td
> <td
>11.5842515432</td
> <td
>3</td
> </tr
>
211 <tr
> <td
>Politidirektoratet
</td
> <td
>10.9175848765</td
> <td
>3</td
> </tr
>
212 <tr
> <td
>Skattedirektoratet
</td
> <td
>10.9175848765</td
> <td
>3</td
> </tr
>
213 <tr
> <td
>Statens innkrevingssentral
</td
> <td
>10.5842515432</td
> <td
>3</td
> </tr
>
214 <tr
> <td
>Barne-, ungdoms- og familiedirektoratet
</td
> <td
>10.2509182099</td
> <td
>3</td
> </tr
>
215 <tr
> <td
>Kunst i offentlige rom
</td
> <td
>10.2509182099</td
> <td
>3</td
> </tr
>
217 </table
></p
>
219 <p
>En kan beregne lignende frekvenser ved å sammenligne
220 journalføringsdato med publiseringsdato for hver enkelt oppføring i
221 OEP, men den lenken legger jeg ikke ved her for å unngå at
222 søkemotorroboter begynner å overbelaste Scraperwiki-databasen.
</p
>
224 <p
>Jeg har spurt Norges geologiske undersøkelse om hvorfor de leverer
225 så sjelden, og det kommer av at de har problemer etter oppgradering av
226 arkivsystemet sitt og jobber med å fikse det slik at de kan gå tilbake
227 til å levere hver uke. Har ikke undersøkt noen av de andre.
</p
>
232 <title>TV with face recognition, for improved viewer experience
</title>
233 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TV_with_face_recognition__for_improved_viewer_experience.html
</link>
234 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TV_with_face_recognition__for_improved_viewer_experience.html
</guid>
235 <pubDate>Sat,
9 Jun
2012 22:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
236 <description><p
>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
237 <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
238 with face recognition
</a
> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
239 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
240 recognition on the TV image itself. It could let the viewer know who
241 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
242 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
243 evaluate what is being said and done. That would be a feature I would
244 be willing to pay for.
</p
>
246 <p
>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
247 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
248 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
249 <a href=
"http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/
0100021.txt
">1984 by George
250 Orwell
</a
>.
</p
>
255 <title>Web service to look up HP and Dell computer hardware support status
</title>
256 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Web_service_to_look_up_HP_and_Dell_computer_hardware_support_status.html
</link>
257 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Web_service_to_look_up_HP_and_Dell_computer_hardware_support_status.html
</guid>
258 <pubDate>Wed,
6 Jun
2012 23:
15:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
259 <description><p
>A few days ago
260 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html
">I
261 reported how to get
</a
> the support status out of Dell using an
262 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
263 <a href=
"http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/
2012-February/
045959.html
">discovered
264 by Daniel De Marco in february
</a
>. Combined with my web scraping
265 code for HP, Dell and IBM
266 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html
">from
267 2009</a
>, I got inspired and wrote
268 <a href=
"https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/
">a
269 web service
</a
> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
270 support status and get a machine readable result back.
</p
>
272 <p
>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
275 <blockquote
><pre
>
276 % 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
>
277 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
":
""})
279 </pre
></blockquote
>
281 <p
>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
282 support for other vendors. The python source is available on
283 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.
</p
>
288 <title>Kommentar til artikkel i Adresseavisa som omtaler FiksGataMi
</title>
289 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kommentar_til_artikkel_i_Adresseavisa_som_omtaler_FiksGataMi.html
</link>
290 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kommentar_til_artikkel_i_Adresseavisa_som_omtaler_FiksGataMi.html
</guid>
291 <pubDate>Sat,
2 Jun
2012 19:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
292 <description><p
>Jeg oppdaget nylig en
293 <a href=
"http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/trondheim/article1831198.ece
">artikkel
294 i Adresseavisa
</a
> i Trondheim som nevner FiksGataMi, og der Trondheim
295 kommune ser ut til å fortelle at de ikke følger forvaltningslovens
296 krav ved mottak av meldinger sendt inn via FiksGataMi. La derfor
297 nettopp inn denne kommentaren til artikkelen:
<p
>
299 <p
><blockquote
>
301 <p
>Her er en liten faktaoppdatering om FiksGataMi-tjenesten, da noen
302 ser ut til å ha misforstått hvordan den fungerer.
