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14 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen
</a>
21 <h3>Entries tagged "english".
</h3>
25 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?
</a>
31 <p>The
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-
11
32 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive
</a>, is a
33 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
34 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
35 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing. With such
36 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
37 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
38 downloaded by the browser.
</p>
40 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
41 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
42 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there. The result
44 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
45 site
</a>. Using the collected information, it become possible to
46 answer the question in the title. Here are the
20 most supported MIME
47 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
48 The complete list is available from the link above.
</p>
50 <p><strong>Debian Stable:
</strong></p>
54 ----- -----------------------
77 <p><strong>Debian Testing:
</strong></p>
81 ----- -----------------------
104 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:
</strong></p>
108 ----- -----------------------
131 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
132 information mentioned in DEP-
11. I have not yet had time to look at
133 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
136 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
16 13:
35</strong>: Updated numbers after
137 discovering a typo in my script.
</p>
143 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
148 <div class=
"padding"></div>
152 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware
</a>
158 <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
159 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
160 values provided by the Linux kernel
</a> following my hope for
161 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
162 dongle support in Debian
</a>. Using this knowledge, I have tested how
163 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
164 to hardware. This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
165 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
166 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
169 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
170 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
171 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
175 Package: package-name
176 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)
</p>
179 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
180 for a given modalias value using this file.
</p>
182 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
183 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class
0E01):
</p>
187 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)
</p>
190 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
191 CardBus bridge (bus class
0607) PCI device is present:
</p>
195 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
198 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
199 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs
04D8:F8DA:
</p>
202 Package: colorhug-client
203 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)
</p>
206 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
207 file in the Debian archive. Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
208 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.
</p>
210 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
211 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
212 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
213 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
214 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information. I've
215 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
216 is working as it should with my prototype. It even made it to Ubuntu
219 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
220 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
221 implementation of the lookup code. The idea is to create files for
222 each modalias and let the shell do the matching. Please check out and
224 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup
</a>
225 shell script. It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
226 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
227 repository where I currently work on my prototype.
</p>
229 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
230 install yubikey-personalization:
</p>
233 % ./hw-support-lookup
234 <br>yubikey-personalization
238 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
239 propose to install the pcmciautils package:
</p>
242 % ./hw-support-lookup
247 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
248 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
249 database
</a>, please tell me about it.
</p>
251 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
252 packages and hardware. One source would be to look at packages with
253 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
254 extract their modalias information. Another would be to look at
255 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
256 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
257 generate a modalias matching rule. I have not tested any of these to
260 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
261 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
262 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
263 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel
</a>.
</p>
269 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
274 <div class=
"padding"></div>
278 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware
</a>
284 <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
285 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
286 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
287 to document the details. Here are my findings so far, also available
289 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
290 Debian Edu subversion repository
</a>:
292 <p><strong>Modalias decoded
</strong></p>
294 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
295 values stands for. It is in part based on information from
296 <URL:
<a href=
"https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias
</a> >,
297 <URL:
<a href=
"http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device">http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/
26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device
</a> >,
298 <URL:
<a href=
"http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c
</a> > and
299 <URL:
<a href=
"http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup">http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup
</a> >.
301 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
302 this shell script:
</p>
305 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u
308 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
312 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
313 alias: serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
314 alias: serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
318 <p><strong>PCI subtype
</strong></p>
320 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this. This is an Intel Host
321 Bridge memory controller:
</p>
324 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
327 <p>This represent these values:
</p>
332 sv
00001028 (subvendor)
333 sd
000001AD (subdevice)
339 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
340 -n' as
8086:
2770. The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
341 0600. The
0600 class is a host bridge. Other useful bus values are
342 0300 (VGA compatible card) and
0200 (Ethernet controller).
</p>
344 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
347 <p><strong>USB subtype
</strong></p>
349 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this. This is an internal
350 USB hub in a laptop:
</p>
353 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
356 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:
</p>
359 v
1D6B (device vendor)
360 p
0001 (device product)
363 dsc
00 (device subclass)
364 dp
00 (device protocol)
365 ic
09 (interface class)
366 isc
00 (interface subclass)
367 ip
00 (interface protocol)
370 <p>The
0900 device class/subclass means hub. Some times the relevant
371 class is in the interface class section. For a simple USB web camera,
372 these alias entries show up:
</p>
375 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
376 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
377 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
378 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
381 <p>Interface class
0E01 is video control,
0E02 is video streaming (aka
382 camera),
0101 is audio control device and
0102 is audio streaming (aka
383 microphone). Thus this is a camera with microphone included.
</p>
385 <p><strong>ACPI subtype
</strong></p>
387 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff. This is an IR
388 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:
</p>
391 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
394 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.
</p>
396 <p><strong>DMI subtype
</strong></p>
398 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
399 and model. This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
400 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:
</p>
403 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(
1.66):bd06/
15/
2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
406 <p>The values present are
</p>
409 bvn IBM (BIOS vendor)
410 bvr
1UETB
6WW(
1.66) (BIOS version)
411 bd
06/
15/
2005 (BIOS date)
412 svn IBM (system vendor)
413 pn
2371H4G (product name)
414 pvr ThinkPadX40 (product version)
415 rvn IBM (board vendor)
416 rn
2371H4G (board name)
417 rvr NotAvailable (board version)
418 cvn IBM (chassis vendor)
420 cvr NotAvailable (chassis version)
423 <p>The chassis type
10 is Notebook. Other interesting values can be
424 found in the dmidecode source:
</p>
428 4 Low Profile Desktop
441 17 Main Server Chassis
444 20 Bus Expansion Chassis
445 21 Peripheral Chassis
447 23 Rack Mount Chassis
456 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
457 table. For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
458 claim it is a desktop.
</p>
460 <p><strong>SerIO subtype
</strong></p>
462 <p>This type is used for PS/
2 mouse plugs. One example is from my
466 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
469 <p>The values present are
</p>
478 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver. I am not sure what
479 the valid values are.
</p>
481 <p><strong>Other subtypes
</strong></p>
483 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
484 file2alias.c. There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
485 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
486 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
487 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro. I did not spend time documenting all of
488 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
489 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.
</p>
491 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values
</strong></p>
493 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
494 one can use the following shell script:
</p>
497 for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -
0 cat | sort -u); do \
499 /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/ /' ; \
503 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
504 list is very long on my test machine):
</p>
508 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
510 FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
512 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
513 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
514 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
515 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
516 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
517 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
518 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
519 insmod /lib/modules/
2.6.32-
5-
686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
523 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
524 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
525 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
526 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel
</a>.
</p>
528 <p><strong>Update
2013-
01-
15:
</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
529 "find ... -print0 | xargs -
0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
530 in /sys/ with space in them.
</p>
536 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
541 <div class=
"padding"></div>
545 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint
</a>
551 <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
552 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
553 Launcher and updated the Debian package
554 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile
</a> to make
555 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in. I
556 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
557 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
558 plug in his rocket launcher. In the process I moved the source to a
559 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
560 contribute.
<a href=
"http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream
</a>
561 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
562 years of relative silence. The new git repository is not listed in
563 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
564 bit more before I upload the new version. If you want to check out
565 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
566 <a href=
"http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
567 view
</a> or use "
<tt>git clone
568 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git
</tt>".</p>
574 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot
">robot</a>.
579 <div class="padding
"></div>
583 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html
">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
589 <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
590 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
591 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
592 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
593 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
594 machine. Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
595 Linux distribution. When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
596 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
597 I need to talk to it. When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
598 yubikey-personalization package. The information required to do this
599 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
601 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
602 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/
2010/
05/msg01206.html
">use
603 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>. The idea is fairly
608 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
609 starting when a user log in.</li>
611 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
612 hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
614 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
615 database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
618 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
619 package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
623 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
624 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
625 discover database to find packages and
626 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/
">PackageKit</a> to install
629 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
630 draft package is now checked into
631 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/
">the
632 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>. In the process, I updated the
633 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html
">discover-data</a>
634 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
635 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
636 2.2013.01.09 to unstable. I also discovered that the current
637 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html
">discover</a>
638 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
639 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present. I ported it to use
640 libusb as a fall back option to get it working. The fixed package
641 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
642 because of the freeze).</p>
644 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
645 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
648 <p align="center
"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2013-
01-
09-hw-autoinstall.png
"></p>
650 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
651 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
652 program(s)" button should to be implemented.
</p>
654 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
655 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
656 from hardware to Debian packages. Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
657 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
658 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
659 reportbug if it isn't. Or, if you know of a better way to provide
660 such mapping, please let me know.
</p>
662 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
663 should be considered before it is ready for production use. Is dbus
664 the correct way to detect new hardware? At the moment I look for HAL
665 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
666 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop. Are there better events to use?
667 How should the user be notified? Is the desktop notification
668 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
669 popup instead? How should packages be installed? When should they
670 not be installed?
</p>
672 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
673 please send me an email. :)
</p>
679 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
684 <div class=
"padding"></div>
688 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian
</a>
694 <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
695 <a href=
"http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
696 NXT
</a>. My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
697 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
698 already in Debian Squeeze. If Debian support for LEGO is something
699 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
700 <a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego
</a> (server
701 irc.debian.org). There is a lot that could be done to improve the
702 Debian support for LEGO designers. For example both CAD software
703 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)
</p>
705 <p>Update
2012-
01-
03: A
706 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page
</a>
707 including links to Lego related packages is now available.
</p>
713 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot
</a>.
718 <div class=
"padding"></div>
722 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu
</a>
728 <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
729 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu
</a>
730 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
731 Agency in Trondheim. NOK
1000,- showed up on our donation account
732 December
24th. I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
733 present. As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
734 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
735 gatherings, this donation was most welcome. One developer gathering
736 cost around NOK
15 000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
737 development pace we want. Thus, I hope their example this year is
738 followed by many others. :)
</p>
740 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
741 <a href=
"http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
742 donation page
</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
743 you want to donate to the project.
</p>
749 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
754 <div class=
"padding"></div>
758 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">How to backport bitcoin-qt version
0.7.2-
2 to Debian Squeeze
</a>
764 <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
765 year! I hope next year will prove to be a good year.
</p>
767 <p><a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin
</a>, the digital
768 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
769 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
770 experiment. And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
771 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/">Debian
</a> is about to improve a bit.
772 The
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
773 package
</a> (version
0.7.2-
2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
774 in
<a href=
"http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue
</A>
775 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
778 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
779 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
780 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:
</p>
783 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
785 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=
1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
786 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
789 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well. The
790 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
791 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment. Note that the
792 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
793 around
5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment. Make sure your
794 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
795 all the blocks. The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
796 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
797 not be able to get all the features out of the client.
</p>
799 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
800 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
801 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
807 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
812 <div class=
"padding"></div>
816 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian
</a>
822 <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
823 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin
</a>, the decentralised
824 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
825 have been busy elsewhere. But two days ago, I started looking at the
826 state of
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
827 Debian
</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet. The package
828 is now maintained by a
829 <a href=
"https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
830 people
</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team. We
831 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
832 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
833 Wheezy. It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
834 backports). The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
835 it from entering testing. To try to help the team and improve the
836 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
837 reports. I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
839 <a href=
"https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
840 Ubuntu
</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
843 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
844 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
845 improve the package. It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
846 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
847 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
848 setup. As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
849 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
850 patch to backport
</a> the latest version. Jonas is going to look at
851 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
852 new version to unstable.
854 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
855 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system. I
856 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
857 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
858 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
859 transactions to Wikileaks. But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
860 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
861 they sell products and services. Improving the bitcoin support in
862 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
863 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
864 pay with bitcoin is still not very good. The bitcoin: URI is a step
865 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
866 use. Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
867 quick transaction. I believe there are other clients available, but
868 have not tested them.
</p>
871 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
872 with bitcoins
</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
873 I received
20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
875 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
876 on the blockexplorer service
</a>. Thank you everyone for your
877 donation. The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
878 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
879 number of users have gone up since then. If you use bitcoin and want
880 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
881 the same address as last time,
882 <b><a href=
"bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a></b>.
</p>
888 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
893 <div class=
"padding"></div>
897 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ledger___double_entry_accounting_using_text_based_storage_format.html">Ledger - double-entry accounting using text based storage format
</a>
903 <p>A few days ago I came across
904 <a href=
"http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
905 Hess
</a> describing
<a href=
"http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger
</a> and
906 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting. I found it
907 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
908 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
909 the different web based systems we use. I find it hard to find what I
910 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
911 the systems. Ledger seem different. The accounting data is kept in
912 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
914 are at least
<a href=
"https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
915 different implementations
</a> able to read the format. An example
916 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
917 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:
</p>
920 2004-
05-
27 Book Store
921 Expenses:Books $
20.00
925 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
926 look for others using it. I found blog posts from
927 <a href=
"http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
929 <a href=
"http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
931 <a href=
"http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
933 <a href=
"http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
934 Ip
</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
935 <a href=
"https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
936 M. Kuhn
</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy. All seemed like good
937 recommendations fitting my need.
</p>
939 <p>The
<a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger
</a>
940 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
941 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger
</a>
942 package only is available in Debian Sid. As I use Squeeze, ledger
943 seemed the best choice to get started.
</p>
945 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
946 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper
</a> for
947 <a href=
"http://www.lodo.no/">LODO
</a>, the accounting system used by
948 the
<a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG
</a> association, and started to
949 play with the data set. I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
950 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
951 using the "
<tt>ledger balance
</tt>" command. But I will have to
952 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
953 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
959 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu
">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug
">nuug</a>.
964 <div class="padding
"></div>
968 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Scripting_the_Cerebrum_bofhd_user_administration_system_using_XML_RPC.html
">Scripting the Cerebrum/bofhd user administration system using XML-RPC</a>
974 <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/
">University of
976 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/
">Cerebrum user
977 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
978 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
979 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC
">XML-RPC</a> API, but
980 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
981 always use the bofh command line client at work. Until today. I want
982 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
983 virtual machines. Here are a few notes on how to use it with
986 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
987 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/
">bofh
988 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server. I also
989 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
990 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html
">a
991 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
993 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
994 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
995 user currently logged in:</p>
998 #!/usr/bin/env python
1001 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
1002 username = getpass.getuser()
1003 password = getpass.getpass()
1004 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
1005 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
1006 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
1007 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
1008 result = server.logout(sessionid)
1012 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
1013 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.
</p>
1019 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin
</a>.
1024 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1028 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_the_value_of_copyright_taxed_.html">Why isn't the value of copyright taxed?
</a>
1034 <p>While working on a
1035 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
1036 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig
</a> (
76% done),
1037 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
1038 creativity, one idea occurred to me. The idea is to get the tax
1039 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
1040 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.
</p>
1042 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
1043 <a href=
"http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
1044 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
1045 by John Perry Barlow
</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
1046 in writing for a wider audience. The idea is not really based on the
1047 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
1048 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
1049 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
1050 controlled by the citizens in a country. I'm sharing the idea here to
1051 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
1054 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government. At least here in
1055 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
1056 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
1057 stocks and other valuables are all added together. If the tax value
1058 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
1059 taxes for these values. And copyrighted work have value. It have
1060 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
1061 work. But it is not included in the tax calculations? Why not?
</p>
1063 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
1064 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
1065 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
1066 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes. If such
1067 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
1068 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
1069 hard operation with todays copyright law. To ensure that copyright
1070 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
1071 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
1072 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
1073 correct right holder.
</p>
1075 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
1076 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
1077 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
1078 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
1079 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
1080 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
1081 work. Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
1082 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
1083 tax calculation. I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
1084 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
1085 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain. The
1086 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
1087 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
1088 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.
</p>
1090 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
1091 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
1092 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .
</p>
1094 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet? I am sure the tax office
1095 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.
</p>
1101 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett
</a>.
1106 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1110 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß
</a>
1116 <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the
<a
1117 href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a>
1118 community. I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
1119 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
1120 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
1121 the people behind the German
1122 "
<a href=
"http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule
</a>"
1123 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview. Give a warm
1124 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
1126 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1128 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
1129 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
1130 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
1132 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
1133 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
1134 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
1135 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
1136 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-). We are also
1137 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.
</p>
1139 <p>In
2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
1140 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there. Besides
1141 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
1142 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
1143 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
1144 relationship management and the communication processes in the
1147 <p>Since
2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
1148 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
1149 and a yoga teacher.
</p>
1151 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
1152 project?
</strong></p>
1154 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).
</p>
1156 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
1157 Free Software. At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
1158 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
1159 their IT environment. Often when Mike came home from working at the
1160 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
1161 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
1162 teachers did not work. So we were clear that he would not work for
1163 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
1164 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
1167 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
1168 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
1169 schools. One day before Christmas
2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
1170 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
1171 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
1172 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
1175 <p>For information about our school project you can read
1176 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
1177 interview with Mike Gabriel
</a>.
</p>
1179 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1182 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
1183 answer comes rather from a social point of view.
</p>
1185 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
1186 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
1187 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
1188 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
1189 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
1190 ;-). This is of course a user experience. What I also get as a big
1191 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
1192 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
1193 teachers, parents...
</p>
1195 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
1198 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
1199 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.
</p>
1201 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
1202 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
1203 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
1204 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
1205 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.
</p>
1207 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
1208 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
1209 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
1210 and helpful. I am also missing some kind of contact between the
1211 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
1212 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
1213 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.
</p>
1215 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong></p>
1217 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu
10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
1218 on. As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
1219 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
1220 my N900 running with Maemo.
</p>
1222 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1223 get schools to use free software?
</strong></p>
1225 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
1226 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
1227 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
1228 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
1229 strategy has three crucial pillars:
</p>
1233 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
1234 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
1235 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.
</li>
1237 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
1238 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
1239 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
1240 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
1241 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
1242 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
1243 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.
</li>
1245 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
1246 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
1247 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
1248 offer to become more and more independent from us.
</li>
1256 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju
</a>.
1261 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1265 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_European_Central_Bank__ECB__take_a_look_at_bitcoin.html">The European Central Bank (ECB) take a look at bitcoin
</a>
1271 <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
1272 <a href=
"http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
1273 a report (PDF)
</a> about virtual currencies and
1274 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin
</a>. It is interesting to
1275 see how a member of the bitcoin community
1276 <a href=
"http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
1277 the report
</a>. As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
1278 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
1279 competition. My thoughts go to the
1280 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment
</a> with
1281 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
1282 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in
1933. A successful
1283 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
1284 powerful forces to work against it.
</p>
1286 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
1287 that the community already seem to have
1288 <a href=
"http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
1289 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme
</a>. Not very surprising, given
1290 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other. I guess
1291 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
1292 wealth is available.
</p>
1298 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet
</a>.
1303 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1307 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/12_years_of_outages___summarised_by_Stuart_Kendrick.html">12 years of outages - summarised by Stuart Kendrick
</a>
1313 <p>I work at the
<a href=
"http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo
</a>
1314 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
1315 all over the place. I am also a member (and currently leader) of
1316 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association
</a>, which in turn
1317 make me a member of
<a href=
"http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX
</a>. NUUG
1318 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
1319 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
1320 is a US based member organisation with similar targets. And thanks to
1321 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
1322 <a href=
"https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:
</a> in the
1323 mail several times a year. The magazine is great, and I read most of
1326 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
1327 article by
<a href=
"http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick
</a> from
1328 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
1329 "
<a href=
"https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
1330 Takes Us Down
</a>" (longer version also
1331 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/
2012-
06-
30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf
">available
1332 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
1333 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
1334 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
1335 etc etc. The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
1336 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
1337 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
1339 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
1340 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
1341 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
1342 assumtions on scope and user impact. Here is the two example from the
1343 article: First the unplanned outage:
1346 Subject: Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
1347 Severity: Critical (Unplanned)
1348 Start: Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
1349 End: Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
1350 Duration: 40 minutes
1351 Scope: Exchange 2003
1352 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
1355 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
1356 access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
1360 Next the planned outage:
1363 Subject: H Building Switch Upgrades
1364 Severity: Major (Planned)
1365 Start: Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
1366 End: Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
1369 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
1370 stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
1372 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
1373 this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
1378 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
1379 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
1380 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
1381 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
1382 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
1383 format listed above). There are also other issues with the format
1384 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
1386 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
1387 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
1388 university too. We do register
1389 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/
">planned
1390 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
1391 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
1392 report to the same location for unplanned outages. Perhaps something
1393 for other sites to consider too?</p>
1399 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug
">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard
">standard</a>.
1404 <div class="padding
"></div>
1408 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Amazon_steal_books_from_customer_and_throw_out_her_out_without_any_explanation.html
">Amazon steal books from customer and throw out her out without any explanation</a>
1414 <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
1415 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/
2012/
10/
22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/
">how
1416 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
1417 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>. If a real book store did
1418 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
1419 and theft. The story has spread around the net today. A bit more
1420 background information is available in Norwegian from
1421 <a href="http://www.digi.no/
904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon
">digi.no</a>.
1422 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
1423 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
1424 introduced many years back. And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
1426 <a href="http://boingboing.net/
2009/
07/
20/amazons-orwellian-de.html
">
1427 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
1428 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
1429 customers who had bought it. From the official comments, it even
1431 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/
2009/
07/
18/technology/companies/
18amazon.html
">Amazon
1432 would never do that again</a>. And here we are, three years
1435 <p>And thought this action is
1436 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/
904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende
">against
1437 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
1438 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
1439 Norwegian laws. It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
1440 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
1443 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
1444 unacceptable terms. For example
1445 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/
">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
1446 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/
">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
1447 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts
">The Internet
1448 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
1449 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
1451 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
1452 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
1453 restored the account of the user, as reported by
1454 <a href="http://www.digi.no/
904675/helomvending-fra-amazon
">digi.no</a>
1455 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/
1.8368487">NRK</a>.
1456 Apparently public pressure work. The story from Martin have seen
1457 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
1458 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention. But even when the
1459 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist. I recommend
1460 reading two opinions from
1461 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/
2012/
10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm
">Simon
1463 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/
2012/
10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm
">Glen
1464 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
1465 details about the original story.</p>
1471 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett
">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern
">personvern</a>.
1476 <div class="padding
"></div>
1480 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html
">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
1486 <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
1487 drain, and it is hard to fight against it. I try to do my best, but
1488 time is limited. I hope you do your best too. A few years ago I came
1489 across a marvellous drawing by
1490 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html
">Clay Bennett</a>
1491 visualising some of what is going on.
1493 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html
">
1494 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg
"></a></p>
1497 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
1498 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
1501 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport? I do not. Do you feel safe when
1502 you see a surveillance camera? I do not. Do you feel safe when you
1503 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions? I do not. I
1504 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
">the
1505 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
1506 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
1512 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern
">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet
">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance
">surveillance</a>.
1517 <div class="padding
"></div>
1521 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html
">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
1527 <p>Thanks to a blog post by
1528 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/
2012/
10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html
">Eddy
1529 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
1530 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
1531 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
1532 <a href=
"http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
1533 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions
</a>, the producer
1534 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information. To check if
1535 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
1536 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
1537 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic. However, we
1538 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
1541 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
1542 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
1543 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
1544 health of its users. This caused the company behind the product,
1545 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
1546 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
1547 to argue its side.
</p>
1549 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
1550 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly. Lets hope the
1551 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
1552 effect
</a> can make it rethink its strategy.
</p>
1554 <p>What is the harm, you might think. I suggest you take a look at
1555 <a href=
"http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
1556 victims of detoxification
</a>.
</p>
1562 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis
</a>.
1567 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1571 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_is_your_local_library_collecting_the__wrong__computer_books_.html">Why is your local library collecting the "wrong" computer books?
</a>
1577 <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
1578 <a href=
"http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
1579 the computer science book collection available in his local
1580 library
</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
1581 computer books becoming obsolete so soon. That is part of the reason
1582 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
1583 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
1584 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
1585 computer classic from trash. And they need to know which one will
1586 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
1587 recently published books.
</p>
1589 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
1590 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
1591 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
1592 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess. Once, just
1593 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
1594 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
1595 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection. I
1596 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
1597 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
1598 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
1599 collection
</a>). I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
1600 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
1601 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
1602 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
1603 for the library that evening.
</p>
1605 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
1606 going to know that for example
1607 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
1608 Practice of Programming
</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
1609 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
1610 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
1611 the suggestions for books to get? I know they would love to hear from
1612 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
1613 book right away.
</p>
1619 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
1624 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1628 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Seventy_percent_done_with_Norwegian_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html">Seventy percent done with Norwegian docbook version of Free Culture
</a>
1634 <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian
<a
1635 href=
"http://www.docbook.org/">docbook
</a> version of the
2004 book
<a
1636 href=
"http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture
</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
1637 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
1638 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
1639 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
1642 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
1643 for volunteers
</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
1644 and progress is a bit slow. Anyway, today I broken the
70 percent
1645 mark for the first rough translation. At the moment, less than
700
1646 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate. With
1647 my current progress of
10-
20 strings per day, it will take a while to
1648 complete the translation. This graph show the updated progress:
</p>
1650 <img width=
"80%" align=
"center" src=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
1652 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
1653 commitments. If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
1654 the project files currently available from
1655 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github
</a>.
</p>
1657 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
1659 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF
</a>
1661 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB
</a>
1662 are published on github. The HTML version is published as well, but
1663 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
1664 saw no point in linking to that version.
</p>
1670 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture
</a>.
1675 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1679 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda
</a>
1685 <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
1686 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a>
1687 community, I finally found time to wrap up another. This time it is
1688 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
1689 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
1690 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
1691 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.
</p>
1693 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong></p>
1695 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
1696 in secondary (
15-
18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
1697 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
1698 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
1699 IT.
3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
1700 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
1701 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
1702 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
1703 training is anyway very important
</p>
1705 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
1706 <a href=
"http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school
</a> (secondary) is a very
1707 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
1708 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
1709 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
1711 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1712 project?
</strong></p>
1714 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
1715 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
1716 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
1717 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
1718 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
1721 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1724 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
1725 very generous for help and hints. Chat help is crucial, together with
1726 the mailing list. Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
1727 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
1728 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
1729 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
1730 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
1731 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
1734 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1737 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
1738 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
1739 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
1740 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
1741 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
1742 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
1743 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
1744 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)
</p>
1746 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong></p>
1748 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
1749 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
1750 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
1751 <a href=
"http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus
</a>
1754 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
1755 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
1756 something breaks. Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
1757 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.
</p>
1759 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1760 get schools to use free software?
</strong></p>
1762 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
1763 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
1764 just because they are normally not open to change.
</p>
1766 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
1767 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
1770 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
1771 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
1772 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had
20
1773 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
1774 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
1775 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
1776 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.
</p>
1782 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju
</a>.
1787 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1791 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec
</a>
1798 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
1799 codec made
</a> it into
<a href=
"http://www.ietf.org/">IETF
</a> as
1800 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC
6716</a>, I had a look
1801 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
1802 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
1803 area. A non-"working group" mailing list
1804 <a href=
"https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec
</a>
1806 <a href=
"http://ietf.10.n7.nabble.com/New-Non-WG-Mailing-List-video-codec-Video-codec-BoF-discussion-list-td119548.html">created
2012-
08-
20</a>. It is intended to discuss the topic and if a
1807 formal working group should be formed.
</p>
1809 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out. There is already
1810 <a href=
"http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
1811 email from someone
</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
1812 participate in the ISO group. Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
1813 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
1814 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
1815 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
1816 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.
</p>
1818 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
1819 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
1826 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video
</a>.
1831 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1835 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus
</a>
1841 <p>Yesterday,
<a href=
"http://www.ietf.org/">IETF
</a> announced the
1843 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC
6716, the Definition
1844 of the Opus Audio Codec
</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
1845 intended for both VoIP, film and music. This is the first time, as
1846 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec. In
1847 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC
3533</a>, IETF
1848 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
1849 royalty free container for audio, video and movies. I hope IETF will
1850 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
1851 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
1852 multimedia content on the Internet.
</p>
1854 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
1855 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
1856 free specifications. Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
1857 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.
</p>
1859 <p>Visit the
<a href=
"http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page
</a> if
1860 you want to learn more about the solution.
</p>
1866 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video
</a>.
1871 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1875 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists
</a>
1882 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
1883 this summer
</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
1884 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
1885 <a href=
"https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
1886 repository for the project
</a>.
</p>
1888 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
1889 to the HTML version. To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
1890 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
1891 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.
</p>
1893 <p>Want to sing? You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
1894 PostScript formats at
1895 <a href=
"http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
1896 Science Songbook
</a>.
</p>
1902 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia
</a>.
1907 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1911 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_forced_Microsoft_to_open_Office__and_don_t_forget_Officeshots_.html">Free software forced Microsoft to open Office (and don't forget Officeshots)
</a>
1917 <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
1918 <a href=
"http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
1919 have been forced to open Office
</a>, and it made me remember and
1920 revisit the great site
1921 <a href=
"http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots
</a> which allow you
1922 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format. I
1923 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)
</p>
1929 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard
</a>.
1934 <div class=
"padding"></div>
1938 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_way_there_with_translated_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html">Half way there with translated docbook version of Free Culture
</a>
1944 <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
1945 <a href=
"http://www.docbook.org/">docbook
</a> version of the
2004 book
1946 <a href=
"http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture
</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
1947 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
1948 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
1949 English book. It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
1950 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society. When the
1951 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
1952 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
1953 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law. This
1955 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
1956 for volunteers
</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
1957 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.
</p>
1959 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the
50% mark. Then more than
50% of
1960 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
1961 titles and index entries are also counted). All parts from the
1962 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated. So is
1963 chapters six, seven and the conclusion. I created a graph to show the
1966 <img width=
"80%" align=
"center" src=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
1968 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
1969 entries into the docbook. They were missing with the docbook version
1970 I initially started with. There are still quite a few index entries
1971 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done. I
1972 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
1973 english version of the docbook source.
</p>
1975 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
1976 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
1977 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
1978 translation and proof reading. And I would like the figures to be
1979 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them. Any SVG master
1980 around? I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
1981 me. If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
1982 project files currently available from
<a
1983 href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github
</a>.
</p>
1985 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
1987 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF
</a>
1989 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB
</a>
1990 are published on github. The HTML version is published as well, but
1991 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
1992 saw no point in linking to that version.
</p>
1998 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture
</a>.
2003 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2007 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Notes_on_language_codes_for_Norwegian_docbook_processing___.html">Notes on language codes for Norwegian docbook processing...
</a>
2013 <p>In
<a href=
"http://www.docbook.org/">docbook
</a> one can specify
2014 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
2015 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
2016 also', 'index' etc. And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
2017 this work just fine. For example a German user can start the document
2018 with
<book
lang="de"
>, and the document will show up with the
2019 correct content with any of the docbook processors. This is not the
2020 case for the language
2021 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
2022 am working with at the moment
</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.
</p>
2024 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
2025 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
2026 all tools. I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
2027 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way. Some
2028 of them do not handle it at all.
</p>
2030 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
2031 this mess. Norwegian is not one, but two written variants. The
2032 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål. There are three
2033 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
2034 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
2035 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
2036 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
2037 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
2038 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
2041 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian. The dblatex tool only
2042 understand 'nn'. There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
2043 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#
684391</a>), but due to a bug
2044 (BTS
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#
682936</a>) the 'no'
2045 language code is not recognised. The docbook-xsl tool chain only
2046 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'. The xmlto tool only recognise
2047 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'. The end result that there is no language
2048 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
2049 at the same time. :(
</p>
2051 <p>The correct solution is to use
<book
lang="nb"
>, but it will
2052 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
2055 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/
</p>
2061 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture
</a>.
2066 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2070 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?
</a>
2076 <p>I tried to send this text to the
2077 <a href=
"https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
2078 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org
</a>, but it only accept messages
2079 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
2080 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
2081 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
2084 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
2085 learning curve at the moment.
</p>
2087 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
2088 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
2089 docbook to handle the process. The files to build the book are
2091 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github
</a>.
2092 The book got around
400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
2093 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
2094 software docbook processors. My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
2097 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
2098 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
2099 formats. I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
2104 <li>Using dblatex, the
<part
> handling is not the way I want to,
2105 as
</part
> do not really end the
<part
>. (See
2106 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #
683166</a>), the
2107 xetex backend (needed to process UTF-
8) give incorrect hyphens in
2108 index references spanning several pages (See
2109 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #
682901</a>), and
2110 I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
2111 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #
682936</a>).
</li>
2113 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
2114 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
2117 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
2118 show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
2119 footnote and text body, see
2120 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #
683197</a>), and
2121 fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
2122 refs listed are not right).
</li>
2124 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.
</li>
2126 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
2127 index problems the xmlto + fop processing.
</li>
2131 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
2132 of this book? Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
2133 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?
</p>
2135 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?
</p>
2141 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture
</a>.
2146 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2150 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">Free Culture in Norwegian -
5 chapters done,
74 percent left to do
</a>
2156 <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
2157 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
2158 norwegian version
</a> of the book
2159 <a href=
"http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture
</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
2160 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
2161 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six. The source files as well as a
2162 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
2163 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github
</a>.
</p>
2165 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
2166 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
2167 completely translated. This completes
26 percent of the number of
2168 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus
74
2169 percent left to translate. A graph of the progress is present at the
2170 bottom of the github project page. There is still room for more
2171 contributors. Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
2172 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
2175 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
2176 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
2183 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett
</a>.
2188 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2192 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Call_for_help_from_docbook_expert_to_tag_Free_Culture_by_Lawrence_Lessig.html">Call for help from docbook expert to tag Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig
</a>
2198 <p>I am currently working on a
2199 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
2200 to translate
</a> the book
2201 <a href=
"http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture
</a> by Lawrence Lessig
2202 to Norwegian. And the source we base our translation on is the
2203 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook
</a> version, to
2204 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
2205 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
2206 tagged. The source files of this project is available from
2207 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github
</a>.
</p>
2209 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
2210 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert. Is there a
2211 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
2212 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
2213 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book? This will provide a
2214 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
2215 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version. If you can and want
2216 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
2217 send pull requests with fixes. :)
</p>
2223 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett
</a>.
2228 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2232 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg
</a>
2238 <p>The
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2239 Skolelinux
</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
2240 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
2241 country Sweden. This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
2242 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
2243 to adjust and scale the just released
2244 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
2245 Wheezy
</a> setup to his liking. He granted me an interview, and I am
2246 happy to share his answers with you here.
</p>
2248 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong></p>
2250 <p>I'm a
44 year old country guy that have been working
12 years at
2251 the same school as
50% IT-manager and
50% Teacher. My educational
2252 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
2253 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups. In
2254 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
2255 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
2256 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
2257 perspective when working with IT.
</p>
2259 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2260 project?
</strong></p>
2262 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
2263 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
2264 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
2265 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
2266 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
2267 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
2269 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2272 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
2273 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
2274 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
2275 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
2276 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
2277 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
2278 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
2279 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
2280 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
2281 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
2282 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
2283 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
2284 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
2285 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
2286 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
2287 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
2288 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
2289 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time. Our
2290 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
2291 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
2292 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
2293 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
2296 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2299 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
2300 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
2301 year (
2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
2302 sound from working with them. It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
2303 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
2304 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.
</p>
2306 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
2307 install time. In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
2308 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
2309 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
2310 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
2311 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
2312 support for single-sign on. That will make the transition to free
2313 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
2314 need. No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
2315 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
2316 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes. We run a journalist
2317 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
2318 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association). Our
2319 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
2320 are done. This is important if you want to get a job.
</p>
2322 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
2323 magazines. We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
2324 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
2325 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
2326 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
2327 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
2328 edit and compile a newspaper. But politically at our school we are not
2329 there yet. And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.
</p>
2331 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
2332 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
2333 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
2334 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
2335 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
2336 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
2337 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
2338 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise. Those
2339 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
2340 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
2341 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
2342 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
2343 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
2346 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
2347 will try. The problem is the students have certain expectations when
2348 they start an education towards a profession. So the programs has to
2349 look and feel professional. Good thing with radio, there are many
2350 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
2351 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
2352 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
2353 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
2354 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.
</p>
2356 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong></p>
2358 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days. I use almost
2359 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
2360 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
2363 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2364 get schools to use free software?
</strong></p>
2366 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
2367 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
2368 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
2369 flawlessly. The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
2370 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
2371 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
2372 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
2373 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
2374 the administration. It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
2375 open source, if the principal has to run Windows. It also creates a
2376 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
2377 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
2378 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
2379 desktop is essential. At least at our school, where we have mixed
2380 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.
</p>
2382 <p>Update
2012-
07-
09 08:
30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
2383 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
2384 article
<a href=
"https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
2385 management with Airtime
</a>,
2386 <a href=
"http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime
</a> which
2387 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
2388 <a href=
"http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell
</a> which claim to
2389 be complete radio broadcast automation solution. All of them seem
2390 useful to the aspiring radio producer.
</p>
2396 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju
</a>.
2401 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2405 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?
</a>
2411 <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
2412 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
2413 in schools and municipalities. We provide what the happy users of
2414 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
2415 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution. I
2416 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
2417 Steinberg in his blog post
2418 "
<a href=
"http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
2419 you recognize the million pound chair?
</a>". Read it and weep for the
2420 spending of your tax money.</p>
2422 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
2423 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
2424 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
2425 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
2426 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
2433 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu
">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
2438 <div class="padding
"></div>
2442 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html
">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
2448 <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu /
2449 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
2450 software. It is one of the packages not installed by default but
2451 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
2452 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
2453 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
2454 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
2455 receive. The software is
2457 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/
">named FET</a>, and it provide a
2458 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
2459 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
2460 both teachers and students. It is available both for
2461 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html
">Linux, MacOSX and
2464 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html
">the
2465 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
2469 <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
2470 You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
2472 <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
2473 (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
2474 (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
2475 (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
2476 (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
2477 (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
2478 sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
2479 (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
2482 <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
2483 semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
2485 <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
2486 GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
2488 <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
2489 with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
2491 <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
2493 <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
2496 <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
2497 and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
2498 non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
2499 (as separate sets)</li>
2501 <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
2502 (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
2505 <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
2506 demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
2509 <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
2510 <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
2511 <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
2512 <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
2513 <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
2514 <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
2515 <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
2516 <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
2517 <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
2518 <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
2519 students sets for each activity. (it is possible
2520 also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
2522 <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
2523 <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
2526 <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
2528 <li>Break periods</li>
2531 <li>Not available periods</li>
2532 <li>Max/min days per week</li>
2533 <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
2534 <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
2535 <li>Min hours daily</li>
2536 <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
2538 <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
2541 <li>For students (sets):
2543 <li>Not available periods</li>
2544 <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
2545 <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
2546 <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
2547 <li>Min hours daily</li>
2548 <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
2550 <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
2553 <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
2555 <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
2556 <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
2557 <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
2558 <li>Min/max days between them</li>
2559 <li>End(s) students day</li>
2560 <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
2561 <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
2562 flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
2563 <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
2564 <li>Not overlapping</li>
2565 <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
2566 <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
2570 <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
2572 <li>Room not available periods</li>
2575 <li>Home room(s)</li>
2576 <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
2577 <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
2581 <li>For students (sets):
2583 <li>Home room(s)</li>
2584 <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
2585 <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
2588 <li>Preferred room(s):
2590 <li>For a subject</li>
2591 <li>For an activity tag</li>
2592 <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
2593 <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
2597 <li>For a set of activities:
2599 <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
2606 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
2607 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it. If you
2608 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
2609 manually, check it out.
2611 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
2612 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/
2012/
03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/
">a
2613 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>. If you find FET useful, please provide
2614 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
2615 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos
">Debian Edu HowTo
2622 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu
">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
2627 <div class="padding
"></div>
2631 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Can_Zimbra_be_told_to_send_autoreplies_to_the_From__address_.html
">Can Zimbra be told to send autoreplies to the From: address?</a>
2637 <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi</a>
2638 project (Norwegian version of
2639 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/
">FixMyStreet</a> from
2640 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/
">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
2641 a problem with the municipalities using
2642 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/
">Zimbra</a>. When FiksGataMi send a
2643 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
2644 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
2645 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address. The intention is to make
2646 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
2647 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
2648 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
2649 Zimbra. Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
2650 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
2651 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
2652 the From: header.</p>
2654 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
2655 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
2656 problem. We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
2657 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
2658 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports. We have been in
2659 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
2660 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
2663 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
2664 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
2665 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
2666 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
2667 differently. Anyone know? Please let us know at
2668 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami
">fiksgatami
2669 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
2675 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami
">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug
">nuug</a>.
2680 <div class="padding
"></div>
2684 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jos__Luis_Redrejo_Rodr_guez.html
">Debian Edu interview: José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez</a>
2690 <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
2691 another interview with the people behind
2692 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
2693 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
2694 helpers from Spain. His effort was the reason we added support for
2695 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
2696 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
2697 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/
2012/
20120311.html
">Debian Edu
2698 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
2700 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2702 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
2703 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
2706 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2707 project?</strong></p>
2709 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
2710 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
2711 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
2712 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
2714 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2717 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
2718 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
2719 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
2720 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
2722 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2725 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
2726 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
2727 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
2728 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
2729 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
2730 technologies in school.</p>
2732 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2734 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
2735 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/
">Geany</a> and
2736 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator
">Terminator</a>.</p>
2738 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2739 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2741 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
2742 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
2743 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
2744 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
2746 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
2747 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
2748 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
2750 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
2751 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
2752 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
2753 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
2754 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
2755 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
2756 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
2757 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
2764 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu
">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju
">intervju</a>.
2769 <div class="padding
"></div>
2773 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html
">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
2779 <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
2780 <a href="http://www.uit.no/
">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
2781 collecting computer related songs for use at parties. The original
2782 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
2783 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
2784 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format. I have
2785 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
2786 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
2787 help me extend and update the book. If anyone is volunteering to help
2788 me with this, send me an email. Also let me know if there are songs
2789 missing in my book.</p>
2791 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
2792 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
2793 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
2794 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/
">Debconf
2795 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going). Want to sing? Check
2796 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/
">Petter's
2797 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
2803 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia
">multimedia</a>.
2808 <div class="padding
"></div>
2812 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___some_ideas_for_the_future_versions.html
">Debian Edu - some ideas for the future versions</a>
2818 <p>During my work on
2819 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/
2012/
20120311.nb.html
">Debian Edu
2820 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
2821 addressed in the Wheezy release. I finally found time to wrap up my
2822 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
2827 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
2828 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
2829 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
2830 system depend on tasksel tasks in
2831 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
2834 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services. Now with the Kerberos
2835 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
2836 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions. We should
2837 at least try to enable it for these services:
2840 <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
2842 <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
2843 <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
2844 <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
2845 <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
2846 <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
2850 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
2851 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
2852 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
2853 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
2855 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install. The split made
2856 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
2857 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
2859 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
2860 touching the disk if the disk is too small. This is
2861 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
2862 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
2863 it and upload. After this is done we need to adjust
2864 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
2866 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
2867 time config). LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
2868 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
2871 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
2872 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
2873 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
2875 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
2876 change on first login. This is useful when handing out password on
2877 paper, to make sure only the user know the password. This require
2878 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
2880 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
2881 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
2882 familiar with GUIs. This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
2883 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
2885 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
2886 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses). None of the
2887 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
2889 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
2890 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
2891 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
2893 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
2894 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol. The hook was
2895 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
588968">BTS report
2896 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy. We might need to write a
2897 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
2899 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
2902 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
2903 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
2904 <li>and probably more?</li>
2907 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly. This is
2908 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
2909 examples too. For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
2910 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
2911 some GUI to do this. Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
2912 could consider using their packages. At the moment we have some
2913 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
2914 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
2917 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options. We
2918 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
2919 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
2922 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
2923 interesting educational packages. We should work on the package
2924 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
2925 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
2926 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
2928 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
2929 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
2930 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
2931 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled. We should
2932 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
2933 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.
</li>
2935 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
2936 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
2937 There are at least three implementations,
2938 <a href=
"italc.sourceforge.net/">italc
</a>,
2939 <a href=
"http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula
</a> og
2940 <a href=
"http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes
</a> and we should pick one of
2941 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school. The challenges is
2942 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
2943 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
2946 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
2947 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
2948 the Debian Edu network. Not quite sure how. Perhaps we should
2949 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
2950 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
2951 configuration and data with the central server. This should be
2956 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
2963 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
2968 <div class=
"padding"></div>
2972 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TV_with_face_recognition__for_improved_viewer_experience.html">TV with face recognition, for improved viewer experience
</a>
2978 <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
2979 <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
2980 with face recognition
</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
2981 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
2982 recognition on the TV image itself. It could let the viewer know who
2983 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
2984 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
2985 evaluate what is being said and done. That would be a feature I would
2986 be willing to pay for.
</p>
2988 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
2989 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
2990 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
2991 <a href=
"http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
2998 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance
</a>.
3003 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3007 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Web_service_to_look_up_HP_and_Dell_computer_hardware_support_status.html">Web service to look up HP and Dell computer hardware support status
</a>
3014 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
3015 reported how to get
</a> the support status out of Dell using an
3016 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
3017 <a href=
"http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
3018 by Daniel De Marco in february
</a>. Combined with my web scraping
3019 code for HP, Dell and IBM
3020 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
3021 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
3022 <a href=
"https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
3023 web service
</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
3024 support status and get a machine readable result back.
</p>
3026 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
3030 % 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>
3031 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": ""})
3035 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
3036 support for other vendors. The python source is available on
3037 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.
</p>
3043 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
3048 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3052 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel
</a>
3058 <p>Back in
2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
3059 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a>
3060 mailing list. He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
3061 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
3062 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
3063 Squeeze
</a> version.
</p>
3065 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong></p>
3067 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am
38 years old and live near Kiel,
3068 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
3069 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
3072 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
3073 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
3074 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
3075 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
3076 becoming an osteopath.
</p>
3078 <p>Starting in
2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
3079 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
3080 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
3081 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
3082 skills with communication skills.
</p>
3084 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3085 project?
</strong></p>
3087 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
3088 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
3089 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
3090 people said. From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
3091 distributions that target being used for school networks.
</p>
3093 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
3094 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
3095 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between
12/
2010 and
03/
2011 we
3096 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
3097 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
3098 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
3099 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
3100 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
3101 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.
</p>
3103 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
3104 people. People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
3105 protection experts, other IT professionals.
</p>
3107 <p>We came to two conclusions:
</p>
3109 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
3110 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
3111 by
100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
3112 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
3113 IT solution. The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
3114 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
3115 possible. In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
3116 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
3117 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
3118 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
3121 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
3122 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
3123 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
3124 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
3125 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
3126 tries to provide an approach for this.
</p>
3128 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
3129 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
3130 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
3131 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
3132 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
3135 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
3136 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
3137 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
3138 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
3139 non-existent until
2010/
2011.
</p>
3141 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
3142 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
3143 avoidance do exist.
</p>
3145 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
3146 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
3147 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
3148 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
3149 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
3150 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
3151 and probably a gain for all.
</p>
3153 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3156 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
3157 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
3158 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
3159 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
3160 project communication, honest communication within the group of
3161 developers, etc.
</p>
3163 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3166 <p>Every coin has two sides:
</p>
3168 <p>Technically:
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
3169 #
311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
3170 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
3171 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
3172 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
3173 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
3176 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
3177 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
3178 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
3179 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
3180 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
3181 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
3182 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
3183 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
3184 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
3185 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.
</p>
3187 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong></p>
3189 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.
</p>
3191 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
3192 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
3193 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.
</p>
3195 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In
2010 I started the
3196 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
3197 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
3198 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.
</p>
3200 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
3201 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
3202 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
3203 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
3206 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.
</p>
3208 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3209 get schools to use free software?