</p
>
304 <p
>FiksGataMi er et privat initiativ opprettet og drevet av
305 medlemsforeningen NUUG. FiksGataMi tar imot meldinger om feil i
306 offentlig infrastruktur, og sender meldingen skriftlig videre på vegne
307 av innmelder til aktuell aktør i det offentlige, det være seg kommune,
308 fylke eller vegvesenregion. Offentlig etat blir valgt ut fra
309 geografisk plassering og kategori valgt av innsender. Offentlige
310 etater er i følge forvaltningsloven pliktig å følge opp og besvare
311 skriftlige henvendelser, og hvis noen av mottakerne ikke gjør dette
312 kan en klage på lovbrudd i det offentlige. FiksGataMi fungerer dermed
313 som en slags epostklient for innbyggerne der kopi av innsendte
314 meldinger gjøres tilgjengelig og knyttes til kartplassering for enkel
315 gjenfinning. Å sende inn nye problemrapporter via FiksGataMi er
316 dermed ikke avhengig av at kommunen aktivt må følge med på meldinger
317 hos FiksGataMi, da de får dem tilsendt på sine offisielle
318 epostmottakspunkter. Hvorvidt noe blir fikset og om innbyggerne er
319 opp til mottaker av meldingene. For Trondheim kommune er
320 mottaksadressen bydrift.vegdrift@trondheim.kommune.no, en adresse jeg
321 inntil jeg leste denne artikkelen trodde ble håndtert i henhold til
322 forvaltningslovens krav.
</p
>
324 <p
>Kan ellers fortelle at
57 kommuner lenker til FiksGataMi fra sine
325 nettsider, og at
37 % (
4182 av
11266 ) av problemrapportene sendt inn
326 via FiksGataMi er markert som løst i løsningen. Trondheim kommune har
327 fått tilbud om å få rapportene levert på datamaskinlesbart format i
328 stedet for epost, men har ikke takket ja så langt.
</p
>
330 <p
>Vennlig hilsen Petter Reinholdtsen, en av NUUG-folkene bak FiksGataMi.no
</p
>
332 </blockquote
></p
>
334 <p
>Det høres for meg ut som om innbyggerne i Trondheim burde klage på
335 kommunens potensielle lovbrudd.
</p
>
340 <title>Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel
</title>
341 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html
</link>
342 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html
</guid>
343 <pubDate>Sat,
2 Jun
2012 15:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
344 <description><p
>Back in
2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
345 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a
>
346 mailing list. He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
347 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
348 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/
2012/
20120311.html
">Debian Edu
349 Squeeze
</a
> version.
</p
>
351 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
353 <p
>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am
38 years old and live near Kiel,
354 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
355 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
356 by Angela).
</p
>
358 <p
>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
359 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
360 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
361 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
362 becoming an osteopath.
</p
>
364 <p
>Starting in
2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
365 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
366 introducing free software into schools. The project
's name is
367 "IT-Zukunft Schule
" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
368 skills with communication skills.
</p
>
370 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
371 project?
</strong
></p
>
373 <p
>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
374 "IT-Zukunft Schule
" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
375 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
376 people said. From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
377 distributions that target being used for school networks.
</p
>
379 <p
>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
380 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
381 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between
12/
2010 and
03/
2011 we
382 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
383 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
384 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
385 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
386 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
387 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.
</p
>
389 <p
>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
390 people. People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
391 protection experts, other IT professionals.
</p
>
393 <p
>We came to two conclusions:
</p
>
395 <p
>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
396 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
397 by
100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
398 whereas most of each school
's requirements could mapped by a standard
399 IT solution. The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
400 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
401 possible. In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
402 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
403 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
404 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
407 <p
>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
408 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
409 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
410 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
411 of people into using IT and teaching with IT.
"IT-Zukunft Schule
"
412 tries to provide an approach for this.
</p
>
414 <p
>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
415 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
416 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school
's IT
417 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
418 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
419 spare time.
</p
>
421 <p
>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
422 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
423 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
424 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
425 non-existent until
2010/
2011.
</p
>
427 <p
>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
428 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
429 avoidance do exist.
</p
>
431 <p
>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
432 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
433 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
434 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
435 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
436 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
437 and probably a gain for all.
</p
>
439 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
440 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
442 <p
>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
443 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
444 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
445 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
446 project communication, honest communication within the group of
447 developers, etc.
</p
>
449 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
450 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
452 <p
>Every coin has two sides:
</p
>
454 <p
>Technically:
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
311188">BTS issue
455 #
311188</a
>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
456 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
457 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
458 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
459 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
460 contribute).
</p
>
462 <p
>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
463 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
464 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
465 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
466 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
467 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
468 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
469 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
470 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
471 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.
</p
>
473 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
475 <p
>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.
</p
>
477 <p
>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
478 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
479 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.
</p
>
481 <p
>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In
2010 I started the
482 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
483 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
484 is being integrated in Ubuntu
's software center.
</p
>
486 <p
>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
487 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
488 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
489 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
490 whiteboard.
</p
>
492 <p
>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE
's Yakuake.
</p
>
494 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
495 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
497 <p
>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
498 enrol people.
</p
>
503 <title>SOAP based webservice from Dell to check server support status
</title>
504 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html
</link>
505 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html
</guid>
506 <pubDate>Fri,
1 Jun
2012 15:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
507 <description><p
>A few years ago I wrote
508 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html
">how
509 to extract support status
</a
> for your Dell and HP servers. Recently
510 I have learned from colleges here at the
511 <a href=
"http://www.uio.no/
">University of Oslo
</a
> that Dell have
512 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service. Given
513 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