</strong></p>
3211 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
3218 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju
</a>.
3223 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3227 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">SOAP based webservice from Dell to check server support status
</a>
3233 <p>A few years ago I wrote
3234 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
3235 to extract support status
</a> for your Dell and HP servers. Recently
3236 I have learned from colleges here at the
3237 <a href=
"http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo
</a> that Dell have
3238 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service. Given
3239 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
3240 readable information about the support status. This perl code
3241 demonstrate how to do it:
</p>
3248 my $GUID = '
11111111-
1111-
1111-
1111-
111111111111';
3250 my $servicetag = $ARGV[
0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
3251 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
3253 -
> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
3254 -
> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
3255 -
> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
3257 my $a = $s-
>GetAssetInformation(
3258 SOAP::Data-
>name('guid')-
>value($GUID)-
>type(''),
3259 SOAP::Data-
>name('applicationName')-
>value($App)-
>type(''),
3260 SOAP::Data-
>name('serviceTags')-
>value($servicetag)-
>type(''),
3262 print Dumper($a -
> result) ;
3265 <p>The output can look like this:
</p>
3271 'EntitlementData' =
> [
3273 'EntitlementType' =
> 'Expired',
3274 'EndDate' =
> '
2009-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
3276 'StartDate' =
> '
2006-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
3280 'EntitlementType' =
> 'Expired',
3281 'EndDate' =
> '
2009-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
3283 'StartDate' =
> '
2006-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
3287 'EntitlementType' =
> 'Expired',
3288 'EndDate' =
> '
2007-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
3290 'StartDate' =
> '
2006-
07-
29T00:
00:
00',
3295 'AssetHeaderData' =
> {
3296 'SystemModel' =
> 'GX620',
3297 'ServiceTag' =
> '
8DSGD2J',
3298 'SystemShipDate' =
> '
2006-
07-
29T19:
00:
00-
05:
00',
3300 'Region' =
> 'Europe',
3301 'SystemID' =
> 'PLX_GX620',
3302 'SystemType' =
> 'OptiPlex'
3308 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
3310 <a href=
"http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
3311 documentation
</a>, and according to
3312 <a href=
"http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
3313 comment
</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
3314 scraping HTML pages. :)
</p>
3316 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service. If
3317 you know of one, drop me an email. :)
</p>
3323 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
3328 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3332 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug
</a>
3338 <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
3339 <a href=
"http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug
</a> arrived in the
3340 mail, and I've had a few days to test it. As all my machines are
3341 running Debian Squeeze, where
3342 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
3343 calibration software
</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
3344 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD. This worked
3345 just fine. So far I have only done the quick calibration. It was
3346 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
3349 <p>After calibration, I get a
3350 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
3351 profile
</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
3352 tools. KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
3353 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
3354 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
3355 monitor setups. But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
3356 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
3357 monitor. After searching a bit, I
3358 <a href=
"http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered
</a>
3359 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
3363 dispwin -d
1 profile.icc
3366 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor. The
3367 result was a bit more pink than I expected. I guess I picked the
3368 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
3375 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
3380 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3384 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter
</a>
3390 <p>In
2003, a German teacher showed up on the
3391 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a>
3392 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
3393 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils. His name was Ralf
3394 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
3395 since then, helping to make sure the
3396 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
3397 Squeeze
</a> release became as good as it is..
</p>
3399 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong></p>
3401 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
3402 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past
12
3403 years (since
2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
3404 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
3405 O- or A-level ("Abitur"). For quite as long, I've been taking care of
3406 our computer network.
</p>
3408 <p>Now, in my early
40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
3409 spare time together with my wife, our son (
3 years) and our daughter
3412 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3413 project?
</strong></p>
3415 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
3416 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
3417 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
3418 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
3419 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt,
2005 (IIRC). Few
3420 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
3421 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others. For more
3422 than
7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
3423 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
3424 approximately
50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
3425 locally installed Skolelinux image. As a consequence, I joined quite
3426 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
3427 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
3428 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.
</p>
3430 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3433 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
3434 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
3435 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
3436 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
3437 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
3438 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
3439 labs). Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
3440 administration costs tend towards zero.
</p>
3442 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3445 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
3446 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
3447 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
3448 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
3449 office packages or desktop environments. These schools have the
3450 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
3451 capacity to do so. Another issue is that Debian release cycles
3452 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
3453 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
3454 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
3455 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
3456 i.e. harder to understand for novices.
</p>
3458 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong></p>
3460 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
3461 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
3462 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)
</p>
3464 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3465 get schools to use free software?
</strong></p>
3469 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
3470 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
3471 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
3474 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
3475 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
3476 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
3477 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
3478 share among German Skolelinux schools.
</li>
3480 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
3481 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
3482 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.
</li>
3484 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
3485 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
3486 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
3487 shared world wide (school books e.g.).
</li>
3489 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
3490 office suites is much above
20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
3491 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.
</li>
3493 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.
</li>
3495 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
3496 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
3497 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials. And
3498 keep sending documents in ODF formats.
</li>
3506 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju
</a>.
3511 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3515 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML
</a>
3521 <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
3522 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
3523 government. I just sent him an email to let him know that his
3524 assumption are most likely wrong. Sharing it here in case some of my
3525 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.
</p>
3527 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi. I just noted your
3528 <a href=
"http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/does-microsoft-office-lock-in-cost-the-uk-government-500-million/index.htm">http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/
2012/
04/does-microsoft-office-lock-in-cost-the-uk-government-
500-million/index.htm
</a>
3531 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
3532 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
3533 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard
" as claimed by the
3534 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
3535 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
3538 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated. I believe it is
3539 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around
2007,
3540 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
3541 at the content. In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
3542 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
3543 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
3544 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
3545 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
3546 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver. In
3547 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
3548 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
3549 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not
20 minutes
3550 of wasted effort.
</p>
3552 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
3553 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending
10
3554 minutes converting to ODF. :)
</p>
3557 <a href=
"http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php
</a>
3559 <a href=
"http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php
</a>
3560 for background information. Norwegian only, sorry. :)
</p>
3567 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard
</a>.
3572 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3576 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColorHug___USB_and_free_software_based_screen_color_calibration.html">ColorHug - USB and free software based screen color calibration
</a>
3583 <a href=
"http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
3584 the ColorHug
</a>, a USB dongle from
3585 <a href=
"http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski
</a> to calibrate
3586 the color on a computer screen. The software required is
3587 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
3588 in Debian
</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
3589 batch. Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
3590 opportunity to order. Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
3591 delivery. I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
3592 should go in the mail on monday. :)
</p>
3594 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
3595 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
3602 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
3607 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3611 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner
</a>
3617 <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
3618 publish another interview with the people behind
3619 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a>.
3620 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
3621 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
3622 details get right before release.
3624 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong></p>
3626 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm
49 years old and living in
3627 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany. I worked nearly
20 years as
3628 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
3629 international company for machinery and equipment. Since
2011 I'm a
3630 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
3631 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer. From April this year
3632 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
3633 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.
</p>
3635 <p>My first contact with linux was around
1993. Since that time I used
3636 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
3637 home since
2006.
</p>
3639 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3640 project?
</strong></p>
3642 <p>Once a day in the early year of
2001 when I wanted to fetch my
3643 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
3644 middle of
20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
3645 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
3646 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
3647 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".
</p>
3649 <p>Some weeks later every of the
10 classrooms had one computer
3650 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
3651 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
3652 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
3653 and with a lot of fun. About one year later the school was connected
3654 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
3655 building. That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
3656 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
3657 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
3658 costs for things like licence and software. So I searched for a
3659 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
3660 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
3661 prerelease
32 I first tried out for being used at the school. I
3662 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
3663 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
3664 Bielefeld in December of
2006.
</p>
3666 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3669 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
3670 for me as today.
</p>
3672 <p>In the past there were advantages like:
</p>
3676 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
3677 they had little money to spent for computers and software.
</li>
3679 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
3682 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
3683 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
3684 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
3685 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
3688 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
3693 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
3694 came up in this way:
</p>
3698 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
3701 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
3702 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
3703 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.
</li>
3705 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
3706 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
3707 interfaces used in the past.
</li>
3709 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
3710 different needs.
</li>
3712 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.
</li>
3714 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
3715 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
3716 is sharing knowledge and minds.
</li>
3718 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
3719 solved today by Debian Edu.
</li>
3723 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3728 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
3729 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
3730 whole municipality areas.
</li>
3732 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
3733 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
3736 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.
</li>
3740 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong></p>
3742 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
3743 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
3744 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
3745 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
3746 need from the KDE environment. On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
3747 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.
</p>
3749 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
3750 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
3751 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
3752 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
3753 and the whole family. I probably forgot something.
</p>
3755 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3756 get schools to use free software?
</strong></p>
3758 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
3759 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
3760 countries and areas all over the world.
</p>
3766 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju
</a>.
3771 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3775 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Cutting_it_short___and_picking_the_right_tool_for_the_job.html">Cutting it short - and picking the right tool for the job
</a>
3781 <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
3782 <img src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
3784 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
3785 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
3786 But the last ones have not really been up to the task. My last
3787 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
3788 time, and cutting my head took forever. And the one before that did
3789 not work very well either. We have looked for something better for a
3790 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
3791 discovered that there are indeed better tools available. But these
3792 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers". The hair saloons
3793 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
3794 companies. The models they sell, are very different from the ones
3795 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal. The main difference is their
3796 efficiency. It would cut my hair in
5 minutes, instead of the
30-
40
3797 minutes required by my impotent Braun. The hairdresser I visited had
3798 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
3799 producer. But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.
</p>
3801 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it. This was not
3802 straight forward. The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
3803 did not want to sell anything to me. But searching for the model on
3804 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
3805 around NOK
4000,-. This was a bit much. We kept searching and
3806 finally found a Danish supplier
3807 <a href=
"http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
3808 it for around NOK
1800,-
</a>. We ordered one, and it arrived a few
3811 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for
8 hours when we started
3812 to use it, so we left it charging over night. Normally it will only
3813 need one hour to charge. The following evening we successfully tested
3814 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
3815 cutter. The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
3822 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
3827 <div class=
"padding"></div>
3831 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/HTC_One_X___Your_video___What_do_you_mean_.html">HTC One X - Your video? What do you mean?
</a>
3837 <p>In
<a href=
"http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
3838 article today
</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
3839 <a href=
"http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke
</a> reports
3840 that the video editor application included with
3841 <a href=
"http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
3842 X
</a> have some quite surprising terms of use. The article is mostly
3843 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
3846 "
<a href=
"http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
3847 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
3848 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.
</a>"
3851 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
3854 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
3855 commercially. Although I can ONLY use them privately.
"
3858 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
3859 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
3860 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html
">discovered
3861 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>. The HTC One X specification specifies that
3862 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
3864 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues
">Adaptive
3865 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
3866 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
3867 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/
">VoiceAge</a>. MP4 is
3868 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H
.264/MPEG-
4_AVC#Patent_licensing
">MPEG4 with
3869 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
3870 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/
">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
3872 <p>I know why I prefer
3873 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">free and open
3874 standards</a> also for video.</p>
3880 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan
">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia
">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern
">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard
">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video
">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web
">web</a>.
3885 <div class="padding
"></div>
3889 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html
">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
3895 <p>Here in Norway, the
3896 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=
339"> Ministry of
3897 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
3898 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder
">directory of
3899 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
3900 government. When the directory was created, the people behind it made
3901 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
3902 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
3903 to the government. Free software and non-free software could compete
3904 on the same level.</p>
3906 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
3907 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing
">Reasonable
3908 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
3909 directory. And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
3910 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
3911 implementing them. The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
3912 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
3913 willing to pay will get a license. Both sound great in theory. In
3914 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
3915 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user. By
3916 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
3917 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
3918 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
3919 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
3920 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
3921 to implement a standard when the income available is zero. The result
3922 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
3923 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
3925 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
3926 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
3927 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory. Because free
3928 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
3929 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
3930 in Norway. The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
3931 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
3932 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
3934 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
3936 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/
2010/
11/rand-not-so-reasonable/
">RAND:
3937 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
3939 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
3940 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/
2012/
04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm
">blog
3941 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
3942 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government. I
3943 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
3944 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder
">the
3945 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
3946 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
3947 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
3953 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia
">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug
">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard
">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video
">video</a>.
3958 <div class="padding
"></div>
3962 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html
">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
3968 <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu and
3969 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
3970 setting together all the pieces. This time I present to you Andreas
3971 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
3972 years. He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
3973 up in the recently released
3974 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze
">Debian
3975 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
3977 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3979 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany. After
3980 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
3981 Quantum Optics. After that I worked some years in an optics company.
3982 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
3983 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school. I teach math, physics,
3984 information technology and science/technology.</p>
3986 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3987 project?</strong></p>
3989 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
3990 project because of my interest in education and Debian. Within the
3991 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
3994 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3997 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
3998 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
4001 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4004 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
4005 downside, too. In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
4006 setup, if you need or want that. Further more, it is not easily
4007 possible to upgrade the system to a new release. It takes much too
4008 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
4009 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
4010 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
4012 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN
">Debian LAN</a>
4013 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
4015 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4017 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
4018 on all my machines. For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
4019 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing. At school I
4020 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
4022 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4023 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4025 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
4026 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
4027 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader". The school
4028 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
4029 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats. Even
4030 free browsers do not work for the school administration. Publishers
4031 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.
</p>
4033 <p>To change this, political work is very important. Parts of the
4034 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
4035 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
4036 the system. There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
4037 "Free/Open Standards". I am not sure if all the involved parties have
4038 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
4039 fraction takes them seriously. However it might slowly make free
4040 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.
</p>
4046 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju
</a>.
4051 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4055 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye
</a>
4061 <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
4062 like
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a>,
4063 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
4065 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
4066 Edu Squeeze release manual
</a>.
4068 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong></p>
4070 <p>I'm a
44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
4071 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.
</p>
4073 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4074 project?
</strong></p>
4076 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user! The only
4077 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
4078 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
4079 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread... So I did a sweep
4080 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
4083 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4086 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4089 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it! In fact I
4090 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
4091 education system.
</p>
4093 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
4094 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
4095 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
4096 money on the latest hardware.
</p>
4098 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong></p>
4100 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
4101 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
4102 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).
</p>
4104 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4105 get schools to use free software?
</strong></p>
4107 <p>Well, I don't know. I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
4108 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
4109 you would hardly need a strategy.
</p>
4115 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju
</a>.
4120 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4124 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_the_KDE_menu_is_slow_when__usr__is_NFS_mounted___and_a_workaround.html">Why the KDE menu is slow when /usr/ is NFS mounted - and a workaround
</a>
4130 <p>Recently I have spent time with
4131 <a href=
"http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS
</a> on speeding
4132 up a
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a>
4133 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
4134 process I discovered something very surprising. The reason the KDE
4135 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
4136 due to the way KDE find application icons. I discovered that showing
4137 the Multimedia menu would cause more than
20 000 IP packages to be
4138 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server. Most of these were
4140 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response. Because the
4141 ping times between the client and the server were in the range
2-
20
4142 ms, the menus would be very slow. Looking at the strace of kicker in
4143 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
4144 the source of these NFS calls are access(
2) system calls for
4145 non-existing files. KDE can do hundreds of access(
2) calls to find
4146 one icon file. In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
4147 around
230 access(
2) calls.
</p>
4149 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
4150 directories, and the list of possible directories is large. In
4151 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
4152 and .xpm. The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
4153 mounted. Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
4154 requests. I am not the first one to discover this. I found a
4155 <a href=
"https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
4156 from
2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.
</p>
4158 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
4159 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
4160 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
4161 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
4162 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/. Finally, I add symlinks to
4163 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
4164 for them. This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
4165 one icon from several hundred to less than
5, and make the KDE menu
4166 almost instantaneous. I'm not quite sure where to make the package
4167 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.
</p>
4169 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
4170 and icon handling, but also the login process. Not quite sure how to
4171 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
4172 that is not really an option at the moment.
</p>
4174 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
4175 (at) lists.debian.org.
</p>
4181 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
4186 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4190 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News
</a>
4196 <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
4197 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a> by
4198 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News. The result was made public for
4199 non-subscribers today. I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
4200 for schools. Check out his article
4201 <a href=
"https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
4202 distribution for education
</a> if you want to learn more.
</p>
4208 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
4213 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4217 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer
</a>
4223 <p>Germany is a core area for the
4224 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux
</a>
4225 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
4226 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
4228 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong></p>
4230 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
4231 Bochum, Germany. Since
1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
4232 "
<a href=
"http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
4233 Dortmund
</a>", a second chance school. Here, young adults is given
4234 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
4235 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
4236 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
4237 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
4239 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
4240 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
4241 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
4242 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
4243 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
4244 the end of April this year.</p>
4246 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4247 project?</strong></p>
4249 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
4250 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
4251 Project). At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
4252 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
4253 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
4254 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
4255 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
4256 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
4257 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
4258 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
4261 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
4262 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
4263 clients. The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
4264 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
4265 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
4266 the admin teachers.</p>
4268 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4271 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
4272 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
4273 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
4275 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
4276 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
4277 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp. It's of
4278 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
4279 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
4281 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4286 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
4288 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
4289 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
4290 Annotator). At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
4293 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4294 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
4296 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
4297 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
4298 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
4304 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu
">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju
">intervju</a>.
4309 <div class="padding
"></div>
4313 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Checking_email_with_kmail_using_Kerberos_authentication.html
">Debian Edu screencast: Checking email with kmail using Kerberos authentication</a>
4319 <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
4321 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
4322 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
4323 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
4324 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
4325 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
4326 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/
38601767">vimeo</a>
4328 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/
2012-
03-
14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv
">Ogg
4329 Theora</a> file. Check it out below.</p>
4331 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie
" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
4332 <source src="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/
2012-
03-
14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv
" type='video/ogg; codecs="theora, vorbis
"' />
4333 <p>Download video as
4334 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/
2012-
03-
14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv
">Ogg</a>.</p>
4341 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu
">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
4346 <div class="padding
"></div>
4350 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html
">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
4356 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
4357 users are spread all across the globe. The second inteview after
4358 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/
2012/
03/msg00001.html
">the
4359 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
4360 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
4362 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
4364 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
4365 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
4366 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
4367 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
4368 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
4369 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
4370 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
4373 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4374 project?</strong></p>
4376 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
4377 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
4378 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
4379 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
4380 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
4381 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
4382 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
4383 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
4384 these things we decided to try it.</p>
4386 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4389 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
4390 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
4391 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
4392 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
4393 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
4394 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about
25
4395 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
4396 proprietary software everywhere.
</p>
4398 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4401 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
4402 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
4403 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
4404 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
4405 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!
</p>
4407 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong></p>
4409 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
4410 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
4411 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
4412 use Ubuntu and an Android
4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
4415 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4416 get schools to use free software?
</strong></p>
4418 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
4419 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
4420 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
4421 applications". However, schools today are experiencing budget
4422 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
4423 XP. At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
4424 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
4425 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
4426 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
4427 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
4428 first
10,
000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in
2 hours.
</p>
4430 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
4431 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
4432 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.
</p>
4438 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju
</a>.
4443 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4447 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu
</a>
4453 <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
4454 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
4455 translated versions in sync. To do this we have come up with what we
4456 believe is a very efficient work flow.
</p>
4460 <li>The documentation is written in a
4461 <a href=
"http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki
</a> (see for example
4462 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
4463 Squeeze release manual
</a>) with support for exporting the content as
4466 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
4467 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
4468 with the translated text.
</li>
4470 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
4471 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed. They can
4472 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
4473 the translation. There is even a system in place to handle translated
4476 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
4477 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.
</li>
4479 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
4480 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.
</li>
4484 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues. The biggest
4485 issue is that
<a href=
"http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
4486 we use in moinmoin
</a> is not actively maintained. The docbook
4487 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
4488 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.
</p>
4490 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
4491 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
4498 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
4503 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4507 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!
</a>
4513 <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
4514 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu
</a> based
4515 on Debian/Squeeze. The full announcement is
4516 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available
</a>
4517 from the project announcement list. Now is a good time to test if it
4518 you have not done so already.
</p>
4520 <p>I plan to present the new version at
4521 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
4522 meeting
</a> on tuesday. I look forward to seeing you there if you are
4523 in Oslo, Norway.
</p>
4529 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
4534 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4538 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker
</a>
4544 <p>Inspired by
<a href=
"http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
4545 interview series
</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
4546 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
4547 community. This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
4548 more international audience.
</p>
4550 <p>While
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
4551 Skolelinux
</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
4552 Europe, there are users all around the globe. One of those far away
4553 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
4554 and contributor. It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
4555 work out of the box in Japan. I got him to answer a few questions,
4556 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
4559 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong></p>
4561 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
4562 and we have three lovely children, aged
15,
14 and
4(!) I am the IT
4563 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
4564 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
4565 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
4566 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
4567 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
4568 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
4569 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
4570 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
4571 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.
</p>
4573 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
4574 project?
</strong></p>
4576 <p>In around
2004 or
5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
4577 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
4578 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
4579 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
4580 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
4581 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
4582 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
4583 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
4584 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
4585 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
4586 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
4587 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
4588 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.
</p>
4590 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4593 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
4594 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
4595 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
4596 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
4597 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
4598 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
4601 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
4604 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
4605 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
4606 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
4607 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
4608 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
4609 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
4610 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
4611 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
4612 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is. A
4613 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
4614 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
4615 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
4616 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
4617 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
4620 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong></p>
4622 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
4623 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
4624 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
4625 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
4626 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music. At school
4627 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
4628 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
4629 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
4630 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS. We also
4631 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
4632 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.
</p>
4634 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
4635 get schools to use free software?
</strong></p>
4637 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
4638 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
4639 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
4640 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
4641 file formats and Word than they did
5 years ago. The Edu aspect is
4642 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
4643 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu? But of course the main attraction is
4644 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
4645 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
4646 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
4647 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
4648 doesn't play flash, for example.
</p>
4654 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju
</a>.
4659 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4663 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Mass_creation_of_user_accounts_in_Squeeze.html">Debian Edu screencast: Mass creation of user accounts in Squeeze
</a>
4669 <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
4671 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
4672 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
4673 Debian Edu Squeeze. The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
4674 also available from
<a href=
"http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo
</a> and
4676 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
4677 Theora
</a> file. Check it out below.
</p>
4679 <p><video id=
"gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width=
"256" height=
"184" preload controls
>
4680 <source src=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv" type='video/ogg;
codecs=
"theora, vorbis"'
/>
4681 <p>Download video as
4682 <a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
</a>.
</p>
4689 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
4694 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4698 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Third release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze
</a>
4704 <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
4705 candidate for
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
4706 Skolelinux
</a> based on Squeeze. The full announcement is
4707 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available
</a>
4708 from the project announcement list. Check it out if you
4709 need a software solution for your school.
</p>
4715 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
4720 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4724 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Stopmotion_for_making_stop_motion_animations_on_Linux___reloaded.html">Stopmotion for making stop motion animations on Linux - reloaded
</a>
4730 <p>Many years ago, the
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
4731 / Debian Edu project
</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
4732 for making stop motion movies. The proposal came from a teacher
4733 needing such tool on Skolelinux. The project, called "stopmotion",
4734 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
4735 national aware with this great project. The project was initiated and
4736 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
4737 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad. They got in touch with people at Aardman
4738 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
4739 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
4740 animators around the globe. But as is usual after studying, both got
4741 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
4742 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now. Until last
4745 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
4746 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
4748 <a href=
"http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion
</a>.
4749 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
4750 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
4751 mean). I've been following
4752 <a href=
"https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
4753 mailing list
</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
4754 the future is encouraging. If you want to make stop motion movies.
4755 Check it out. :)
</p>
4761 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video
</a>.