514 readable information about the support status. This perl code
515 demonstrate how to do it:
</p
>
522 my $GUID =
'11111111-
1111-
1111-
1111-
111111111111';
523 my $App =
'test
';
524 my $servicetag = $ARGV[
0] or die
"Please supply a servicetag. $!\n
";
525 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
527 -
> uri(
'http://support.dell.com/WebServices/
')
528 -
> on_action( sub { join
'', @_ } )
529 -
> proxy(
'http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx
')
531 my $a = $s-
>GetAssetInformation(
532 SOAP::Data-
>name(
'guid
')-
>value($GUID)-
>type(
''),
533 SOAP::Data-
>name(
'applicationName
')-
>value($App)-
>type(
''),
534 SOAP::Data-
>name(
'serviceTags
')-
>value($servicetag)-
>type(
''),
536 print Dumper($a -
> result) ;
537 </pre
></p
>
539 <p
>The output can look like this:
</p
>
543 'Asset
' =
> {
544 'Entitlements
' =
> {
545 'EntitlementData
' =
> [
547 'EntitlementType
' =
> 'Expired
',
548 'EndDate
' =
> '2009-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
549 'Provider
' =
> '',
550 'StartDate
' =
> '2006-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
551 'DaysLeft
' =
> '0'
554 'EntitlementType
' =
> 'Expired
',
555 'EndDate
' =
> '2009-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
556 'Provider
' =
> '',
557 'StartDate
' =
> '2006-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
558 'DaysLeft
' =
> '0'
561 'EntitlementType
' =
> 'Expired
',
562 'EndDate
' =
> '2007-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
563 'Provider
' =
> '',
564 'StartDate
' =
> '2006-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
565 'DaysLeft
' =
> '0'
569 'AssetHeaderData
' =
> {
570 'SystemModel
' =
> 'GX620
',
571 'ServiceTag
' =
> '8DSGD2J
',
572 'SystemShipDate
' =
> '2006-
07-
29T19:
00:
00-
05:
00',
573 'Buid
' =
> '2323',
574 'Region
' =
> 'Europe
',
575 'SystemID
' =
> 'PLX_GX620
',
576 'SystemType
' =
> 'OptiPlex
'
580 </pre
></p
>
582 <p
>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
584 <a href=
"http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation
">inline
585 documentation
</a
>, and according to
586 <a href=
"http://iboyd.net/index.php/
2012/
02/
14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/
">one
587 comment
</a
> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
588 scraping HTML pages. :)
</p
>
590 <p
>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service. If
591 you know of one, drop me an email. :)
</p
>
596 <title>Veileder fra DIFI om publisering av offentlige data
</title>
597 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Veileder_fra_DIFI_om_publisering_av_offentlige_data.html
</link>
598 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Veileder_fra_DIFI_om_publisering_av_offentlige_data.html
</guid>
599 <pubDate>Fri,
1 Jun
2012 10:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
600 <description><p
>På onsdag rakk jeg såvidt innom
601 <a href=
"http://www.meetup.com/osloopendata/
">Oslo Open Data Forums
</a
>
602 møte, og fikk lagt hendene mine på DIFIs helt nye veileder
603 "<a href=
"http://veileder.data.norge.no/
">Åpne data. Del og skap
604 verdier. Veileder i tilgjengeliggjøring av offentlig data
</a
>" (også
605 <a href=
"http://www.difi.no/filearchive/veileder-i-tilgjengeliggjoring-av-offentlig-data-web.pdf
">tilgjengelig
606 som PDF
</a
> fra DIFI).
</p
>
608 <p
>Veilederen er veldig bra, og nevner viktige problemstillinger og
609 skisserer f.eks. både verdiskapningspotensialet og formatmulighetene
610 som en bør ha i bakhodet når en publiserer offentlig informasjon på
611 maskinlesbart format. Kildekoden til veilederen er
612 <a href=
"https://github.com/difi/veileder-opnedata
">tilgjengelig via
613 github
</a
>, og en kan rapportere tilbakemeldinger og forslag til
614 forbedringer der (eller via epost og twitter for de som ønsker
617 <p
>Det eneste jeg virkelig savnet i veilederen var omtale av
618 <a href=
"http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html
">w3cs
619 stjerneklassifisering
</a
> av åpne datakilder, som jeg tror ville være
620 nyttige mentale knagger for de som vurderer å publisere sin
621 informasjon på som åpne data. Jeg har
622 <a href=
"https://github.com/difi/veileder-opnedata/issues/
1">rapportert
623 en github-bug
</a
> om dette, så får vi se hvordan den blir behandlet.
</p
>
625 <p
>Det slo meg at det var veldig lite konkret i veilederen om valg av
626 bruksvilkår ved publisering (aka lisens), men jeg er ikke sikker på om
627 det hører hjemme der, da det er et vanskelig tema som kanskje heller
628 hører hjemme i sin egen veileder. Uansett, anbefaler alle å ta en
629 titt på veilederen og sikre at alle offentlige etater en har kontakt
630 med får en kopi.
</p
>
635 <title>First monitor calibration using ColorHug
</title>
636 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html
</link>
637 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html
</guid>
638 <pubDate>Thu,
31 May
2012 22:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
639 <description><p
>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
640 <a href=
"http://www.hughski.com/index.html
">ColorHug
</a
> arrived in the
641 mail, and I
've had a few days to test it. As all my machines are
642 running Debian Squeeze, where
643 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html
">the
644 calibration software
</a
> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
645 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD. This worked
646 just fine. So far I have only done the quick calibration. It was
647 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
648 another day.