4766 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4770 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Second release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze
</a>
4776 <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
4777 candidate for
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
4778 Skolelinux
</a> based on Squeeze. The full announcement did for some
4779 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
4780 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available
</a>
4781 from the Debian development announcement list. Check it out if you
4782 need a software solution for your school.
</p>
4788 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
4793 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4797 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">First release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze
</a>
4803 <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
4804 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
4805 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a> based
4806 on Squeeze. The full announcement is
4807 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available
</a>
4808 on the project announcement list. Check it out if you need a software
4809 solution for your school.
</p>
4815 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
4820 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4824 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_figure_out_which_RAID_disk_to_replace_when_it_fail.html">How to figure out which RAID disk to replace when it fail
</a>
4830 <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems. Thanks to Linux
4831 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
4832 <a href=
"http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
4833 close
</a> this summer :). But once a disk is starting to behave
4834 funny, a practical problem present itself. How to get from the Linux
4835 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
4836 the disk when the computer is turned off? In my case I have SATA
4837 disks with a unique ID printed on the label. All I need is a way to
4838 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.
</p>
4840 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
4841 <a href=
"http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
4842 that hdparm -I
</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
4843 printed on the disk label. The following (almost) one-liner can be
4844 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:
</p>
4847 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
4849 printf "Failed disk $d: "
4850 hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
4854 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
4855 next time, and in case other find it useful.
</p>
4857 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(
</p>
4860 Failed disk sdd1: Serial Number: WD-WCASJ1860823
4861 Failed disk sdd2: Serial Number: WD-WCASJ1860823
4862 Failed disk sde2: Serial Number: WD-WCASJ1840589
4865 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
4866 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
4867 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
4868 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label. The vendor
4869 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
4870 mounted inside my box.
</p>
4872 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
4873 Software RAID in the
4874 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard
</a>
4875 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
4876 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail. At the moment
4877 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
4878 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
4879 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.
</p>
4885 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid
</a>.
4890 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4894 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a>
4900 <p>New in the Squeeze version of
4901 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a> is the
4902 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
4903 based on their environment. We want all systems on the client to use
4904 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from
<tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat
</tt>, to
4905 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
4906 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings. The schools can
4907 change the global proxy setting by editing
4908 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat
</tt> and the change propagate
4909 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.
</p>
4911 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
4912 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
4913 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):
</p>
4916 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
4918 if (!isResolvable(host) ||
4919 isPlainHostName(host) ||
4920 dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
4923 return "PROXY webcache:
3128; DIRECT";
4927 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:
</p>
4930 http_proxy=http://webcache:
3128/
4931 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:
3128/
4934 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
4935 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
4937 <tt><a href=
"http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/
</a></tt>,
4938 and insert this extracted proxy URL in
<tt>/etc/environment
</tt> and
4939 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf
</tt>. The perl script wpad-extract work just
4940 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
4941 javascript code is
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
4942 able to build
</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
4943 library. I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
4944 is frozen. An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
4945 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
4946 known alternative is known at the moment.
</p>
4948 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
4949 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
4950 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
4951 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
4952 feature when it is connected to other networks. And if no proxy is
4953 announced, direct connections will be used instead.
</p>
4955 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
4956 or security problem. But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
4957 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
4958 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
4959 distinction to be academic. If you are afraid of using the wrong
4960 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
4961 first place. In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
4962 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
4963 the network setup changes.
</p>
4965 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
4966 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
4968 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
4969 page
</a> for those that want to learn more.
</p>
4975 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
4980 <div class=
"padding"></div>
4984 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Saving_power_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_using_shutdown_at_night.html">Saving power with Debian Edu / Skolelinux using shutdown-at-night
</a>
4990 <p>Since the Lenny version of
4991 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a>, a
4992 feature to save power have been included. It is as simple as it is
4993 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
4994 in the morning. This is done using the
4995 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night
</a> Debian package.
</p>
4997 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
4998 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts. For Debian Edu, this is done in
4999 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
5000 every hour from
16:
00 until
06:
00 to see if the machine is unused, and
5001 shut it down if it is. If the hardware in question is supported by
5003 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup
</a>
5004 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around
07:
00 +-
5005 10 minutes. If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
5006 try to turn on the client. The wake-on-lan option is only documented
5007 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.
</p>
5009 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
5010 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
5011 the common setup for a classroom. The nvram-wakeup method only work
5012 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock. I've seen old
5013 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
5014 starting from
0 (or was it
1990?) every boot. If you have one of
5015 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.
</p>
5017 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
5018 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment. For those without a
5019 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
5020 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night
</tt> to enable it.
5021 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?
</p>
5027 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
5032 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5036 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Third beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze
</a>
5042 <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
5043 publish the third beta version of
5044 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a> based
5045 on Squeeze. If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
5046 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
5047 installing new machines, check it out. If you need a software
5048 solution for your school, check it out too. The full announcement is
5049 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available
</a>
5050 on the project announcement list.
</p>
5052 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
5053 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):
</p>
5057 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
5058 10.0.0.0/
8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
5059 the installation.
</li>
5061 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
5062 Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.
</li>
5064 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
5065 disabled queues are restarted every hour. This should cut down on
5066 the amount of manual administration needed for printers.
</li>
5068 <li>The set of initial users have been changed. Now a personal user
5069 for the local system administrator is created during installation
5070 instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
5071 and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
5072 membership. This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
5073 up to date on the system.
</li>
5077 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
5078 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home. I will use it look
5079 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
5080 final Squeeze release is published.
</p>
5082 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
5083 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
5084 gathering
</a> in Oslo. We will continue the work on the Squeeze
5085 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version. Perhaps I
5086 will see you there?
</p>
5092 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
5097 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5101 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Handling_non_free_firmware_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Handling non-free firmware in Debian Edu/Squeeze
</a>
5107 <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
5108 This is the sad fact of todays computers. In the next version of
5109 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a> based
5110 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
5111 firmware blobs easier to handle. The common use case I run into is a
5112 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
5113 work, but there are other use cases as well.
</p>
5115 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
5116 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
5117 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
5118 during installation. This take care firmware for network devices used
5119 by the installer when installing from from local media. But for
5120 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
5121 not taken care of by this.
</p>
5123 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
5124 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware
</tt> which
5125 search through the
<tt>dmesg
</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
5126 firmware. The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
5127 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
5128 the requested firmware file(s) is installed. I have proposed to do
5129 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
5130 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#
655507</a>), to allow PXE
5131 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better. Run the
5132 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
5133 firmware packages.
</p>
5135 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
5136 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
5137 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
5138 included to be able to install at all. To fill the PXE installation
5139 initrd with extra firmware, the
5140 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware
</tt> script is
5141 provided. Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
5142 PXE initrd with firmware packages.
</p>
5144 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
5145 network cards working. For this,
5146 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware
</tt> is
5147 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs. It is used
5148 the same way as the other firmware related tools.
</p>
5150 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation. We
5151 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
5152 non-free software, and it is their choice.
</p>
5154 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend. You might want to give it a
5161 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
5166 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5170 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Setting_up_a_new_school_with_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Setting up a new school with Debian Edu/Squeeze
</a>
5176 <p>The next version of
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
5177 / Skolelinux
</a> will include a new tool
5178 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp
</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
5179 the computers in a school without much manual labour. Here is a short
5180 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.
</p>
5182 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
5183 central server in the network. Next, PXE boot all the client machines
5184 as thin clients and wait
5 minutes after the last client booted to
5185 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server. When
5186 this is done, log on to the central server and run
5187 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
</tt> in the
<tt>konsole
</tt> to use the
5188 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP. The output
5189 will look similar to this:
</p>
5191 <p><blockquote><pre>
5192 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
5193 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [
10.0.2.2] id ether-
00:
01:
02:
03:
04:
05.
5194 info: Create GOsa machine for auto-mac-
00-
01-
02-
03-
04-
06 [
10.0.16.20] id ether-
00:
01:
02:
03:
04:
06.
5196 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
5198 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
5199 enter password: *******
5201 </pre></blockquote></p>
5203 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
5204 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
5205 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
5206 automatically generated names. The final step to set up the school is
5207 then to log into
<a href=
"https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa
</a>,
5208 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
5209 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
5210 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems. All clients that should be used
5211 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
5212 group. After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
5213 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
5216 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
5217 enabled this weekend. You might want to give it a try.
</p>
5219 <p>Update
2012-
01-
28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
5220 hosts, one need to add the option -a. I forgot to mention this in my
5221 original text, and have added it to the text now.
</p>
5227 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary
</a>.
5232 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5236 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Changing_the_default_Iceweasel_start_page_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Changing the default Iceweasel start page in Debian Edu/Squeeze
</a>
5242 <p>In the Squeeze version of
5243 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a> soon
5244 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
5245 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
5246 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP. In
5247 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
5248 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
5251 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
5252 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
5253 default content. By changing this value to another URL, all users get
5254 to see the page behind this new URL.
</p>
5256 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool. It can be
5257 called as "
<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'
</tt>' to update LDAP with the
5260 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
5261 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
5262 from within Iceweasel instead.
</p>
5268 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web
</a>.
5273 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5277 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Second beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze
</a>
5283 <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
5284 the second beta version of
5285 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a>. If
5286 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
5287 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
5288 machines, check it out. If you need a software solution for your
5289 school, check it out too. The full announcement is
5290 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available
</a>
5291 on the project announcement list.
</p>
5297 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
5302 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5306 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_an_hanging_debian_installer_for_Debian_Edu.html">Fixing an hanging debian installer for Debian Edu
</a>
5312 <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
5313 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
</a> ready
5314 for release. The initial problem I looked at was particularly
5317 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
5318 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
5319 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
5320 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
5321 scratch. I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
5322 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
5323 wrap up its tasks.
</p>
5325 <p>Eventually the cause was found. The kernel was simply running out
5326 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
5327 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
5328 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
5329 because I was typing.
</P>
5331 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
5332 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
5333 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
5334 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
5335 generate some disk IO. Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
5336 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
5337 generate entropy.
</p>
5340 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
5341 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze
</a> version, and we
5342 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
5343 developers
</a>. We plan to release beta2 this weekend.
</p>
5349 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
5354 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5358 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge
</a>
5364 <p>At work we have heaps of servers. I believe the total count is
5365 around
1000 at the moment. To be able to get help from the vendors
5366 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
5367 up to date. If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
5368 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
5369 firmware is upgraded. So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
5370 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
5371 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
5372 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
5373 the tools to do so.
</p>
5375 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
5376 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got. Most of
5377 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
5378 so far. This blog post is about the Dell part.
</P>
5380 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
5381 <a href=
"ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file
</a>
5382 with firmware information for all
11th generation servers, listing
5383 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
5384 site I can find it. Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
5385 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
5386 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
5387 be activated on the first reboot.
</p>
5389 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
5390 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
5391 servers at a site? Please get in touch and lets share resources.
</p>
5397 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
5399 # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
5401 'XML::Simple' =
> 'perl-XML-Simple',
5403 for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
5404 eval "use $module;";
5406 my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
5407 system("yum install -y $pkg");
5408 eval "use $module;";
5412 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
5418 sub run_firmware_script {
5419 my ($opts, $script) = @_;
5421 print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
5424 print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
5426 if (
0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
5427 print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
5429 print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
5433 sub run_firmware_scripts {
5434 my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
5435 # Run firmware packages
5436 for my $dir (@dirs) {
5437 print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
5438 opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
5439 while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
5440 next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
5441 run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
5449 print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
5450 system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
5455 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5458 if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
5460 # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
5461 system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-
33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
5463 my $tmpdir = tempdir(
5467 fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
5468 system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
5469 my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
5470 # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
5473 for my $url (@paths) {
5474 fetch_dell_fw($url);
5476 run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
5478 print STDERR
"error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5479 print STDERR
"error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5483 print STDERR
"error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
5484 print STDERR
"error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
5490 my $url =
"ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
5494 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
5495 # firmware packages to download from Dell. Only work for Linux
5496 # machines and
11th generation Dell servers.
5497 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
5498 my $filename = shift;
5500 my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
5502 my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
5504 print STDERR
"Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
5506 my $xml = XMLin($filename);
5508 for my $bundle (@{$xml-
>{SoftwareBundle}}) {
5509 my $brand = $bundle-
>{TargetSystems}-
>{Brand}-
>{Display}-
>{content};
5510 my $model = $bundle-
>{TargetSystems}-
>{Brand}-
>{Model}-
>{Display}-
>{content};
5512 if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}) {
5513 $oscode = $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}[
0]-
>{osCode};
5515 $oscode = $bundle-
>{TargetOSes}-
>{OperatingSystem}-
>{osCode};
5517 if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
5519 @paths = map { $_-
>{path} } @{$bundle-
>{Contents}-
>{Package}};
5522 for my $component (@{$xml-
>{SoftwareComponent}}) {
5523 my $componenttype = $component-
>{ComponentType}-
>{value};
5525 # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
5526 next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
5528 my $cpath = $component-
>{path};
5529 for my $path (@paths) {
5530 if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
5531 push(@paths, $cpath);
5539 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
5540 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking. Anyone know a
5541 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers? At the
5542 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
5549 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
5554 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5558 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_e_book_kiosk_for_the_public_libraries_.html">Free e-book kiosk for the public libraries?
</a>
5564 <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
5565 publishing houses how to handle electronic books. Surprisingly, the
5566 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
5567 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
5568 publishing houses. Time limited renting (
2-
3 years) is one proposed
5569 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
5570 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
5573 <p>Anyway, while reading
<a href=
"http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
5574 this debate
</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
5575 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
5576 to a better model. The idea is simple:
</p>
5578 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
5579 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
5580 solution to hand out free e-books. As a start, the books distributed
5581 by
<a href=
"http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg
</a> (about
5582 36,
000 books),
<a href=
"http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg
</a>
5583 (
1149 books) and
<a href=
"http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
5584 Internet Archive
</a> (
3,
033,
748 books) could be included, but any book
5585 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
5588 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:
</p>
5592 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
5593 other relevant equipment.
</li>
5595 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.
</li>
5599 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
5600 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
5601 visiting the library. The site would be the distribution point for
5602 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
5603 books available.
</p>
5605 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this? I guess it would
5606 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
5613 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett
</a>.
5618 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5622 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage
</a>
5628 <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
5629 server. It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
5630 movie collection easily available. It also make it possible to let
5631 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
5632 down. I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
5633 subtitle options intact. It also ensure that the entire film is one
5634 file on the disk. As this is for personal use, the ripping is
5635 perfectly legal here in Norway.
</p>
5637 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:
</p>
5641 # apt-get install lsdvd
5642 title=$(lsdvd
2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $
3}')
5643 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=
1M
5646 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
5647 been looking for a better alternative. I have no idea why this I/O
5648 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
5649 something fishy with the DVDs in question. Or perhaps all three.
</p>
5651 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
5652 genisoimage. This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
5653 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
5658 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
5660 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
5661 title=$(lsdvd
2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $
3}')
5662 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
5663 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
5664 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
5667 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?
</p>
5669 <p>Update
2011-
09-
18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
5670 readom program from the wodim package. It is specially written to
5671 read optical media, and is called like this:
<tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
5672 f=image.iso
</tt>. It got
6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
5673 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.
</p>
5675 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
5676 <a href=
"http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
5677 program python-dvdvideo
</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
5678 for. Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
5679 creating a ISO image. The git source built and installed just fine in
5680 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.
</p>
5686 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video
</a>.
5691 <div class=
"padding"></div>
5695 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html">How is booting into runlevel
1 different from single user boots?
</a>
5701 <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
5702 <a href=
"http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
5703 comments and opinions
</a> on my blog post on
5704 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
5705 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian
</a> and my blog post about
5706 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
5707 default KDE desktop in Debian
</a>. I only have time to address one
5708 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
5709 misunderstanding he bring forward:
</p>
5712 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
5713 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
5714 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
5717 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
5718 and booting into runlevel
1 is the same. I am not surprised he
5719 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
5720 thing to believe. But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
5721 runlevel
1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
5722 mode. I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
5723 hard to explain.
</p>
5725 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
5726 "
<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin
</tt>". This means the only thing that is
5727 executed in single user mode is sulogin. Single user mode is a boot
5728 state "between
" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
5729 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
5730 enters the single user state. When switching to runlevel 1, the state
5731 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
5732 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
5733 runs "init -t1 S
" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
5734 1. It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
5735 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
5738 <p>This summary might make it clearer. When booting for the first
5739 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
5740 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin
</tt>". When booting into
5741 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
5742 S; /etc/init.d/rc
1; /sbin/sulogin
</tt>". A problem show up when
5743 trying to continue after visiting single user mode. Not all services
5744 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
5745 unpredicatble state. This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
5746 after visiting single user mode.</p>
5748 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
5749 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/. When switching from say runlevel 2
5750 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
5751 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
5752 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
5753 2-5. I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
5754 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
5755 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
5757 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
5758 and discovered this problem a few years ago. I suspect it originates
5759 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
5765 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem
">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
5770 <div class="padding
"></div>
5774 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html
">What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</a>
5780 <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
5781 are started from /etc/rcS.d/. In fact, there is a bite more of them
5782 than make sense, and this causes a few problems. What kind of
5783 problems, you might ask. There are at least two problems. The first
5784 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
5785 runlevel 1. One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
5786 the expected state. The other is that single user boot will sometimes
5787 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
5788 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
5789 machine from a problem in that subsystem. A minor additional point is
5790 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
5791 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
5792 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
5794 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/. In short, only the
5795 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
5796 presented during a single user boot should go there. Everything else
5797 should go into the numeric runlevels. This means things like
5798 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
5799 the numeric runlevels. Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
5800 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
5801 out. Do your package have one of them? Please help us make single
5802 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
5804 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
5805 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
5806 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
5809 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound. To keep
5810 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
5811 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
5812 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
5813 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
5814 moved first. This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
5815 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
5816 the system state correct. This will require some coordination when it
5817 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
5818 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
5819 on them. Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
5820 package, while others are still left to do. I wish I had time to work
5821 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
5822 find time to push this forward.</p>
5828 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem
">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
5833 <div class="padding
"></div>
5837 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html
">What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</a>
5843 <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
5844 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
5845 desktop to be useful for more people. The use case for this is my
5846 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
5849 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
5850 implement. After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
5851 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
5855 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
5856 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
5857 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
5858 tool to handle it. I have no problem guiding both of my parents
5859 through the process over the phone. If a kernel reboot is required,
5860 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool. Last
5861 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
5864 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
5865 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
5866 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
5867 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
5868 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
5869 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
5870 Packages file in the APT archive). If one or more packages are found,
5871 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
5872 type. If the package require the user to accept some non-free
5873 license, this is explained to the user. The entire process make it
5874 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
5875 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
5876 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
5878 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
5879 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
5880 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
5881 should search for a package that would add support for it. This
5882 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264. The selection
5883 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
5884 plugin handling. This is as far as I know implemented using a
5885 gstreamer hook. The end result is that the user easily get access to
5886 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
5887 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
5889 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
5890 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
5891 start emacs to show it. If I remember correctly, when doing the same
5892 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser. At least I
5893 know Opera will show text files within the browser. I much prefer the
5894 latter behaviour.</li>
5898 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
5899 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
5900 it do not matter much.</p>
5902 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
5903 Debian release. It would require the coordinated effort of several
5904 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
5910 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia
">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web
">web</a>.
5915 <div class="padding
"></div>
5919 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html
">Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</a>
5925 <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi</A>
5926 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
5927 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
5928 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
5929 security support for a few years.</p>
5931 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
5932 that are missing in Debian at the moment. It would be great if these
5933 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
5934 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com
">FixMyStreet</a> clone
5935 in their own country using only Debian packages. The list of modules
5936 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
5937 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
5938 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
5939 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
5940 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
5941 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
5942 easier in the future.</p>
5944 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
5945 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
5946 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package. But this leave me
5947 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
5948 do not have time for.</p>
5954 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami
">fiksgatami</a>.
5959 <div class="padding
"></div>
5963 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html
">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
5970 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/
2011/
06/
20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/
">the
5971 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
5973 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA
">Autodesk</a>
5975 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/
2011/
06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html
">Microsoft
5976 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
5977 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs. Whenever I take
5978 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
5984 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett
">opphavsrett</a>.
5989 <div class="padding
"></div>
5993 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experimental_Open311_API_for_the_mySociety_fixmystreet_system.html
">Experimental Open311 API for the mySociety fixmystreet system</a>
5999 <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
6000 <a href="http://www.open311.org/
">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
6001 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi</a> started to
6002 work. It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
6003 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
6004 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
6005 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
6006 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
6007 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
6008 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
6010 <p>Where is it? Visit
6011 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/
">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
6012 to have a look. Please send feedback to the
6013 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami
">fiksgatami
6014 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
6020 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami
">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311
">open311</a>.
6025 <div class="padding
"></div>
6029 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Initial_notes_on_adding_Open311_server_API_on_FixMyStreet.html
">Initial notes on adding Open311 server API on FixMyStreet</a>
6035 <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
6036 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/
">Open311 API</a> in the
6037 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
6038 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
6039 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
6040 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/
">New Zealand version</a> of
6041 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
6042 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
6043 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
6044 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
6045 FixMyStreet. The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
6046 to get a draft limping along. In the process, I have discovered a few
6047 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
6049 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
6050 handling in the specification. The specification seem to assume all
6051 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
6052 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there. To be
6053 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
6054 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
6055 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
6056 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
6057 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
6058 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
6059 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
6060 know which language to use when writing a problem report. I suspect
6061 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
6063 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
6064 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet. One issue I
6065 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
6066 each category. The specification do not state that the identifier
6067 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
6068 here. In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
6069 category. As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
6070 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
6073 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
6074 differ in a key part. FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
6075 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title. I'm not
6076 quite sure how to best handle this yet. When asking for a FixMyStreet
6077 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
6078 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
6079 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
6081 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
6082 near a geographic location. I believe this is important if one is to
6083 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units. The specification
6084 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
6085 and range= options.</p>
6087 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
6088 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
6089 to assume only one administration. For FixMyStreet, this mean a
6090 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
6091 available depend on the location of the problem. Not quite sure how
6092 to best handle this. I've noticed
6093 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/
">SeeClickFix</a> added
6094 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
6095 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
6096 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
6098 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
6099 up with the open311 developer group. I really wish they had a email
6100 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/
">Gmane</a> to use for
6101 discussions instead of only
6102 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss
">a forum<a/>. Oh,
6103 well. That will probably resolve itself, one way or another. I've
6104 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
6105 seem to reply to my questions there. This make me wonder if I just
6106 fail to understand how the open311 community work. It sure do not
6107 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
6113 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami
">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311
">open311</a>.
6118 <div class="padding
"></div>
6122 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html
">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
6128 <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/
">The Gnash project</a> is still
6129 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
6130 A few days ago the project
6131 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/
2011-
04/msg00011.html
">announced</a>
6132 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code. I hope many
6133 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
6140 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia
">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video
">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web
">web</a>.
6145 <div class="padding
"></div>
6149 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html
">A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</a>
6155 <p>Here is a small update for my English readers. Most of my blog
6156 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
6157 update in English.</p>
6159 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
6160 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
6161 of the British service
6162 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/
">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
6163 and it has been running for a month now. The entire project has been
6164 organised by me and two others. Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
6165 to fund the development work. In January I drafted a contract with
6166 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/
">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
6167 and in February the development took place. Most of it involved
6168 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
6169 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
6170 running in any country by now. The Norwegian
6171 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/
">FiksGataMi</a> is using
6172 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/
">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
6173 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
6174 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
6176 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
6177 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th. The system is
6178 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
6179 problem reports in a few weeks. Soon we hope to announce the Android
6180 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
6181 public infrastructure.</p>
6183 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
6190 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami
">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart
">kart</a>.
6195 <div class="padding
"></div>
6199 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html
">Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</a>
6205 <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
6206 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo. My idea is that
6207 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
6208 available on the Internet, and check our locally
6209 maintained/distributed software against this information. It should
6210 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten. The
6211 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
6212 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
6213 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
6214 out which security holes were present in our free software
6217 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
6218 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
6219 consistent way across data sources. I considered several ways to do
6220 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
6221 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
6222 existing naming scheme. And it seem like I am not the first one to
6223 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
6224 solution. Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html
">Common
6225 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
6226 software, hardware and other platform components. The CPE ids are
6227 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/
">National
6228 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
6229 issues for any CPE name. With this in place, all I need to do is to
6230 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
6231 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
6232 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
6234 <p>To give you an example. The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
6235 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip. If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
6236 check out, one could look up
6237 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/search?cpe=cpe%
3A%
2Fa%
3Agnu%
3Agzip:
1.3.3">cpe:/a:gnu:gzip:1.3.3
6238 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
6239 The most recent one is
6240 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-
2010-
0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
6241 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
6242 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
6244 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
6245 for offline processing of issues. Using this dump, I've written a
6246 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
6247 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs. One give it CPEs
6248 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
6249 security issues out.</p>
6251 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
6252 information need to be high. For that to happen, I believe as many as
6253 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database. I notice
6255 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt
">a
6256 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
6257 information. I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
6259 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
6260 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
6261 the CVE database in NVD. The result look fairly good, but there are
6262 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
6263 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
6264 Debian believe are affected by a CVE). Hope to find time to improve
6265 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
6266 someone maintaining it. So far my three emails with questions and
6267 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
6268 established soon.</p>
6270 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
6271 mapping. It would be useful to know which packages in for example
6272 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
6273 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
6274 for their packages.</p>
6280 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet
">sikkerhet</a>.
6285 <div class="padding
"></div>
6289 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html
">Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?</a>
6296 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data
">discover-data</a>
6297 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
6298 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
6299 information. One part of this script that I find very useful when
6300 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
6301 to the PCI device it claims. It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
6302 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with. To see
6303 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
6304 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>. The relevant output on
6305 one of my machines like this:</p>
6309 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
6312 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
6321 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
6322 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
6325 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
6326 echo loaded pci modules:
6328 cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
6329 for address in * ; do
6330 if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
6331 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
6332 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
6333 address=$(echo $address |sed s/
0000://)
6334 id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n
1 | awk '{print $
3}'`
6344 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
6348 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
6349 echo loaded usb modules:
6351 cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
6352 for address in * ; do
6353 if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
6354 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
6355 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
6356 address=$(echo $address |sed s/
0000://)
6357 id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n
1 | awk '{print $
6}')
6369 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
6376 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
6381 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6385 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_video_format_most_supported_in_web_browsers_.html">The video format most supported in web browsers?
</a>
6391 <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
6392 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H
.264 and WebM. Most video sites
6393 seem to use H
.264, while others use Ogg Theora. Interestingly enough,
6394 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
6395 H
.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
6396 the Wikipedia article on
6397 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video
</a>,
6398 this is not true. Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
6399 different browsers there. The format supported by most browsers is
6400 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
6401 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
6402 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
6403 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
6404 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
6405 Firefox. H
.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
6406 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
6407 Explorer. Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
6408 Safari can install plugins to get it.
</p>
6410 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
6411 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
6412 HTML5 video tag. Of course to reach all those without a browser
6413 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms. In
6414 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG
</a>, we provide first fallback to a
6415 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
6416 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
6417 Theora. This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an
<a
6418 href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
6419 from last week
</a>.
</p>
6421 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H
.264 is
6422 the least supported is simple. Implementing and using H
.264
6423 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
6424 are incompatible with free software licensing. If you believed H
.264
6425 was without royalties and license terms, check out
6426 "
<a href=
"http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H
.264 – Not The Kind Of
6427 Free That Matters
</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
6429 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
6431 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos
">the
6432 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look. I'm not aware of a
6433 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
6435 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
6436 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
6437 <video> tag support in browsers and not the video support
6438 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
6444 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug
">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard
">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video
">video</a>.
6449 <div class="padding
"></div>
6453 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Chrome_plan_to_drop_H_264_support_for_HTML5__lt_video_gt_.html
">Chrome plan to drop H.264 support for HTML5 <video></a>
6459 <p>Today I discovered
6460 <a href="http://www.digi.no/
860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome
">via
6461 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
6462 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/
2011/
01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html
">yesterday
6463 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 <video> in
6464 the browser. The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
6465 open" codec technology. If you believe H
.264 was free for everyone
6466 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
6467 "
<a href=
"http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H
.264 – Not The Kind Of
6468 Free That Matters
</a>". It is not free of cost for creators of video
6469 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
6470 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
6471 licensing the patents needed for H.264. Some background information
6472 on the Google announcement is available from
6473 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/
24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome
">OSnews</a>.
6476 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
6477 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
6478 the Internet. This can only be done by publishing using free and open
6479 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
6480 for these free and open standards. At the moment there seem to be two
6481 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support. Some
6482 browsers support H.264, and others support
6483 <a href="http://www.theora.org/
">Ogg Theora</a> and
6484 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/
">WebM</a>
6485 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/
">Dirac</a> is not really an option
6486 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
6487 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
6488 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
6489 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video
">an
6490 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
6492 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
6493 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
6494 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/
2011/
01/simple_questions
">presents
6495 the mind set</a> of these people quite well. His rhetorical questions
6496 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
6497 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/
24245/
10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM
">presenting
6498 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
6500 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
6501 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin. This
6502 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
6503 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/
2011/
01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm
">todays
6504 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context. To me it
6505 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
6506 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
6508 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
6509 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
6510 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse. A lot of TV
6511 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
6512 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
6513 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
6514 publishing. Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
6516 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this. While the
6517 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
6518 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
6519 perspective. One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
6520 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
6521 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
6522 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
6523 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
6524 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
6525 video format not requiring royalties at all. A third reason might be
6526 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
6527 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
6528 I guess time will tell.</p>
6530 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
6531 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/
2011/
01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html
">more
6532 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
6538 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard
">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video
">video</a>.
6543 <div class="padding
"></div>
6547 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_standards_are_Free_and_Open_as_defined_by_Digistan_.html
">What standards are Free and Open as defined by Digistan?</a>
6554 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html
">compare
6556 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">the Digistan
6557 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
6558 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
6559 this. As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
6560 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
6561 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others. But to be able to complete this in a
6562 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
6564 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
6565 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse
">the
6566 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
6567 to help out. The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
6568 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
6569 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
6570 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
6572 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do. Do not be
6573 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
6579 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan
">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard
">standard</a>.
6584 <div class="padding
"></div>
6588 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html
">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
6594 <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
6595 "<a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
6596 Open Standard
</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
6597 the term has been decided by Digistan. The term "Open Standard
" has
6598 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
6599 about standards. One end up discussing which definition is the best
6600 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
6601 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
6603 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
6604 standards, here are a few that I know about. This list is not
6605 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
6606 complete survey. More definitions are available on the
6607 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard
">wikipedia
6610 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
6611 Interoperability Framework version 1.0. Really sad to notice that BSA
6612 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
6613 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
6614 their own people. Anyway, the definition is still available and it
6615 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
6616 specification on equal terms.</p>
6620 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
6621 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
6626 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
6627 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
6628 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
6629 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
6631 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
6632 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
6633 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
6636 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
6637 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
6640 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
6645 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
6646 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/
">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
6647 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/
">this
6648 definition</a> in 2004. It even made it into the Danish parlament as
6649 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/
20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm
">their
6650 definition of a open standard</a>. Another from a different part of
6651 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
6655 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
6659 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
6662 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
6663 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
6665 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
6666 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.
</li>
6672 <p>Then there is
<a href=
"http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
6673 definition
</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.
</p>
6677 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is
</p>
6681 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
6682 manner equally available to all parties;
</li>
6684 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
6685 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
6686 Standard themselves;
</li>
6688 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
6689 any party or in any business model;
</li>
6691 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
6692 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
6695 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
6696 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
6703 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
6705 <a href=
"http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
6706 Standards Checklist
</a> with a fairly detailed description.
</p>
6709 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
6713 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
6718 <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
6719 participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
6720 imposed by the organization under which it is developed
6723 <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
6724 method, can be changed through input from all
6727 <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
6728 the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.
</li>
6730 <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
6731 and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.
</li>
6733 <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
6734 public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
6735 comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.
</li>
6743 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard
</p>
6746 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
6747 and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
6748 implementations to the interface described in the standard without
6749 undue or restrictive constraints. Interfaces include APIs,
6750 protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.
</li>
6752 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
6753 a technical or economic barriers
</li>
6755 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
6756 interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
6757 program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
6758 programs and mutually to use the information which has been
6759 exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
6760 file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
6761 conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
6762 computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
6763 intended to function.
</li>
6765 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
6766 standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
6767 must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.
</li>
6769 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
6770 fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
6771 perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
6772 sell products based on the standard. The only exceptions are
6773 terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
6774 outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
6775 patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
6776 only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
6780 <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
6781 licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
6782 (also known as a reciprocity clause)
</li>
6784 <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
6785 or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
6786 essential to practice that standard (also known as a
6787 "defensive suspension" clause)
</li>
6789 <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
6795 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
6796 implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
6797 or restricted licensing terms
</li>
6803 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
6804 there are so many of them. As you can see, the same holds true for
6805 open standard definitions. Most of the definitions have a lot in
6806 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
6807 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
6808 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
6809 competition to downplay the significance of open standards. I hope we
6810 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
6817 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard
</a>.
6822 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6826 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">Is Ogg Theora a free and open standard?
</a>
6832 <p><a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
6833 Digistan definition
</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:
</p>
6837 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
6842 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
6843 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
6844 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.
</li>
6846 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
6847 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
6848 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
6851 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
6852 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
6853 distribute, and use it freely.
</li>
6855 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
6856 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.
</li>
6858 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.
</li>
6862 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
6863 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
6864 products based on the standard.
</p>
6867 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
6868 and open standard according to this definition. Here is a short
6869 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far. I brought up the
6870 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
6871 <a href=
"http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
6872 July
2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
6873 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
6874 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.
</p>
6876 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?
</strong></p>
6878 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
6879 Ogg Theora specification. It can be argued that the
6880 <a href=
"http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation
</A> is such vendor, but
6881 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
6882 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
6883 obvious that this is a real risk. One issue with the Xiph
6884 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
6885 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web. I've
6886 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
6887 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
6888 where is is spent in the foundation. It is thus not obvious for an
6889 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
6890 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
6891 specification. But it seem unlikely.
</p>
6893 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?
</strong></p>
6895 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
6896 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled. If Xiph foundation is
6897 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
6898 documentation indicating this.
</p>
6901 <a href=
"http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report
</a>
6902 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
6903 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
6904 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
6905 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
6906 report is correct.
</p>
6908 <p><strong>Specification freely available?
</strong></p>
6910 <p>The specification for the
<a href=
"http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
6911 container format
</a> and both the
6912 <a href=
"http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis
</a> and
6913 <a href=
"http://theora.org/doc/">Theora
</a> codeces are available on
6914 the web. This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
6918 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
6919 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
6920 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
6921 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
6922 specification compliance.
6926 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
6927 <a href=
"http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC
3533</a>, and
6928 this is the term:
<p>
6932 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
6933 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
6934 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
6935 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
6936 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
6937 included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
6938 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
6939 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
6940 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
6941 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
6942 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
6943 translate it into languages other than English.
</p>
6945 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
6946 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
</p>
6949 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
6950 this term seem to be fulfilled. There might be a problem with the
6951 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
6952 thus reuse it in other specifications. Not quite sure if that is a
6953 requirement for the Digistan definition.
</p>
6955 <p><strong>Royalty-free?
</strong></p>
6957 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
6959 <a href=
"http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA
</a>
6961 <a href=
"http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
6962 Jobs
</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
6963 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
6964 them. Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
6965 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
6966 without paying any royalties. For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
6967 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H
.264 codec
6968 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.
</p>
6970 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?
</strong></p>
6972 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.
</p>
6974 <p><strong>Conclusion
</strong></p>
6976 <p>3 of
5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining
2
6977 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation. Given the
6978 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
6979 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
6980 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
6983 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
6984 see if they are free and open standards.
</p>
6990 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video
</a>.
6995 <div class=
"padding"></div>
6999 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_reply_from_Edgar_Villanueva_to_Microsoft_in_Peru.html">The reply from Edgar Villanueva to Microsoft in Peru
</a>
7006 <a href=
"http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
7007 article
</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
7009 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
7010 Interoperability Framework
</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
7011 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
7012 Nothing very surprising there, given
7013 <a href=
"http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
7014 reports
</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
7015 this work. But I find this very sad. The definition of
7016 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
7017 open standard from version
1</a> was very good, and something I
7018 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
7019 <a href=
"http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
7020 definition from Digistan
</A>. Version
2 have removed the open
7021 standard definition from its content.
</p>
7023 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
7024 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
7025 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
7026 in the public sector in Peru. As the text was not available from a
7027 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
7028 <a href=
"http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
7029 source
</a> to ensure it is available also in the future. Some
7030 background information about that story is available in
7031 <a href=
"http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article
</a> from
7032 Linux Journal in
2002.
</p>
7035 <p>Lima,
8th of April,
2002<br>
7036 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ
<br>
7037 General Manager of Microsoft Perú
</p>
7041 <p>First of all, I thank you for your letter of March
25,
2002 in which you state the official position of Microsoft relative to Bill Number
1609, Free Software in Public Administration, which is indubitably inspired by the desire for Peru to find a suitable place in the global technological context. In the same spirit, and convinced that we will find the best solutions through an exchange of clear and open ideas, I will take this opportunity to reply to the commentaries included in your letter.
</p>
7043 <p>While acknowledging that opinions such as yours constitute a significant contribution, it would have been even more worthwhile for me if, rather than formulating objections of a general nature (which we will analyze in detail later) you had gathered solid arguments for the advantages that proprietary software could bring to the Peruvian State, and to its citizens in general, since this would have allowed a more enlightening exchange in respect of each of our positions.
</p>
7045 <p>With the aim of creating an orderly debate, we will assume that what you call "open source software" is what the Bill defines as "free software", since there exists software for which the source code is distributed together with the program, but which does not fall within the definition established by the Bill; and that what you call "commercial software" is what the Bill defines as "proprietary" or "unfree", given that there exists free software which is sold in the market for a price like any other good or service.
</p>
7047 <p>It is also necessary to make it clear that the aim of the Bill we are discussing is not directly related to the amount of direct savings that can by made by using free software in state institutions. That is in any case a marginal aggregate value, but in no way is it the chief focus of the Bill. The basic principles which inspire the Bill are linked to the basic guarantees of a state of law, such as:
</p>
7051 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen.
</li>
7052 <li>Permanence of public data.
</li>
7053 <li>Security of the State and citizens.
</li>
7057 <p>To guarantee the free access of citizens to public information, it is indispensable that the encoding of data is not tied to a single provider. The use of standard and open formats gives a guarantee of this free access, if necessary through the creation of compatible free software.
</p>
7059 <p>To guarantee the permanence of public data, it is necessary that the usability and maintenance of the software does not depend on the goodwill of the suppliers, or on the monopoly conditions imposed by them. For this reason the State needs systems the development of which can be guaranteed due to the availability of the source code.
</p>
7061 <p>To guarantee national security or the security of the State, it is indispensable to be able to rely on systems without elements which allow control from a distance or the undesired transmission of information to third parties. Systems with source code freely accessible to the public are required to allow their inspection by the State itself, by the citizens, and by a large number of independent experts throughout the world. Our proposal brings further security, since the knowledge of the source code will eliminate the growing number of programs with *spy code*.
</p>
7063 <p>In the same way, our proposal strengthens the security of the citizens, both in their role as legitimate owners of information managed by the state, and in their role as consumers. In this second case, by allowing the growth of a widespread availability of free software not containing *spy code* able to put at risk privacy and individual freedoms.
</p>
7065 <p>In this sense, the Bill is limited to establishing the conditions under which the state bodies will obtain software in the future, that is, in a way compatible with these basic principles.
</p>
7068 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:
<br>
7069 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software
</li>
7070 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software
</li>
7071 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use
</li>
7072 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought
</li>
7073 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.
</li>
7077 <p>What the Bill does express clearly, is that, for software to be acceptable for the state it is not enough that it is technically capable of fulfilling a task, but that further the contractual conditions must satisfy a series of requirements regarding the license, without which the State cannot guarantee the citizen adequate processing of his data, watching over its integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility throughout time, as these are very critical aspects for its normal functioning.
</p>
7079 <p>We agree, Mr. Gonzalez, that information and communication technology have a significant impact on the quality of life of the citizens (whether it be positive or negative). We surely also agree that the basic values I have pointed out above are fundamental in a democratic state like Peru. So we are very interested to know of any other way of guaranteeing these principles, other than through the use of free software in the terms defined by the Bill.
</p>
7081 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:
</p>
7083 <p>Firstly, you point out that: "
1. The bill makes it compulsory for all public bodies to use only free software, that is to say open source software, which breaches the principles of equality before the law, that of non-discrimination and the right of free private enterprise, freedom of industry and of contract, protected by the constitution."
</p>
7085 <p>This understanding is in error. The Bill in no way affects the rights you list; it limits itself entirely to establishing conditions for the use of software on the part of state institutions, without in any way meddling in private sector transactions. It is a well established principle that the State does not enjoy the wide spectrum of contractual freedom of the private sector, as it is limited in its actions precisely by the requirement for transparency of public acts; and in this sense, the preservation of the greater common interest must prevail when legislating on the matter.
</p>
7087 <p>The Bill protects equality under the law, since no natural or legal person is excluded from the right of offering these goods to the State under the conditions defined in the Bill and without more limitations than those established by the Law of State Contracts and Purchasing (T.U.O. by Supreme Decree No.
012-
2001-PCM).
</p>
7089 <p>The Bill does not introduce any discrimination whatever, since it only establishes *how* the goods have to be provided (which is a state power) and not *who* has to provide them (which would effectively be discriminatory, if restrictions based on national origin, race religion, ideology, sexual preference etc. were imposed). On the contrary, the Bill is decidedly antidiscriminatory. This is so because by defining with no room for doubt the conditions for the provision of software, it prevents state bodies from using software which has a license including discriminatory conditions.
</p>
7091 <p>It should be obvious from the preceding two paragraphs that the Bill does not harm free private enterprise, since the latter can always choose under what conditions it will produce software; some of these will be acceptable to the State, and others will not be since they contradict the guarantee of the basic principles listed above. This free initiative is of course compatible with the freedom of industry and freedom of contract (in the limited form in which the State can exercise the latter). Any private subject can produce software under the conditions which the State requires, or can refrain from doing so. Nobody is forced to adopt a model of production, but if they wish to provide software to the State, they must provide the mechanisms which guarantee the basic principles, and which are those described in the Bill.
</p>
7093 <p>By way of an example: nothing in the text of the Bill would prevent your company offering the State bodies an office "suite", under the conditions defined in the Bill and setting the price that you consider satisfactory. If you did not, it would not be due to restrictions imposed by the law, but to business decisions relative to the method of commercializing your products, decisions with which the State is not involved.
</p>
7095 <p>To continue; you note that:"
2. The bill, by making the use of open source software compulsory, would establish discriminatory and non competitive practices in the contracting and purchasing by public bodies..."
</p>
7097 <p>This statement is just a reiteration of the previous one, and so the response can be found above. However, let us concern ourselves for a moment with your comment regarding "non-competitive ... practices."
</p>
7099 <p>Of course, in defining any kind of purchase, the buyer sets conditions which relate to the proposed use of the good or service. From the start, this excludes certain manufacturers from the possibility of competing, but does not exclude them "a priori", but rather based on a series of principles determined by the autonomous will of the purchaser, and so the process takes place in conformance with the law. And in the Bill it is established that *no one* is excluded from competing as far as he guarantees the fulfillment of the basic principles.
</p>
7101 <p>Furthermore, the Bill *stimulates* competition, since it tends to generate a supply of software with better conditions of usability, and to better existing work, in a model of continuous improvement.
</p>
7103 <p>On the other hand, the central aspect of competivity is the chance to provide better choices to the consumer. Now, it is impossible to ignore the fact that marketing does not play a neutral role when the product is offered on the market (since accepting the opposite would lead one to suppose that firms' expenses in marketing lack any sense), and that therefore a significant expense under this heading can influence the decisions of the purchaser. This influence of marketing is in large measure reduced by the bill that we are backing, since the choice within the framework proposed is based on the *technical merits* of the product and not on the effort put into commercialization by the producer; in this sense, competitiveness is increased, since the smallest software producer can compete on equal terms with the most powerful corporations.
</p>
7105 <p>It is necessary to stress that there is no position more anti-competitive than that of the big software producers, which frequently abuse their dominant position, since in innumerable cases they propose as a solution to problems raised by users: "update your software to the new version" (at the user's expense, naturally); furthermore, it is common to find arbitrary cessation of technical help for products, which, in the provider's judgment alone, are "old"; and so, to receive any kind of technical assistance, the user finds himself forced to migrate to new versions (with non-trivial costs, especially as changes in hardware platform are often involved). And as the whole infrastructure is based on proprietary data formats, the user stays "trapped" in the need to continue using products from the same supplier, or to make the huge effort to change to another environment (probably also proprietary).
</p>
7107 <p>You add: "
3. So, by compelling the State to favor a business model based entirely on open source, the bill would only discourage the local and international manufacturing companies, which are the ones which really undertake important expenditures, create a significant number of direct and indirect jobs, as well as contributing to the GNP, as opposed to a model of open source software which tends to have an ever weaker economic impact, since it mainly creates jobs in the service sector."
</p>
7109 <p>I do not agree with your statement. Partly because of what you yourself point out in paragraph
6 of your letter, regarding the relative weight of services in the context of software use. This contradiction alone would invalidate your position. The service model, adopted by a large number of companies in the software industry, is much larger in economic terms, and with a tendency to increase, than the licensing of programs.
</p>
7111 <p>On the other hand, the private sector of the economy has the widest possible freedom to choose the economic model which best suits its interests, even if this freedom of choice is often obscured subliminally by the disproportionate expenditure on marketing by the producers of proprietary software.
</p>
7113 <p>In addition, a reading of your opinion would lead to the conclusion that the State market is crucial and essential for the proprietary software industry, to such a point that the choice made by the State in this bill would completely eliminate the market for these firms. If that is true, we can deduce that the State must be subsidizing the proprietary software industry. In the unlikely event that this were true, the State would have the right to apply the subsidies in the area it considered of greatest social value; it is undeniable, in this improbable hypothesis, that if the State decided to subsidize software, it would have to do so choosing the free over the proprietary, considering its social effect and the rational use of taxpayers money.
</p>
7115 <p>In respect of the jobs generated by proprietary software in countries like ours, these mainly concern technical tasks of little aggregate value; at the local level, the technicians who provide support for proprietary software produced by transnational companies do not have the possibility of fixing bugs, not necessarily for lack of technical capability or of talent, but because they do not have access to the source code to fix it. With free software one creates more technically qualified employment and a framework of free competence where success is only tied to the ability to offer good technical support and quality of service, one stimulates the market, and one increases the shared fund of knowledge, opening up alternatives to generate services of greater total value and a higher quality level, to the benefit of all involved: producers, service organizations, and consumers.
</p>
7117 <p>It is a common phenomenon in developing countries that local software industries obtain the majority of their takings in the service sector, or in the creation of "ad hoc" software. Therefore, any negative impact that the application of the Bill might have in this sector will be more than compensated by a growth in demand for services (as long as these are carried out to high quality standards). If the transnational software companies decide not to compete under these new rules of the game, it is likely that they will undergo some decrease in takings in terms of payment for licenses; however, considering that these firms continue to allege that much of the software used by the State has been illegally copied, one can see that the impact will not be very serious. Certainly, in any case their fortune will be determined by market laws, changes in which cannot be avoided; many firms traditionally associated with proprietary software have already set out on the road (supported by copious expense) of providing services associated with free software, which shows that the models are not mutually exclusive.