</p
>
650 <p
>After calibration, I get a
651 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile
">ICC color
652 profile
</a
> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
653 tools. KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
654 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
655 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
656 monitor setups. But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
657 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
658 monitor. After searching a bit, I
659 <a href=
"http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=
1347896">discovered
</a
>
660 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
661 and a simple
</p
>
664 dispwin -d
1 profile.icc
665 </pre
></p
>
667 <p
>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor. The
668 result was a bit more pink than I expected. I guess I picked the
669 wrong monitor type for the
"led
" monitor I got, but the result is good
670 enough for now.
</p
>
675 <title>Hvor samles det inn bensinpriser for Norge?
</title>
676 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvor_samles_det_inn_bensinpriser_for_Norge_.html
</link>
677 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvor_samles_det_inn_bensinpriser_for_Norge_.html
</guid>
678 <pubDate>Thu,
31 May
2012 13:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
679 <description><p
>Det finnes i følge de som har talt ca.
1600 bensinstasjoner i
680 Norge. Daglig innsamling av informasjon fra alle disse vil antagelig
681 kreve noen tusen frivillige. Dugnadsbasert innsamling av bensinpriser
682 for å gjøre det enklere å sammenligne priser og dermed bedre
683 konkurransen i bensinmarkedet er en idé som mange har gjennomført de
684 siste årene. Her er et forsøk på en oversikt over de som finnes i
689 <dt
>Dinside.no nettside
</dt
>
691 <dd
>Nettavisen dinside startet for noen år siden en dugnad for å
692 <a href=
"http://www.dinside.no/
1931/her-faar-du-billigst-bensin-diesel
">samle
693 inn drivstoffpriser
</a
>. Tjenesten samler inn med et nettsideskjema
694 der en må registrere seg for å delta. En SMS-tjeneste har visst
695 eksistert tidligere, men er ute av drift
2012-
05-
31. Listen over
696 bensinstasjoner er kun tilgjengelig for registrerte brukere, og
697 mangler geografiske koordinater for fremvisning på kart. Listen over
698 innsamlede bensinpriser er tilgjengelig som nettside i litt over
24
699 timer etter registrering. Antall innsamlede priser pr. dag ligger i
700 området
10-
35, og jeg har startet på
701 <a href=
"https://scraperwiki.com/scrapers/dinside-bensinpriser/
">en
702 database over de publiserte prisene
</a
> hos Scraperwiki.
</dd
>
704 <dt
>Bitfactorys mobilapp
</dt
>
706 <dd
>I fjor lanserte
707 <a href=
"http://www.bitfactory.no/bensinpris.html
">selskapet Bitfactory
708 sin landsdekkende mobilapp
</a
> (først for iphone, siden også for
709 Android) for å samle inn drivstoffpriser og gjøre det enkelt å finne
710 billigste stasjon i nærområdet ved hjelp av smarttelefon. Den
711 innsamlede informasjonen er ikke publisert på web, men dagens priser
712 kan hentes ut ved hjelp av et
713 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Litt_informasjon_om_Bitfactorys_Bensinpris_API.html
">web-API
714 som jeg har dokumentert med reversutvikling
</a
>. Stasjonslisten
715 inneholder geografiske koordinater for fremvisning på kart. Antall
716 innsamlede priser pr. dag ser ut til å ligge rundt
200.
</dd
>
720 <dt
>NAF Bergens nettside og iphone-app
</dt
>
722 <dd
>I år lanserte NAF Bergen
<a href=
"http://www.drivstoffpriser.no/
">en
723 landsdekkende iphone-app
</a
> koblet til NAF Bergens tjeneste for å
724 samle inn og varsle brukerne om bensinpriser. Nettstedet har
725 publisert listen over bensinstasjoner, men ikke en komplett oversikt
726 over innsamlede priser. De har interessant statistikk over
727 prisutviklingen som går tilbake til
2009.