</p>
7119 <p>With this bill the State is deciding that it needs to preserve certain fundamental values. And it is deciding this based on its sovereign power, without affecting any of the constitutional guarantees. If these values could be guaranteed without having to choose a particular economic model, the effects of the law would be even more beneficial. In any case, it should be clear that the State does not choose an economic model; if it happens that there only exists one economic model capable of providing software which provides the basic guarantee of these principles, this is because of historical circumstances, not because of an arbitrary choice of a given model.
</p>
7121 <p>Your letter continues: "
4. The bill imposes the use of open source software without considering the dangers that this can bring from the point of view of security, guarantee, and possible violation of the intellectual property rights of third parties."
</p>
7123 <p>Alluding in an abstract way to "the dangers this can bring", without specifically mentioning a single one of these supposed dangers, shows at the least some lack of knowledge of the topic. So, allow me to enlighten you on these points.
</p>
7127 <p>National security has already been mentioned in general terms in the initial discussion of the basic principles of the bill. In more specific terms, relative to the security of the software itself, it is well known that all software (whether proprietary or free) contains errors or "bugs" (in programmers' slang). But it is also well known that the bugs in free software are fewer, and are fixed much more quickly, than in proprietary software. It is not in vain that numerous public bodies responsible for the IT security of state systems in developed countries require the use of free software for the same conditions of security and efficiency.
</p>
7129 <p>What is impossible to prove is that proprietary software is more secure than free, without the public and open inspection of the scientific community and users in general. This demonstration is impossible because the model of proprietary software itself prevents this analysis, so that any guarantee of security is based only on promises of good intentions (biased, by any reckoning) made by the producer itself, or its contractors.
</p>
7131 <p>It should be remembered that in many cases, the licensing conditions include Non-Disclosure clauses which prevent the user from publicly revealing security flaws found in the licensed proprietary product.
</p>
7133 <p>In respect of the guarantee:
</p>
7135 <p>As you know perfectly well, or could find out by reading the "End User License Agreement" of the products you license, in the great majority of cases the guarantees are limited to replacement of the storage medium in case of defects, but in no case is compensation given for direct or indirect damages, loss of profits, etc... If as a result of a security bug in one of your products, not fixed in time by yourselves, an attacker managed to compromise crucial State systems, what guarantees, reparations and compensation would your company make in accordance with your licensing conditions? The guarantees of proprietary software, inasmuch as programs are delivered ``AS IS'', that is, in the state in which they are, with no additional responsibility of the provider in respect of function, in no way differ from those normal with free software.
</p>
7137 <p>On Intellectual Property:
</p>
7139 <p>Questions of intellectual property fall outside the scope of this bill, since they are covered by specific other laws. The model of free software in no way implies ignorance of these laws, and in fact the great majority of free software is covered by copyright. In reality, the inclusion of this question in your observations shows your confusion in respect of the legal framework in which free software is developed. The inclusion of the intellectual property of others in works claimed as one's own is not a practice that has been noted in the free software community; whereas, unfortunately, it has been in the area of proprietary software. As an example, the condemnation by the Commercial Court of Nanterre, France, on
27th September
2001 of Microsoft Corp. to a penalty of
3 million francs in damages and interest, for violation of intellectual property (piracy, to use the unfortunate term that your firm commonly uses in its publicity).
</p>
7141 <p>You go on to say that: "The bill uses the concept of open source software incorrectly, since it does not necessarily imply that the software is free or of zero cost, and so arrives at mistaken conclusions regarding State savings, with no cost-benefit analysis to validate its position."
</p>
7143 <p>This observation is wrong; in principle, freedom and lack of cost are orthogonal concepts: there is software which is proprietary and charged for (for example, MS Office), software which is proprietary and free of charge (MS Internet Explorer), software which is free and charged for (Red Hat, SuSE etc GNU/Linux distributions), software which is free and not charged for (Apache, Open Office, Mozilla), and even software which can be licensed in a range of combinations (MySQL).
</p>
7145 <p>Certainly free software is not necessarily free of charge. And the text of the bill does not state that it has to be so, as you will have noted after reading it. The definitions included in the Bill state clearly *what* should be considered free software, at no point referring to freedom from charges. Although the possibility of savings in payments for proprietary software licenses are mentioned, the foundations of the bill clearly refer to the fundamental guarantees to be preserved and to the stimulus to local technological development. Given that a democratic State must support these principles, it has no other choice than to use software with publicly available source code, and to exchange information only in standard formats.
</p>
7147 <p>If the State does not use software with these characteristics, it will be weakening basic republican principles. Luckily, free software also implies lower total costs; however, even given the hypothesis (easily disproved) that it was more expensive than proprietary software, the simple existence of an effective free software tool for a particular IT function would oblige the State to use it; not by command of this Bill, but because of the basic principles we enumerated at the start, and which arise from the very essence of the lawful democratic State.
</p>
7149 <p>You continue: "
6. It is wrong to think that Open Source Software is free of charge. Research by the Gartner Group (an important investigator of the technological market recognized at world level) has shown that the cost of purchase of software (operating system and applications) is only
8% of the total cost which firms and institutions take on for a rational and truly beneficial use of the technology. The other
92% consists of: installation costs, enabling, support, maintenance, administration, and down-time."
</p>
7151 <p>This argument repeats that already given in paragraph
5 and partly contradicts paragraph
3. For the sake of brevity we refer to the comments on those paragraphs. However, allow me to point out that your conclusion is logically false: even if according to Gartner Group the cost of software is on average only
8% of the total cost of use, this does not in any way deny the existence of software which is free of charge, that is, with a licensing cost of zero.
</p>
7153 <p>In addition, in this paragraph you correctly point out that the service components and losses due to down-time make up the largest part of the total cost of software use, which, as you will note, contradicts your statement regarding the small value of services suggested in paragraph
3. Now the use of free software contributes significantly to reduce the remaining life-cycle costs. This reduction in the costs of installation, support etc. can be noted in several areas: in the first place, the competitive service model of free software, support and maintenance for which can be freely contracted out to a range of suppliers competing on the grounds of quality and low cost. This is true for installation, enabling, and support, and in large part for maintenance. In the second place, due to the reproductive characteristics of the model, maintenance carried out for an application is easily replicable, without incurring large costs (that is, without paying more than once for the same thing) since modifications, if one wishes, can be incorporated in the common fund of knowledge. Thirdly, the huge costs caused by non-functioning software ("blue screens of death", malicious code such as virus, worms, and trojans, exceptions, general protection faults and other well-known problems) are reduced considerably by using more stable software; and it is well known that one of the most notable virtues of free software is its stability.
</p>
7155 <p>You further state that: "
7. One of the arguments behind the bill is the supposed freedom from costs of open-source software, compared with the costs of commercial software, without taking into account the fact that there exist types of volume licensing which can be highly advantageous for the State, as has happened in other countries."
</p>
7157 <p>I have already pointed out that what is in question is not the cost of the software but the principles of freedom of information, accessibility, and security. These arguments have been covered extensively in the preceding paragraphs to which I would refer you.
</p>
7159 <p>On the other hand, there certainly exist types of volume licensing (although unfortunately proprietary software does not satisfy the basic principles). But as you correctly pointed out in the immediately preceding paragraph of your letter, they only manage to reduce the impact of a component which makes up no more than
8% of the total.
</p>
7161 <p>You continue: "
8. In addition, the alternative adopted by the bill (I) is clearly more expensive, due to the high costs of software migration, and (II) puts at risk compatibility and interoperability of the IT platforms within the State, and between the State and the private sector, given the hundreds of versions of open source software on the market."
</p>
7163 <p>Let us analyze your statement in two parts. Your first argument, that migration implies high costs, is in reality an argument in favor of the Bill. Because the more time goes by, the more difficult migration to another technology will become; and at the same time, the security risks associated with proprietary software will continue to increase. In this way, the use of proprietary systems and formats will make the State ever more dependent on specific suppliers. Once a policy of using free software has been established (which certainly, does imply some cost) then on the contrary migration from one system to another becomes very simple, since all data is stored in open formats. On the other hand, migration to an open software context implies no more costs than migration between two different proprietary software contexts, which invalidates your argument completely.
</p>
7165 <p>The second argument refers to "problems in interoperability of the IT platforms within the State, and between the State and the private sector" This statement implies a certain lack of knowledge of the way in which free software is built, which does not maximize the dependence of the user on a particular platform, as normally happens in the realm of proprietary software. Even when there are multiple free software distributions, and numerous programs which can be used for the same function, interoperability is guaranteed as much by the use of standard formats, as required by the bill, as by the possibility of creating interoperable software given the availability of the source code.
</p>
7167 <p>You then say that: "
9. The majority of open source code does not offer adequate levels of service nor the guarantee from recognized manufacturers of high productivity on the part of the users, which has led various public organizations to retract their decision to go with an open source software solution and to use commercial software in its place."
</p>
7169 <p>This observation is without foundation. In respect of the guarantee, your argument was rebutted in the response to paragraph
4. In respect of support services, it is possible to use free software without them (just as also happens with proprietary software), but anyone who does need them can obtain support separately, whether from local firms or from international corporations, again just as in the case of proprietary software.
</p>
7171 <p>On the other hand, it would contribute greatly to our analysis if you could inform us about free software projects *established* in public bodies which have already been abandoned in favor of proprietary software. We know of a good number of cases where the opposite has taken place, but not know of any where what you describe has taken place.
</p>
7173 <p>You continue by observing that: "
10. The bill discourages the creativity of the Peruvian software industry, which invoices
40 million US$/year, exports
4 million US$ (
10th in ranking among non-traditional exports, more than handicrafts) and is a source of highly qualified employment. With a law that encourages the use of open source, software programmers lose their intellectual property rights and their main source of payment."
</p>
7175 <p>It is clear enough that nobody is forced to commercialize their code as free software. The only thing to take into account is that if it is not free software, it cannot be sold to the public sector. This is not in any case the main market for the national software industry. We covered some questions referring to the influence of the Bill on the generation of employment which would be both highly technically qualified and in better conditions for competition above, so it seems unnecessary to insist on this point.
</p>
7177 <p>What follows in your statement is incorrect. On the one hand, no author of free software loses his intellectual property rights, unless he expressly wishes to place his work in the public domain. The free software movement has always been very respectful of intellectual property, and has generated widespread public recognition of its authors. Names like those of Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum, Larry Wall, Miguel de Icaza, Andrew Tridgell, Theo de Raadt, Andrea Arcangeli, Bruce Perens, Darren Reed, Alan Cox, Eric Raymond, and many others, are recognized world-wide for their contributions to the development of software that is used today by millions of people throughout the world. On the other hand, to say that the rewards for authors rights make up the main source of payment of Peruvian programmers is in any case a guess, in particular since there is no proof to this effect, nor a demonstration of how the use of free software by the State would influence these payments.
</p>
7179 <p>You go on to say that: "
11. Open source software, since it can be distributed without charge, does not allow the generation of income for its developers through exports. In this way, the multiplier effect of the sale of software to other countries is weakened, and so in turn is the growth of the industry, while Government rules ought on the contrary to stimulate local industry."
</p>
7181 <p>This statement shows once again complete ignorance of the mechanisms of and market for free software. It tries to claim that the market of sale of non- exclusive rights for use (sale of licenses) is the only possible one for the software industry, when you yourself pointed out several paragraphs above that it is not even the most important one. The incentives that the bill offers for the growth of a supply of better qualified professionals, together with the increase in experience that working on a large scale with free software within the State will bring for Peruvian technicians, will place them in a highly competitive position to offer their services abroad.
</p>
7183 <p>You then state that: "
12. In the Forum, the use of open source software in education was discussed, without mentioning the complete collapse of this initiative in a country like Mexico, where precisely the State employees who founded the project now state that open source software did not make it possible to offer a learning experience to pupils in the schools, did not take into account the capability at a national level to give adequate support to the platform, and that the software did not and does not allow for the levels of platform integration that now exist in schools."
</p>
7185 <p>In fact Mexico has gone into reverse with the Red Escolar (Schools Network) project. This is due precisely to the fact that the driving forces behind the Mexican project used license costs as their main argument, instead of the other reasons specified in our project, which are far more essential. Because of this conceptual mistake, and as a result of the lack of effective support from the SEP (Secretary of State for Public Education), the assumption was made that to implant free software in schools it would be enough to drop their software budget and send them a CD ROM with Gnu/Linux instead. Of course this failed, and it couldn't have been otherwise, just as school laboratories fail when they use proprietary software and have no budget for implementation and maintenance. That's exactly why our bill is not limited to making the use of free software mandatory, but recognizes the need to create a viable migration plan, in which the State undertakes the technical transition in an orderly way in order to then enjoy the advantages of free software.
</p>
7187 <p>You end with a rhetorical question: "
13. If open source software satisfies all the requirements of State bodies, why do you need a law to adopt it? Shouldn't it be the market which decides freely which products give most benefits or value?"
</p>
7189 <p>We agree that in the private sector of the economy, it must be the market that decides which products to use, and no state interference is permissible there. However, in the case of the public sector, the reasoning is not the same: as we have already established, the state archives, handles, and transmits information which does not belong to it, but which is entrusted to it by citizens, who have no alternative under the rule of law. As a counterpart to this legal requirement, the State must take extreme measures to safeguard the integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility of this information. The use of proprietary software raises serious doubts as to whether these requirements can be fulfilled, lacks conclusive evidence in this respect, and so is not suitable for use in the public sector.
</p>
7191 <p>The need for a law is based, firstly, on the realization of the fundamental principles listed above in the specific area of software; secondly, on the fact that the State is not an ideal homogeneous entity, but made up of multiple bodies with varying degrees of autonomy in decision making. Given that it is inappropriate to use proprietary software, the fact of establishing these rules in law will prevent the personal discretion of any state employee from putting at risk the information which belongs to citizens. And above all, because it constitutes an up-to-date reaffirmation in relation to the means of management and communication of information used today, it is based on the republican principle of openness to the public.
</p>
7193 <p>In conformance with this universally accepted principle, the citizen has the right to know all information held by the State and not covered by well- founded declarations of secrecy based on law. Now, software deals with information and is itself information. Information in a special form, capable of being interpreted by a machine in order to execute actions, but crucial information all the same because the citizen has a legitimate right to know, for example, how his vote is computed or his taxes calculated. And for that he must have free access to the source code and be able to prove to his satisfaction the programs used for electoral computations or calculation of his taxes.
</p>
7195 <p>I wish you the greatest respect, and would like to repeat that my office will always be open for you to expound your point of view to whatever level of detail you consider suitable.
</p>
7198 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ
<br>
7199 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.
</p>
7206 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard
</a>.
7211 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7215 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong
</a>
7221 <p>Half a year ago I
7222 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
7223 a bit
</a> about
<a href=
"http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots
</a>,
7224 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
7225 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.
</p>
7227 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
7228 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
7229 different Office implementations handle different ODF features. Sad
7230 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
7231 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
7232 for OfficeShots users yet). I am glad to see that the ODF community
7233 got such a great test tool available.
</p>
7239 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard
</a>.
7244 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7248 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html">How to test if a laptop is working with Linux
</a>
7254 <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the
<a
7255 href=
"http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo
</a> testing if the new
7256 batch of computers will work with Linux. Every year for the last few
7257 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
7258 computers, and this year HP won the bid. Two different desktops and
7259 five different laptops are on the list this year. We in the UNIX
7260 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
7261 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
7264 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
7265 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well. To test, I PXE
7266 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
7267 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware. When
7268 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
7269 on. If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
7270 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
7271 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.
</p>
7273 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post. Here is the simple tests
7274 I perform on a new model.
</p>
7278 <li>Is PXE installation working? I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
7279 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment. If I feel like it, I also test with
7280 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.
</li>
7282 <li>Is X.org working? If the graphical login screen show up after
7283 installation, X.org is working.
</li>
7285 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working? Running glxgears (in
7286 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
7287 reported by the program.
</li>
7289 <li>Is sound working? With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
7290 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful. If there
7291 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
7292 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound. I
7293 normally test this by playing
7294 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
7295 video
</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.
</li>
7297 <li>Is the USB subsystem working? I test this by plugging in a USB
7298 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li>
7300 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working? I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
7301 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.
</li>
7303 <li>Is any built in camera working? Test using cheese, and see if a
7304 picture from the v4l device show up.
</li>
7306 <li>Is bluetooth working? Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
7307 any bluetooth devices are discovered. In my office, I normally see a
7310 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working. I have
7311 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
7314 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working? I'm testing if the
7315 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
7318 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
7319 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
7320 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc? The set of buttons differ from
7321 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
7324 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
7325 acceleration sensors etc. I rarely test these, as I do not know how
7326 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
7331 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
7332 for the HP machines I am testing. I'm not done yet, so I will report
7333 the test results later. For now I can report that HP
8100 Elite work
7334 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook
8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
7335 and audio fail on RHEL6. Ubuntu Maverik worked with
8440p. As you
7336 can see, I have most machines left to test. One interesting
7337 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
7338 RHEL6 with glxgears. No idea why.
</p>
7344 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
7349 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7353 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins
</a>
7359 <p>As I continue to explore
7360 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin
</a>, I've starting to wonder
7361 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
7362 and regulations here in Norway. Here are some random notes.
</p>
7364 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
7365 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
7366 is known to everyone. This means that if a BitCoin address has been
7367 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
7368 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
7369 that address. There is even a web service to look at the details for
7370 all transactions. There I can see that my address
7371 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a>
7372 have received
16.06 Bitcoin, the
7373 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv
8MHqvwst
3</a>
7374 address of Simon Phipps have received
181.97 BitCoin and the address
7375 <a href=
"http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt
</A>
7376 of EFF have received
2447.38 BitCoins so far. Thank you to each and
7377 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
7378 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
7379 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
7380 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction. I'm told
7381 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
7382 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
7383 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.
</p>
7385 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
7386 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
7387 without declaring it. There are money laundering, tax and accounting
7388 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
7389 If the Skolelinux foundation
7390 (
<a href=
"http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
7391 Debian Labs
</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
7392 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
7393 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
7394 not, should everything or nothing be declared? What exchange rate
7395 should be used when calculating taxes? Would receivers have to pay
7396 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
7397 BitCoin? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.
</p>
7399 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
7400 accepted by a lot of users. It must be possible to get easy access to
7401 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
7402 easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
7403 access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really
7404 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
7405 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins. I
7406 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
7407 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
7408 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
7409 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular. I'm sure they
7410 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
7411 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
7412 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
7415 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
7416 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
7417 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
7418 to see which one get the next lump of cash). The "winner" get
50
7419 BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
7420 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
7421 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
7422 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the
50
7424 <a href=
"http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool
</a>
7425 if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a
7426 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
7427 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
7430 <p>Update
2010-
12-
15: Found an
<a
7431 href=
"http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
7432 criticism
</a> of bitcoin. Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
7433 it was interesting to read. The arguments presented seem to be
7434 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.
</p>
7440 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet
</a>.
7445 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7449 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money
</a>
7455 <p>With this weeks lawless
7456 <a href=
"http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
7457 attacks
</a> on Wikileak and
7458 <a href=
"http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
7459 speech
</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
7460 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
7462 <a href=
"http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
7463 Phipps on bitcoin
</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
7464 mine mentioned earlier. I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
7465 involved with
<a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin
</a>. I got
7466 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
7467 some bitcoins to get started. I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
7468 for helping me remember BitCoin.
</p>
7470 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder? It is a digital
7471 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
7472 networks. It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
7473 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
7474 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions. The
7475 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets
2.9
7476 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
7477 line client builds just fine. Hopefully Jonas
7478 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
7479 Debian
</a> soon.
</p>
7481 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
7482 There are
<a href=
"http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
7483 bitcoins
</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
7484 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided. There
7485 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising. If you
7486 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
7488 <a href=
"https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free
</a> (
0.05
7489 bitcoin at the time of writing). Use
7490 <a href=
"http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch
</a> to keep an eye
7491 on the current exchange rates.
</p>
7493 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
7494 machines. If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
7495 donations to the address
7496 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</b>. Thank you!
</p>
7502 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet
</a>.
7507 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7511 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Student_group_continue_the_work_on_my_Reprap_3D_printer.html">Student group continue the work on my Reprap
3D printer
</a>
7517 <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
7518 student assosiation
<a href=
"http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
7519 Osloensis
</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
7520 get their own
3D printer. They wanted to learn from me based on my
7521 work in the area. After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
7522 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
7523 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon. I look
7524 forward to see how this goes. This monday their volunteer driver
7525 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
7526 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the
3D printer
7529 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
7530 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational. I really look
7531 forward to being able to print all the cool
3D designs published on
7532 <a href=
"http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse
</a>. I even got
7533 some
3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
7534 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
7535 very cool
3D scanner.
</p>
7541 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap
</a>.
7546 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7550 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_development_gathering_and_General_Assembly_for_FRiSK.html">Debian Edu development gathering and General Assembly for FRiSK
</a>
7556 <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
7557 <a href=
"http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
7558 gathering
</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway. I
7559 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
7560 Squeeze release. The gathering is open for everyone interested in
7561 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.
</p>
7563 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
7564 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
7566 <a href=
"http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
7567 for
2010</a>. Membership is open for all, and currently there are
388
7568 people registered as members. Last year
32 members cast their vote in
7569 the memberdb based election system. I hope more people find time to
7576 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
7581 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7585 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?
</a>
7591 <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
7592 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
7593 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
7594 to play a video file or stream. Only if VLC fail will I drag out
7595 gmplayer to see if it can do better. The reason is mostly the failure
7596 model and trust. When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
7597 reporting the problem. When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
7598 just hangs. The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.
<p>
7600 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
7601 mplayer in
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
7602 Edu/Skolelinux
</a>. The reason is simple. We need a good browser
7603 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
7604 not very good. For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
7605 is no way for the user to pause the video. Also, when I
7606 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
7607 tested the browser plugins
</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
7608 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked. If
7609 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
7610 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.
</P>
7612 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
7613 annoying. The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
7614 keyboard shortcuts. When the player is in full screen mode, its
7615 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
7616 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode. I
7617 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
7618 window mode. Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
7619 the current video. It is very nice when playing short videos from the
7620 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
7621 what is going on.
</p>
7627 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web
</a>.
7632 <div class=
"padding"></div>
7636 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html">Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove
</a>
7642 <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
7643 upgrade testing of the
7644 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
7645 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a> to do
<tt>apt-get autoremove
</tt> when using apt-get.
7646 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
7647 can now present the updated result from today:
</p>
7649 <p>This is for Gnome:
</p>
7651 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
7658 browser-plugin-gnash
7665 freedesktop-sound-theme
7667 gconf-defaults-service
7682 gnome-desktop-environment
7686 gnome-session-canberra
7691 gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
7697 libapache2-mod-dnssd
7700 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
7703 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
7704 libboost-python1.42
.0
7705 libboost-thread1.42
.0
7707 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0
7709 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
7716 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
7731 libgnomepanel2.24-cil
7736 libgtksourceview2.0-common
7737 libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
7738 libmono-addins0.2-cil
7739 libmono-cairo2.0-cil
7740 libmono-corlib2.0-cil
7741 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
7742 libmono-posix2.0-cil
7743 libmono-security2.0-cil
7744 libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
7745 libmono-system2.0-cil
7748 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
7749 libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
7759 libtelepathy-farsight0
7768 nautilus-sendto-empathy
7772 python-aptdaemon-gtk
7774 python-beautifulsoup
7789 python-gtksourceview2
7800 python-pkg-resources
7807 python-twisted-conch
7813 python-zope.interface
7818 rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
7825 system-config-printer-udev
7827 telepathy-mission-control-
5
7840 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
7848 fast-user-switch-applet
7867 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
7869 libsdl1.2debian-alsa
7875 system-config-printer
7882 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
7885 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7888 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
7894 <p>This is for KDE:
</p>
7896 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
7902 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
7909 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
7925 kdeartwork-emoticons
7927 kdeartwork-theme-icon
7931 kdebase-workspace-bin
7932 kdebase-workspace-data
7946 kscreensaver-xsavers
7961 plasma-dataengines-workspace
7963 plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
7964 plasma-runners-addons
7965 plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
7966 plasma-scriptengine-python
7967 plasma-scriptengine-qedje
7968 plasma-scriptengine-ruby
7969 plasma-scriptengine-webkit
7970 plasma-scriptengines
7971 plasma-wallpapers-addons
7972 plasma-widget-folderview
7973 plasma-widget-networkmanagement
7977 xscreensaver-data-extra
7979 xscreensaver-gl-extra
7980 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
7983 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
7987 google-gadgets-common
8005 libggadget-qt-
1.0-
0b
8010 libkonqsidebarplugin4a
8019 libplasma-geolocation-interface4
8021 libplasmagenericshell4
8035 libsmokeknewstuff2-
3
8036 libsmokeknewstuff3-
3
8038 libsmokektexteditor3
8046 libsmokeqtnetwork4-
3
8052 libsmokeqtuitools4-
3
8064 plasma-dataengines-addons
8065 plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
8066 plasma-widget-lancelot
8067 plasma-widgets-addons
8068 plasma-widgets-workspace
8072 update-notifier-common
8075 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
8076 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
8077 differences. I have no idea what packages should be installed after
8078 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.
</p>
8084 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
8089 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8093 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html">Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images
</a>
8099 <p>Most of the computers in use by the
8100 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project
</a>
8101 are virtual machines. And they have been Xen machines running on a
8102 fairly old IBM eserver xseries
345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
8103 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge
2950 host machine. This was a
8104 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
8105 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
8106 know is not supported by KVM. So to migrate, we had to convert
8107 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.
</p>
8110 <a href=
"http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
8111 nice recipe
</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
8112 migration. It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
8113 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
8114 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data. I NFS mounted the
8115 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.
</p>
8121 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/
35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
8126 if [ -z "$
1" ] ; then
8127 echo "Usage: $
0 <hostname
>"
8133 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
8134 echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
8138 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs. not sure why.
8139 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }')
8140 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $
4} END { print int(sum *
1.05) }')
8141 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
8144 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=
1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
8145 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
8147 parted $img mklabel msdos
8148 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap
0 $disksize
8149 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
8150 parted $img set
1 boot on
8153 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
8154 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
8156 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=
1M
8157 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
8158 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
8160 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
8161 losetup -d /dev/loop0
8164 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
8165 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.
</p>
8167 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
8168 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-
686 and
8169 set up grub to boot from the disk image. After this, the KVM machines
8170 seem to work just fine.
</p>
8176 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
8181 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8185 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html">Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop
</a>
8191 <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
8192 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
8193 Gnome and KDE Desktop
</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
8194 status. Here is a short update based on a test I ran
20101118.
</p>
8196 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
8197 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
8198 can see if anything should be changed.
</p>
8200 <p>This is for Gnome:
</p>
8202 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
8205 apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
8206 browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-
4.3 cups-pk-helper
8207 dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
8208 freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
8209 gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
8210 geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
8211 gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
8212 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
8213 gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
8214 gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
8215 gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
8216 gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
8217 gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
8218 libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
8219 libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-
0 libboost-date-time1.42
.0
8220 libboost-python1.42
.0 libboost-thread1.42
.0 libchamplain-
0.4-
0
8221 libchamplain-gtk-
0.4-
0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-
0.10-
0
8222 libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-
1.0-
2
8223 libepc-common libepc-ui-
1.0-
2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
8224 libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
8225 libgdl-
1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-
0 libgif4
8226 libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
8227 libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
8228 libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
8229 libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
8230 libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
8231 libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
8232 libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
8233 libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
8234 libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-
6
8235 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6
.8
8236 libpolkit-gtk-
1-
0 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa
8237 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6
.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
8238 libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-
4
8239 libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-
0.99-
0
8240 libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
8241 mono-
2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
8242 nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
8243 openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-
4suite-xml
8244 python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
8245 python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
8246 python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
8247 python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
8248 python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
8249 python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
8250 python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
8251 python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
8252 python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
8253 python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
8254 python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
8255 python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
8256 python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
8257 remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
8258 rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
8259 software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
8260 telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-
5 telepathy-salut tomboy
8261 totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
8262 transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
8266 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
8269 arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
8270 epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
8271 fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
8272 gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
8273 gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
8274 gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
8275 guile-
1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
8276 libavahi-ui0 libbind9-
50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7
8277 libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
8278 libedata-cal1.2-
6 libedataserver1.2-
9 libeel2-
2.20 libepc-
1.0-
1
8279 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libexchange-storage1.2-
3 libfaad0 libgadu3
8280 libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
8281 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-
2
8282 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
8283 libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-
1.0-
0
8284 libgtkhtml2-
0 libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgtksourceview2.0-
0
8285 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
8286 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
8287 libmagick++
10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
8288 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
8289 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-
10 libpisock9
8290 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-
1.10.10 libraw1394-
8
8291 libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8
8292 libspeexdsp1 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libsvga1
8293 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
8294 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
8295 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
8296 sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
8297 totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
8300 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
8303 gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
8306 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
8312 <p>This is for KDE:
</p>
8314 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
8317 autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-
4.3 dcoprss
8318 edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
8319 ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
8320 gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
8321 kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
8322 kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
8323 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
8324 kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
8325 kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
8326 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
8327 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
8328 kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
8329 killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
8330 kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
8331 ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42
.0
8332 libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
8333 libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
8334 libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
8335 libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
8336 libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
8337 libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
8338 libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
8339 libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
8340 libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
8341 lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
8342 openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
8343 parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
8344 pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
8345 speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
8349 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
8352 amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
8353 dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
8354 kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
8355 kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
8356 keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
8357 kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
8358 kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
8359 klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
8360 kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
8361 kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
8362 kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
8363 ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
8364 ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
8365 kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
8366 kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
8367 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
8368 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-
0 libbind9-
50 libbluetooth2
8369 libboost-python1.34
.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
8370 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
8371 libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-
0 libicu38
8372 libiec61883-
0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
8373 libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
8374 libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
8375 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
8376 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
8377 libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
8378 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
8379 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-
8 librss1 libsensors3
8380 libsmbios2 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90
8381 libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
8382 mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
8383 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
8384 ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
8387 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
8390 dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
8391 kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
8392 kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
8393 kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
8394 netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
8395 xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
8396 xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
8399 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
8402 kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
8409 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
8414 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8418 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd
</a>
8425 <a href=
"http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
8426 call from the Gnash project
</a> for
8427 <a href=
"http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot
</a> slaves to test the
8428 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
8429 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
8430 Debian/Squeeze. I hope this can help the developers in getting new
8431 releases out more often.
</p>
8433 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
8434 I have considered setting up a
<a
8435 href=
"http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd
</a>
8436 machine as well. I have also considered using the kfreebsd
8437 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the
5
8438 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video. Because of this, I
8439 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
8440 kfreebsd. Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
8441 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
8442 screen at random locations). Have not gotten very far with the
8443 testing. Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
8444 fatal problem. Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
8445 useful as a file server for NUUG. Will try to find time to set up a
8446 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.
</p>
8452 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
8457 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8461 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in
3D
</a>
8467 <p><img src=
"http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
8469 <p>3D printing is just great. I just came across this Debian logo in
8471 <a href=
"http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
8472 thingiverse blog
</a>.
</p>
8478 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
8483 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8487 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_room_on_the_Debian_Edu_Sqeeze_DVD.html">Making room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
</a>
8493 <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
8494 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a> DVD, which is
8495 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
8496 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard. Even
8497 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
8498 working using this DVD.
</p>
8500 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
8501 installing recommended packages by default. We want the same set of
8502 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
8503 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD. I created
8504 a patch for debian-cd in
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
8505 report #
601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
8506 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.
</p>
8508 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
8509 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
8510 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
8513 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
8514 were using most space. A few large packages are well know;
8515 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont. But I also
8516 discovered that lilypond used
106 MiB and fglrx-driver used
53 MiB.
8517 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
8518 when looking a bit closer I discovered that
99 MiB of the
106 MiB were
8519 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
8520 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
8521 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
8522 documentation. Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
8523 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
8524 free X driver should work.
</p>
8526 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
8527 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
8528 DVD more useful again.
</p>
8534 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
8539 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8543 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates
2010-
10-
24</a>
8549 <p>Some updates.
</p>
8551 <p>My
<a href=
"http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge
</a> to
8552 raise money for the project is going well. The lower limit of
10
8553 signers was reached in
24 hours, and so far
13 people have signed it.
8554 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
8555 how far we can get before the time limit of December
24 is reached.
8558 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
8559 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
8560 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
8562 <a href=
"http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov
</a>,
8563 and can be used using
<tt>kcov
<directory
> <binary
></tt>.
8564 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
8565 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
8566 libglib2.0-dev. Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
8567 solvable. I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.
</p>
8569 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for
<a
8570 href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
8571 new alpha release of Debian Edu
</a>, and just published the second
8572 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
8573 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a>
8574 release. Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
8575 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
8576 client servers and diskless workstations. A nice touch added
8577 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
8578 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.
</p>
8584 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia
</a>.
8589 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8593 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pledge_for_funding_to_the_Gnash_project_to_get_AVM2_support.html">Pledge for funding to the Gnash project to get AVM2 support
</a>
8599 <p><a href=
"http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project
</a> is the
8600 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
8601 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
8602 funding has dried up. I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
8603 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
8604 AVM2 flash files.
</p>
8606 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
8607 <a href=
"http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge
</a> with the
8612 <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
8613 only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
8615 <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer
</p>
8617 <p>Deadline to sign up by:
24th December
2010</p>
8619 <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
8620 format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
8621 web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
8622 format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
8623 days. The project web page is available from
8624 http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
8625 of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
8626 the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.
</p>
8628 <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
8629 time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
8630 to get this to happen.
</p>
8632 <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
8633 <a href=
"http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/
32</a> .
</p>
8637 <p>I hope you will support this effort too. I hope more than
10
8638 people will participate to make this happen. The more money the
8639 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
8646 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web
</a>.
8651 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8655 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_version_of_a_Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot.html">First version of a Perl library to control the Spykee robot
</a>
8661 <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
8662 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
8663 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
8664 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
8665 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
8666 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
8669 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
8670 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them. There are
8671 a few less important features too.
</p>
8673 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
8674 but I never got around to releasing the current source. I decided
8675 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
8676 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.
</p>
8678 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
8679 published the source and deb. If you got a spykee robot, grab the
8680 source or binary package:
</p>
8683 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian/packages/lenny/libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1.tar.gz">libspykee-perl_0.0
.20101009-
1.tar.gz
</a></li>
8684 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian/packages/lenny/libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1.dsc">libspykee-perl_0.0
.20101009-
1.dsc
</a></li>
8685 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian/packages/lenny/libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1_all.deb">libspykee-perl_0.0
.20101009-
1_all.deb
</a></li>
8688 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
8689 please let me know.
</p>
8695 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot
</a>.
8700 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8704 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for
2010-
10-
03</a>
8712 <li><a href=
"http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/09/there-is-no-plan-b-why-the-ipv4-to-ipv6-transition-will-be-ugly.ars">There
8713 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly
</a></li>
8715 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
8716 <a href=
"http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
8717 already been misused at Heathrow
</a>.
</li>
8719 <li><a href=
"http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
8720 Webcasting
</a> - interesting alternative for
8721 <ahref=
"http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch
</a> with
8730 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
8735 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8739 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">Terms of use for video produced by a Canon IXUS
130 digital camera
</a>
8745 <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
8746 camera, a Canon IXUS
130. It was instructive and very disturbing to
8747 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
8748 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
8749 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
8750 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway. What is the
8751 problem, you might ask? It is software patents, MPEG-
4, H
.264 and the
8752 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
8753 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
8755 <p>On page
27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
8759 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-
4 standard
8760 and may be used for encoding MPEG-
4 compliant video and/or decoding
8761 MPEG-
4 compliant video that was encoded only (
1) for a personal and
8762 non-commercial purpose or (
2) by a video provider licensed under the
8763 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-
4 compliant video.
</p>
8765 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-
4
8769 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
8770 (MPEG-
4/H
.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
8771 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
8772 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.
</p>
8774 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
8776 "
<a href=
"http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
8777 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
8778 MPEG-LA
</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
8779 "<a href=
"http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H
.264 Is Not
8780 The Sort Of Free That Matters
</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
8781 the issue. The solution is to support the
8782 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition
">free and
8783 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/
">Ogg
8784 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
8790 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan
">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling
">fildeling</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia
">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug
">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett
">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern
">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard
">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video
">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web
">web</a>.
8795 <div class="padding
"></div>
8799 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html
">Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</a>
8805 <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote
">Debian
8806 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
8807 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian. The sixth
8808 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla. This is a clear indication that
8809 working flash is important for Debian users. Around 10 percent of the
8810 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
8813 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
8814 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf
">Skolelinux
8815 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
8816 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
8817 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian
8818 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash. A lot of educational
8819 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
8820 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
8821 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
8823 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
8824 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
8825 everything you told him but could work fairly well. This was a
8826 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
8827 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
8828 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
8829 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
8830 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
8831 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
8832 pages they want to visit.</p>
8834 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
8835 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
8836 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
8837 Video to working out of the box. For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
8838 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
8839 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
8840 unstable. The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
8841 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
8842 release team have not had time to reply to it yet. I hope they agree
8843 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
8844 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
8850 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu
">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia
">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video
">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web
">web</a>.
8855 <div class="padding
"></div>
8859 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_first_perl_GUI_application___controlling_a_Spykee_robot.html
">My first perl GUI application - controlling a Spykee robot</a>
8865 <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application. The last few
8866 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
8867 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
8868 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
8869 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
8870 allow me to drive the robot around. I picked PerlQt as I have had
8871 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
8872 browsing the web for examples. Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
8873 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
8874 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
8875 libqt-perl. Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
8878 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
8879 controlling the robot. Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
8883 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
8884 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
8885 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
8886 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
8898 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
8899 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
8900 implement the protocol used by the robot. I've implemented several of
8901 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
8902 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote. First I
8903 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
8904 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
8905 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
8906 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
8909 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
8910 where to make it available first. I will add a link to
8911 <a href=
"http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki
</a> for
8912 those that want to check back later to find it.
</p>
8918 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot
</a>.
8923 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8927 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs
</a>
8933 <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
8934 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
8935 post about sshfs
</a>. He reported another problem with sshfs. It
8936 fail to handle hard links properly. A simple way to spot this is to
8937 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree. These should have
8938 a link count
>1, but on sshfs the count is
1. I just tested to see
8939 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:
</p>
8943 ln: creating hard link `bar' =
> `foo': Function not implemented
8947 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
8948 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
8949 avoid surprised unix programs. Not as useful as working file locking
8950 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
8951 nevertheless. :)
</p>
8953 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
8955 <a href=
"http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test
</a></p>
8961 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
8966 <div class=
"padding"></div>
8970 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs
</a>
8976 <p>My file system sematics program
8977 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
8978 a few days ago
</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
8979 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit. I'm
8980 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
8981 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs. My friend
8982 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
8983 Edu, but stopped because of problems. I asked today what the problems
8984 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
8985 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
8989 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
8991 int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
8994 struct stat statbuf;
8995 if (-
1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
8996 retval = statbuf.st_mode &
0x1ff;
9003 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
9004 int test_umask(void) {
9005 printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
9007 mode_t orig_umask = umask(
000);
9009 if (
0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar",
0666))) {
9010 printf(" error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode
666 and umask
000\n",
9014 if (
0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar",
0666))) {
9015 printf(" error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode
666 and umask
007\n",
9023 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
9030 <p>Sure enough. On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:
</p>
9033 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
9034 info: testing symlink creation
9035 info: testing subdirectory creation
9036 info: testing fcntl locking
9037 Read-locking
1 byte from
1073741824
9038 Read-locking
510 byte from
1073741826
9039 Unlocking
1 byte from
1073741824
9040 Write-locking
1 byte from
1073741824
9041 Write-locking
510 byte from
1073741826
9042 Unlocking
2 byte from
1073741824
9043 info: testing umask effect on file creation
9046 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
9050 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
9051 info: testing symlink creation
9052 info: testing subdirectory creation
9053 info: testing fcntl locking
9054 Read-locking
1 byte from
1073741824
9055 Read-locking
510 byte from
1073741826
9056 Unlocking
1 byte from
1073741824
9057 Write-locking
1 byte from
1073741824
9058 Write-locking
510 byte from
1073741826
9059 Unlocking
2 byte from
1073741824
9060 info: testing umask effect on file creation
9061 error: Wrong file mode
644 when creating using mode
666 and umask
000
9062 error: Wrong file mode
640 when creating using mode
666 and umask
007
9065 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
9066 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
9069 <p>Update
2010-
08-
26: Reported the issue in
9070 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #
594498</a></p>
9072 <p>Update
2010-
08-
27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
9073 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
9074 <a href=
"http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test
</a>.
</p>
9080 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
9085 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9089 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent
</a>
9095 <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
9096 <a href=
"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
9097 to crush dissent
</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
9098 well. Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
9099 should go down. In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
9106 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet
</a>.
9111 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9115 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients
</a>
9121 <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
9122 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
9123 configuration settings on the clients. I believe the work to be
9124 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
9125 generated configuration.
</p>
9127 <p>What is the point, you might ask? The point is to allow a Debian
9128 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
9129 without any manual configuration.
</p>
9131 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
9132 the University of Oslo using PXE. With the PXE installation, I am
9133 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
9134 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
9135 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
9136 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret). After answering
9137 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
9138 after around
50 minutes it is done. I press enter to finish the
9139 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE. When the machine is
9140 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
9141 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
9142 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
9143 same username and password to the KDE
4.4 desktop. At no point during
9144 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
9145 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
9146 fetched via DHCP and DNS. The roaming workstation is now ready for
9149 <p>How was this done, you might wonder? First of all, here is the
9150 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
9151 working properly out of the box:
</p>
9154 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.
</li>
9155 <li>Web proxy URL.
</li>
9156 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).
</li>
9157 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.
</li>
9158 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)
</li>
9159 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)
</li>
9160 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)
</li>
9163 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything? Let me knew if I did.)
</p>
9165 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
9166 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
9167 administrators to track their machines. Since yesterday, everything
9168 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
9169 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.
</p>
9171 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
9172 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
9173 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
9174 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
9175 /etc/apt/apt.conf. I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
9176 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
9177 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
9178 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.
</p>
9180 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
9181 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot. First the
9182 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain. If
9183 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead. If an
9184 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
9185 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
9186 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS. If there are several
9187 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
9188 LDAP subtree is used as the base. If defaultNamingContext is missing,
9189 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
9190 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
9191 such an object is used as the LDAP base. For Kerberos, a similar
9192 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
9193 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record. I've been unable to find a way to
9194 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
9195 current DNS domain is used.
</p>
9197 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
9198 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
9199 found. This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
9200 Oslo. A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
9201 server, but have not been implemented yet. I decided to fetch and
9202 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
9203 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
9204 log in nor the passwords required to log in. Usernames and passwords
9205 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
9206 network, and will not change as the laptop move around. For a
9207 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
9208 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much. Perhaps we
9209 should switch those to use sssd too?
</p>
9211 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
9212 located when the user logs in for the first time. The LDAP server is
9213 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
9214 attribute is used if found. If it isn't found, the home directory
9215 path fetched from NSS is used instead. Assuming the path is of the
9216 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
9217 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
9218 smb://server.domain/username. This algorithm works for both Debian
9219 edu and the University of Oslo. Perhaps there are better attributes
9220 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
9223 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
9224 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
9225 more flexible than before. I suspect it will also work for thin
9226 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
9227 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
9230 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
9231 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
9233 <p>Update
2010-
08-
09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
9234 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
9235 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name. Will have to
9236 implement it for Debian Edu. :)
</p>
9242 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
9247 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9251 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">Testing if a file system can be used for home directories...
</a>
9257 <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
9258 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
9259 Edu/Skolelinux machines. This was thought to be no problem, as the
9260 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
9261 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
9262 mount home directories without any problems. But, after months of
9263 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.
</p>
9265 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
9266 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
9267 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
9268 underlying file system is a unix file system. When using a Windows
9269 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
9270 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
9271 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.
</p>
9273 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
9274 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
9275 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
9276 it should. If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
9277 help you find your way out again. This is the fs-test.c source:
</p>
9281 * Some tests to check the file system sematics. Used to verify that
9282 * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
9284 * License: GPL v2 or later
9286 * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
9287 * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
9290 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS
64
9291 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE
1
9292 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE
1
9294 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
9296 #include
<errno.h
>
9297 #include
<fcntl.h
>
9298 #include
<stdio.h
>
9299 #include
<string.h
>
9300 #include
<stdlib.h
>
9301 #include
<sys/file.h
>
9302 #include
<sys/stat.h
>
9303 #include
<sys/types.h
>
9304 #include
<unistd.h
>
9308 * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
9309 * package and linking with -lsqlite3. A more low level test is
9311 * See also
<URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5
>.
9313 #include
<sqlite3.h
>
9314 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS \
9315 "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
9316 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
9318 char *name = "testsqlite.db";
9321 int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
9323 printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
9329 rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,
0, &zErrMsg);
9330 if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
9331 printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
9335 printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
9339 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
9342 * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3. This
9343 * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows
2003. This is
9344 * done in the sqlite3 library.
9346 *
<URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/
2001-
08/msg00854.html
> and the
9347 * POSIX specification
9348 *
<URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/
009695399/functions/fcntl.html
>.
9350 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
9352 char *name = "testsqlite.db";
9354 int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE,
0644);
9355 printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
9357 fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
9358 fl.l_pid = getpid();
9359 printf(" Read-locking
1 byte from
1073741824");
9360 fl.l_start =
1073741824;
9362 fl.l_type = F_RDLCK;
9363 if (
0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9365 printf(" Read-locking
510 byte from
1073741826");
9366 fl.l_start =
1073741826;
9368 fl.l_type = F_RDLCK;
9369 if (
0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9371 printf(" Unlocking
1 byte from
1073741824");
9372 fl.l_start =
1073741824;
9374 fl.l_type = F_UNLCK;
9375 if (
0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9377 printf(" Write-locking
1 byte from
1073741824");
9378 fl.l_start =
1073741824;
9380 fl.l_type = F_WRLCK;
9381 if (
0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9383 printf(" Write-locking
510 byte from
1073741826");
9384 fl.l_start =
1073741826;
9386 if (
0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9388 printf(" Unlocking
2 byte from
1073741824");
9389 fl.l_start =
1073741824;
9391 fl.l_type = F_UNLCK;
9392 if (
0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
9399 * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
9400 * below them. This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
9401 * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
9402 * slowing down file operations.
9404 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
9406 char *path = strdup("test");
9409 printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
9410 for (level =
0; level
< LEVELS; level++) {
9411 char *newpath = NULL;
9412 if (-
1 == mkdir(path,
0777)) {
9413 printf(" error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
9414 path, strerror(errno));
9417 asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
9425 * Test if symlinks can be created. This was a problem detected with
9428 int test_symlinks(void) {
9429 printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
9431 if (-
1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
9432 printf(" error: Unable to create symlink\n");
9436 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
9437 printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
9439 test_subdirectory_creation();
9442 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
9443 test_gcompris_locking();
9448 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
9452 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
9453 info: testing symlink creation
9454 info: testing subdirectory creation
9456 info: testing fcntl locking
9457 Read-locking
1 byte from
1073741824
9458 Read-locking
510 byte from
1073741826
9459 Unlocking
1 byte from
1073741824
9460 Write-locking
1 byte from
1073741824
9461 Write-locking
510 byte from
1073741826
9462 Unlocking
2 byte from
1073741824
9465 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
9466 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
9467 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
9468 the read-only lock (while Windows do not). Another was a bug in the
9469 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
9470 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
9471 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
9472 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.