729 <dt
>bensinpris.net
</dt
>
731 <dd
>Nettside med prisinformasjon for Trondheimsområdet. Informasjonen
732 registreres via web og SMS, og krever ikke registrering. Nettsiden
733 viser de tre siste prisene registret for bensin og disel. Har liste
734 over kjente stasjoner tilgjengelig. Svært lite oppdatert for
739 <p
>I tillegg er jeg kjent med drivstoffguiden.no som ser ut til å være
740 nedlagt, og at SSB som del av beregningen av konsumprisindeksen samler
741 inn driftstoffpriser hver måned og
742 <a href=
"http://www.ssb.no/petroleumsalg/
">legger dem ut i
743 PDF-format
</a
>.
</p
>
745 <p
>Det jeg ikke forstår er hvorfor det stadig opprettes nye nett- og
746 mobiltjenester for å samle inn bensinpriser, i stedet for å samarbeide
747 med de eksisterende løsninger for å gjøre de gode nok til nye
748 bruksområder. Jobben med å samle inn priser er formidabel, og hvis
749 målet er bedre konkurranse på bensinmarkedet ville jeg tro det beste
750 var om kundene samlet seg om _ett_ nettsted og samlet alle prisene
751 der, i stedet for å spre innsatsen på mange nettsteder. Jeg mistenker
752 årsaken ligger i at de aktørene som har satt opp tjenester så langt
753 ikke har lagt opp til deling og samarbeid på like vilkår med andre
754 aktører, og dermed gjort det vanskelig å legge til funksjonalitet som
755 presentasjon på kart, statistisk analyse eller kvalitetssikring av
756 bensinstasjonslisten og prisinformasjonen.
</p
>
761 <th
>Tjeneste
</th
>
762 <th
>Offentlig stasjons-liste
</th
>
763 <th
>Publisert stasjons-geopunkt
</th
>
764 <th
>Publisert API for inn-legging
</th
>
765 <th
>Publisert API for ut-henting
</th
>
766 <th
>Publisert alle priser
</th
>
767 <th
>Publisert database
</th
>
768 <th
>Lands-dekkende
</th
>
772 <td
>Dinside
</td
>
773 <td
>(ja)
</td
>
774 <td
>nei
</td
>
775 <td
>nei
</td
>
776 <td
>nei
</td
>
777 <td
>ja
</td
>
778 <td
>(ja)
</td
>
779 <td
>ja
</td
>
783 <td
>Bitfactorys mobilapp
</td
>
784 <td
>nei
</td
>
785 <td
>ja
</td
>
786 <td
>(ja)
</td
>
787 <td
>(ja)
</td
>
788 <td
>nei
</td
>
789 <td
>nei
</td
>
790 <td
>ja
</td
>
794 <td
>drivstoffpriser.no
</td
>
795 <td
>ja
</td
>
796 <td
>ja
</td
>
797 <td
>nei
</td
>
798 <td
>nei
</td
>
799 <td
>nei
</td
>
800 <td
>nei
</td
>
801 <td
>ja
</td
>
805 <td
>bensinpris.net
</td
>
806 <td
>ja
</td
>
807 <td
>nei
</td
>
808 <td
>nei
</td
>
809 <td
>nei
</td
>
810 <td
>nei
</td
>
811 <td
>nei
</td
>
812 <td
>nei
</td
>
817 <p
>Dinside mangler dugnadsbasert kvalitetssikring av stasjonslista,
818 georeferert informasjon og API for innlegging og uthenting av
819 informasjon. Bitfactory mangler publisering av all innsamlet
820 informasjon, dugnadsbasert kvalitetssikring av stasjonslista og
821 dokumentert API for innlegging og uthenting av informasjon. NAFs
822 løsning mangler publisering av all innsamlet informasjon og API for
823 innlegging og uthenting av informasjon.
</p
>
825 <p
>Jeg har nylig spurt folkene bak dinside.nos oversikt og
826 drivstoffpriser.no om de er villige til å gi ut sine innsamlede data
827 uten bruksbegresninger og tilby et dokumentert og publisert API for å
828 legge inn og hente ut informasjon. Så får vi se hva de sier.
</p
>