</p>
9474 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
9477 <p>Update
2010-
08-
27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
9478 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
9479 <a href=
"http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test
</a>.
</p>
9485 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
9490 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9494 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Autodetecting_Client_setup_for_roaming_workstations_in_Debian_Edu.html">Autodetecting Client setup for roaming workstations in Debian Edu
</a>
9500 <p>A few days ago, I
9501 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
9502 to install
</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
9503 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
9504 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
9505 university infrastructure. It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
9506 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
9507 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
9508 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
9509 around it. Now I am a huge step further along that road.
</p>
9511 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
9512 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
9513 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
9514 servers for Kerberos authentication. All this without any
9515 configuration at all during installation. My users home directory got
9516 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
9517 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured. In addition to
9518 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
9519 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
9520 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf. Iceweasel and KDE is
9521 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
9522 a proxy when at the university network. If the machine is moved to a
9523 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
9524 gave it a IP address.
</p>
9526 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
9527 entry ldap.$domain. If this do not exist, it look for the
9528 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
9529 server. Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
9530 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
9531 pick the first one as the LDAP base. For Kerberos, a similar
9532 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
9533 uppercase version of $domain.
</p>
9535 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask. SMB mounting my home
9536 directory do not work. No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
9537 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
9538 the cause. These are not properly configured during installation, and
9539 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
9540 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(
</p>
9542 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
9543 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
9544 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
9545 authentication. It should also work out of the box in a Active
9546 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
9547 with UID and GID values.
</p>
9549 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
9550 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
9556 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
9561 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9565 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">Debian Edu roaming workstation - at the university of Oslo
</a>
9571 <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
9572 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
9573 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
9574 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
9575 infrastructure. In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
9576 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
9579 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
9580 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
9581 /etc/mklocaluser.d/
20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
9582 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
9583 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
9584 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
9585 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
9588 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
9589 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
9590 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
9591 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
9592 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
9593 university servers.
</p>
9595 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
9596 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
9597 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
9598 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
9599 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
9606 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
9611 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9615 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery
</a>
9621 <p>I discovered this while doing
9622 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
9623 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze
</a>. A few packages
9624 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
9625 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
9626 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.
</p>
9628 <p>An example is from todays
9629 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
9630 of KDE using aptitude
</a>. In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
9631 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade. The cause is simple. If a
9632 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
9633 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
9634 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
9635 because its dependencies are unavailable.
</p>
9637 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:
</p>
9640 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
9641 perl-modules depends on perl (
>=
5.10.1-
1); however:
9642 Version of perl on system is
5.10.0-
19lenny
2.
9643 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
9644 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
9647 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
9648 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug
</a>, and will
9649 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
9650 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
9651 failures. Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
9652 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
9653 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
9654 of dependency loops.
</p>
9657 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
9658 tireless effort by Bill Allombert
</a>, the number of circular
9660 <a href=
"http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
9661 is dropping
</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)
</p>
9663 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
9664 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier
</a> and
9665 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour
</a> between
9666 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
9667 dependency. Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
9674 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
9679 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9683 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Debian_Edu_test_release__alpha0__based_on_Squeeze_is_released.html">First Debian Edu test release (alpha0) based on Squeeze is released
</a>
9689 <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
9690 with the next Debian Edu release. Not nearly done, but one major step
9694 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
9695 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
9696 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
9697 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
9698 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
9699 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
9700 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
9701 language of choice, please let us know too.
</p>
9703 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
9704 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
9705 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.
</p>
9707 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
9708 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
9711 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version
</p>
9714 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
9716 <li>Desktop environment KDE
4.4 =
> the new KDE desktop in
9717 combination with some new artwork
9718 <li>Web browser Iceweasel
3.5
9719 <li>OpenOffice.org
3.2
9720 <li>Educational toolbox GCompris
9.3
9721 <li>Music creator Rosegarden
10.04.2
9722 <li>Image editor Gimp
2.6.10
9723 <li>Virtual universe Celestia
1.6.0
9724 <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium
0.10.4
9725 <li>3D modeler Blender
2.49.2 (new application)
9726 <li>Video editor Kdenlive
0.7.7 (new application)
9728 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
9734 <li>SMTP (sender verification)
9737 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.
</li>
9738 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
9739 fetched from LDAP.
</li>
9740 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.
</li>
9741 <li>General cleanup (not finished)
</li>
9743 <p>The following features are not working as they should
</p>
9746 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
9747 scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
9749 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
9750 and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
9751 clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.
</li>
9752 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.
</li>
9753 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.
</li>
9754 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.
</li>
9755 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
9756 netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.
</li>
9757 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
9758 some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
9759 jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.
</li>
9760 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
9761 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
9762 and help out with translations.
</li>
9765 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use
</p>
9768 <li><a href=
"ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso
</a></li>
9769 <li><a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso
</a></li>
9770 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso
</li>
9772 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use
</p>
9775 <li><a href=
"ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso
</a></li>
9776 <li><a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso
</a></li>
9777 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso
</li>
9780 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
9781 get closer to the final release.
</p>
9783 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are
</p>
9786 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso
</li>
9787 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso
</li>
9790 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are
</p>
9792 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso
</li>
9793 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-
6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso
</li>
9795 <p>How to report bugs:
9796 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla
</p>
9798 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org
</p>
9805 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
9810 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9814 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_step_closer_to_single_signon_in_Debian_Edu.html">One step closer to single signon in Debian Edu
</a>
9820 <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
9821 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
9822 Edu/Skolelinux into shape. This future version will use Kerberos for
9823 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
9824 getting rid of password questions one at the time.
</p>
9826 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
9827 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
9828 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
9829 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server. This
9830 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
9831 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
9832 package. I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.
</p>
9834 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
9835 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
9836 password when mounting the SMB volume. A simple click on the shortcut
9837 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
9840 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
9841 Debian Edu. We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
9842 also Samba. Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.
</p>
9844 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
9845 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
9846 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
9847 the release. It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
9848 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
9849 time for a alpha0 release today. As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
9850 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
9851 release another day.
</p>
9853 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
9854 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
9860 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet
</a>.
9865 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9869 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenStreetmap_one_step_closer_to_having_routing_on_its_front_page.html">OpenStreetmap one step closer to having routing on its front page
</a>
9876 <a href=
"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
9877 opengeodata blog entry
</a>, I just discovered that the
9878 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
9879 <a href=
"http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
9880 for calculating routes
</a>. The support is still experimental and
9881 only available from the development server, until more experience is
9882 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.
</p>
9884 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
9885 was provided by
<a href=
"http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade
</a>,
9886 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
9887 the issue. I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
9888 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
9889 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
9890 www.openstreetmap.org front page.
</p>
9896 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web
</a>.
9901 <div class=
"padding"></div>
9905 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html">What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP
</a>
9912 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup
</a>
9914 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">previous
9916 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
9917 all
</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.
</p>
9919 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
9920 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
9921 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server. The two
9922 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.
</p>
9924 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
9925 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
9926 on a Debian Edu main-server. Here is a summary.
9928 <p><strong>powerdns
</strong></p>
9930 <a href=
"http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
9931 on how to
</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
9934 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
9935 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
9936 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
9937 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
9938 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
9939 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.
</p>
9941 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
9942 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
9943 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
9944 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
9945 "dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
9946 "(associateddomain=
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry. For
9947 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
9948 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
9949 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
9950 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
9951 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
9952 spfrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entries it is looking for
9953 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
9954 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
9955 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. The equivalent
9956 ldapsearch commands could look like this:
</p>
9959 ldapsearch -h ldap \
9960 -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
9961 -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
9962 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
9963 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
9964 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
9965 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
9967 ldapsearch -h ldap \
9968 -b dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
9969 -s base -x '(associateddomain=
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
9970 dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
9971 hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
9972 srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
9975 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
9976 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
9977 example LDAP objects used there. In addition to these objects, the
9978 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9982 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9984 objectclass: dnsdomain
9985 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9988 associateddomain: tjener.intern
9990 dn: dc=
2,dc=
2,dc=
0,dc=
10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9992 objectclass: dnsdomain2
9993 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9995 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
9996 associateddomain:
2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
9999 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently. When looking for
10000 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
10001 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
10002 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
10003 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
10004 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
10005 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp. For reverse entires it also do a
10006 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=
10.0.2.2)"
10007 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
10008 modifytimestamp. In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
10009 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
10012 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
10016 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
10017 '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
10018 cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
10019 rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
10020 nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
10021 rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
10023 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
10024 '(arecord=
10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
10025 </pre></blockquote>
10027 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
10028 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
10029 reverse lookups.
</p>
10031 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
10032 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
10033 need to generate a DNS reply. This make it able to work with any
10034 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.
</p>
10036 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC
1274) and
10037 dnsdomain2 schemas. The latter is used for reverse entries like
10038 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.
</p>
10040 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
10041 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
10042 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain). The use
10043 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
10044 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.
</p>
10046 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
10047 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
10048 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
10049 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
10050 (zonename and relativedomainname).
</p>
10052 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
10053 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
10054 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
10055 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
10056 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
10057 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):
</p>
10060 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
10063 MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
10064 DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
10065 TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
10066 NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
10067 A6Record $ DNAMERecord
10069 </pre></blockquote>
10071 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
10072 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
10073 all the attributes PowerDNS wants. I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
10074 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
10075 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
10076 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.
</p>
10078 <p><strong>ISC dhcp
</strong></p>
10080 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
10081 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want. This
10082 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
10083 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
10084 what is needed without having to read the source code.
</p>
10086 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
10087 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
10088 stored. These are the relevant entries from
10089 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:
</p>
10092 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
10093 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
10094 </pre></blockquote>
10096 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
10097 configuration it need. The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
10098 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))". The
10099 search result is this entry:
</p>
10102 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10105 objectClass: dhcpServer
10106 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10107 </pre></blockquote>
10109 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
10110 subtree with DHCP configuration. The DHCP configuration subtree base
10111 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
10112 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
10113 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
10114 The search result is this entry:
</p>
10117 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10120 objectClass: dhcpService
10121 objectClass: dhcpOptions
10122 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10123 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
10124 dhcpStatements: authoritative
10125 dhcpOption: smtp-server code
69 = array of ip-address
10126 dhcpOption: www-server code
72 = array of ip-address
10127 dhcpOption: wpad-url code
252 = text
10128 </pre></blockquote>
10130 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time. When
10131 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
10132 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
10133 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
10134 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost. These provide options
10135 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc. Leaving out the
10136 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
10137 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
10138 related computer objects.
</p>
10140 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
10141 of the client (
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00 in this example), using a subtree
10142 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
10143 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
10144 00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00))" as the filter. This is what a host object look
10148 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10151 objectClass: dhcpHost
10152 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
10153 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
10154 </pre></blockquote>
10156 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
10157 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
10158 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure. On the
10159 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
10160 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries. The latter should make
10161 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
10162 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
10163 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
10164 structural object class.
10166 <p><strong>Conclusion
</strong></p>
10168 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
10169 to which LDAP schemas to use. While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
10170 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
10171 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
10172 in the configuration.
</p>
10174 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
10175 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
10176 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
10177 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
10178 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
10181 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
10182 this might work for Debian Edu:
</p>
10186 cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
10187 cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
10188 cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
10189 cn=
10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
10190 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
10191 cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
10192 cn=
192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
10193 cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
10194 ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
10195 cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
10196 </pre></blockquote>
10198 <P>This is not tested yet. If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
10199 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
10200 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
10201 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.
</p>
10203 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
10207 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10210 objectClass: dhcpHost
10211 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10212 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
10213 associateddomain: hostname.intern
10214 arecord:
10.11.12.13
10215 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
10216 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
10217 </pre></blockquote>
10219 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
10220 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
10221 auxiliary object class.
</p>
10227 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
10232 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10234 <div class=
"entry">
10235 <div class=
"title">
10236 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects
</a>
10242 <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
10243 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
10244 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
10245 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
10246 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.
</p>
10248 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
10249 information finally found a solution that seem to work.
</p>
10251 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
10252 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry. If
10253 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
10254 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
10255 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
10256 to a slave DNS server.
</p>
10258 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
10259 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
10260 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
10261 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
10262 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup. It
10265 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
10266 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
10267 an earlier email. The combined LDAP object will look something like
10271 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10273 objectClass: dhcphost
10274 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
10275 objectclass: dnsdomainaux
10276 associateddomain: hostname.intern
10277 arecord:
10.11.12.13
10278 dhcphwaddress: ethernet
00:
00:
00:
00:
00:
00
10279 dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
10281 </pre></blockquote>
10283 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
10284 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
10285 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress. LTSP will use
10286 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.
</p>
10288 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
10289 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
10290 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
10291 that. If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
10292 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
10293 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
10294 content. I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
10295 might be a good place to put it.
</p>
10297 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10298 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
10304 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
10309 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10311 <div class=
"entry">
10312 <div class=
"title">
10313 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP
</a>
10319 <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
10320 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
10321 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
10322 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.
</p>
10324 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
10325 to get configuration from LDAP. The idea is to look up the MAC
10326 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
10327 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
10330 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
10331 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
10332 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.
</p>
10334 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
10335 this approach. A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
10336 need to be written. Comments, suggestions, etc?
</p>
10339 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
10341 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
10343 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
10344 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
10345 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
10347 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
10348 # existence of attribute names.
10350 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
10351 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
10352 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
10354 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
10355 # configuration settings. Something like this should work:
10357 # objectclass (
1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
10360 # MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
10362 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
10363 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
10364 LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
10365 for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $
5}'|sort -u) ; do
10366 filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
10367 ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
10368 grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
10369 # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
10370 attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
10371 # bass value on to clients
10372 eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
10376 </pre></blockquote>
10378 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
10379 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
10380 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
10381 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
10382 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)
</p>
10384 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10385 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
10387 <p>Update
2010-
07-
17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
10388 configuration in LDAP that was created around year
2000 by
10389 <a href=
"http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
10390 Xperience, Inc.,
2000</a>. I found its
10391 <a href=
"http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files
</a> on a
10392 personal home page over at redhat.com.
</p>
10398 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
10403 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10405 <div class=
"entry">
10406 <div class=
"title">
10407 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI
</a>
10414 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
10415 last post
</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
10416 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma. The java application
10417 <a href=
"http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer
</a> is claimed to be capable of
10418 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
10419 authenticate using Kerberos. I have only tested the Kerberos
10420 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
10421 LDAP with my test user yet. It is
10422 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
10423 Debian
</a> testing and unstable at the moment. The only problem I
10424 have with it is how it handle errors. If something go wrong, its
10425 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
10426 and remove the failing query. Nothing big, but very annoying.
</p>
10432 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
10437 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10439 <div class=
"entry">
10440 <div class=
"title">
10441 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html">Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop
</a>
10447 <p>Here is a short update on my
<a
10448 href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
10449 Debian Lenny-
>Squeeze upgrade testing
</a>. Here is a summary of the
10450 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude. I'm
10451 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
10452 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
10453 (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#
584861</a> and
10454 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#
585716</a>).
</p>
10456 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
10457 complete list of the installed packages. Based on this I see these
10458 differences when I did a test run today. As usual, I do not really
10459 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
10460 publish the difference.
</p>
10462 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude
</p>
10465 at-spi cpp-
4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
10466 libatspi1.0-
0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-
1-common
10467 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
10468 libgtksourceview-common libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-alsa
10469 libpt-
1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
10470 libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
10471 python-
4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
10472 python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
10475 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
</p>
10478 bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
10479 gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
10480 libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-
50
10481 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-
11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
10482 libdirectfb-
1.0-
0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-
6 libedataserver1.2-
9
10483 libeel2-
2.20 libepc-
1.0-
1 libepc-ui-
1.0-
1 libexchange-storage1.2-
3
10484 libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-
3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
10485 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-
0 libgksuui1.0-
1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-
2
10486 libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-
1 libgnomeprint2.2-
0
10487 libgnomeprintui2.2-
0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-
0
10488 libgtksourceview1.0-
0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
10489 libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++
10
10490 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
10491 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-
2.2 libosp5
10492 libparted1.8-
10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
10493 libpt-
1.10.10 libraw1394-
8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-
8
10494 libssh2-
1 libsuitesparse-
3.1.0 libswfdec-
0.6-
90 libtalloc1
10495 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
10496 libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
10497 mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
10500 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get
</p>
10503 gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
10504 python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
10505 xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10506 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10507 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
10508 xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
10509 xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
10510 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10511 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10512 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10513 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10514 xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
10515 xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
10516 xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
10517 xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
10518 xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
10519 xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
10520 xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
10521 xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
10522 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
10523 xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
10526 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get
</p>
10529 deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
10530 xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
10531 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
10534 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
10535 <a href=
"http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
10536 in git
</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
10537 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
10538 the difference somewhat.
10544 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
10549 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10551 <div class=
"entry">
10552 <div class=
"title">
10553 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Caching_password__user_and_group_on_a_roaming_Debian_laptop.html">Caching password, user and group on a roaming Debian laptop
</a>
10559 <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
10560 a bit troubling. Laptops are typically used also when not connected
10561 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
10562 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
10563 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
10564 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
10565 in Debian. Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
10566 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
10567 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.
</p>
10569 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir
</h2>
10571 This is the traditional method with a twist. The password caching is
10572 provided by libpam-ccreds (version
10-
4 or later is needed on
10573 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd. The directory
10574 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP. If one want to use
10575 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
10576 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal. If one is happy having a
10577 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
10578 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
10579 using libpam-mklocaluser. A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
10580 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
10581 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #
568577</a> is in the
10582 archive. Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
10583 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
10584 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/. This
10585 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.
</p>
10587 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured
</p>
10590 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
10591 </pre></blockquote>
10593 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
10594 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site. Make sure the
10595 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
10596 sent in clear text to the LDAP server. I've been unable to get TLS
10597 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
10598 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
10599 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
10600 on how to get this working.
</p>
10602 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
10603 caching until
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #
485282</a>
10604 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
10605 currently in /etc/nscd.conf. The changes are in the fields
10606 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
10607 instructions I found in the
10608 <a href=
"http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops
</a>
10609 instructions by Flyn Computing.
</p>
10613 reload-count unlimited
10616 enable-cache passwd yes
10617 positive-time-to-live passwd
2592000
10618 negative-time-to-live passwd
20
10619 suggested-size passwd
211
10620 check-files passwd yes
10621 persistent passwd yes
10623 max-db-size passwd
33554432
10624 auto-propagate passwd yes
10626 enable-cache group yes
10627 positive-time-to-live group
2592000
10628 negative-time-to-live group
20
10629 suggested-size group
211
10630 check-files group yes
10631 persistent group yes
10633 max-db-size group
33554432
10634 auto-propagate group yes
10636 enable-cache hosts no
10637 positive-time-to-live hosts
2592000
10638 negative-time-to-live hosts
20
10639 suggested-size hosts
211
10640 check-files hosts yes
10641 persistent hosts yes
10643 max-db-size hosts
33554432
10645 enable-cache services yes
10646 positive-time-to-live services
2592000
10647 negative-time-to-live services
20
10648 suggested-size services
211
10649 check-files services yes
10650 persistent services yes
10651 shared services yes
10652 max-db-size services
33554432
10653 </pre></blockquote>
10655 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
10656 automatically like the one provided in
10657 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #
496915</a>, the file
10658 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
10659 directory service on the machine. /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
10660 look like this:
</p>
10666 hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
10672 netgroup: files ldap
10673 </pre></blockquote>
10675 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
10676 shadow and netgroup.
</p>
10678 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
10679 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
10680 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
10683 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
10684 libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir
</h2>
10686 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
10687 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
10688 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
10689 LDAP database is available. I have not tested such setup, because I
10690 discovered sssd.
</p>
10692 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser
</h2>
10694 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
10695 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
10696 <a href=
"https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd
</a> package from Redhat.
10697 It is part of the
<a href=
"http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA
</A> project
10698 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
10699 machines. The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
10700 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
10701 libpam-ccreds. It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS. Version
10702 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
10703 in version
1.5 expected to show up later in
2010. Because the
10704 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package
</a>
10705 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
10706 version
1.2 is now in testing.
10708 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
10709 roaming setup I want
</p>
10712 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
10713 </pre></blockquote>
10715 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
10716 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf
</tt>.
10720 config_file_version =
2
10721 reconnection_retries =
3
10723 services = nss, pam
10727 filter_groups = root
10728 filter_users = root
10729 reconnection_retries =
3
10732 reconnection_retries =
3
10736 cache_credentials = true
10739 auth_provider = ldap
10740 chpass_provider = ldap
10742 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
10743 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
10744 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
10745 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
10746 </pre></blockquote>
10748 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking. Had to set
10749 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.
</p>
10751 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
10752 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
10753 modify it manually.
</p>
10755 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10756 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
10762 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
10767 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10769 <div class=
"entry">
10770 <div class=
"title">
10771 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI
</a>
10777 <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
10778 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
10779 tool to browse the LDAP tree. The only one I was able to find in
10780 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
10781 <a href=
"http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA
</a>, which has proved to
10782 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
10783 populated by default in Skolelinux. Thanks to it, I have been able to
10784 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
10785 objects. It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze. If you
10786 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)
</p>
10788 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
10789 the BTS yet. There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
10790 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
10791 Debian submenu in KDE. I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
10794 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet. I would
10795 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
10796 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet. So in the mean time, I use
10797 <a href=
"http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi
</a> for that.
</p>
10799 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
10800 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
10802 <p>Update
2010-
06-
29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
10803 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq
</a> package as a
10804 useful GUI alternative. It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
10805 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze. Unless that
10806 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.
</p>
10812 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
10817 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10819 <div class=
"entry">
10820 <div class=
"title">
10821 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object
</a>
10828 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
10829 about the fact
</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
10830 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
10831 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.
</p>
10833 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
10834 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
10835 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
10836 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.
</p>
10838 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
10839 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
10840 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
10843 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
10845 <a href=
"http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
10846 schema
</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
10847 available today from IETF.
</p>
10850 --- dhcp.schema (revision
65192)
10851 +++ dhcp.schema (working copy)
10852 @@ -
376,
7 +
376,
7 @@
10853 objectclass (
2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
10855 DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
10857 + SUP top AUXILIARY
10859 MAY (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
10860 X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
10863 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
10864 Edu/Squeeze. We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
10865 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.
</p>
10867 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10868 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
10874 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
10879 <div class=
"padding"></div>
10881 <div class=
"entry">
10882 <div class=
"title">
10883 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html">Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output
</a>
10889 <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
10890 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run. Until now,
10891 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
10892 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
10893 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
10897 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
10898 tasksel --new-install
10899 </pre></blockquote>
10901 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
10902 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
10903 any output what so ever.
10905 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
10906 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
10907 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
10908 happen. Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
10909 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
10910 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run. I ended up using
10914 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
10915 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
10917 </pre></blockquote>
10919 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "
<tt>aptitude -q
10920 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
10921 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
10922 ~pimportant
</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
10923 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
10924 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
10927 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
10928 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
10935 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug
">nuug</a>.
10940 <div class="padding
"></div>
10942 <div class="entry
">
10943 <div class="title
">
10944 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html
">Officeshots taking shape</a>
10950 <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
10951 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/
">OfficeShots</a>
10952 is a great service. It is to ODF documents what
10953 <a href="http://browsershots.org/
">BrowserShots</a> is for web
10956 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
10957 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
10958 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
10959 interested in supporting the project. I helped him to navigate his
10960 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
10961 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
10962 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot. The machine is
10963 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
10964 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
10965 see how the project is doing.</p>
10967 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
10968 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
10969 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
10970 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
10971 Windows. This is great.</p>
10977 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard
">standard</a>.
10982 <div class="padding
"></div>
10984 <div class="entry
">
10985 <div class="title
">
10986 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html
">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</a>
10993 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
">testing
10994 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
10995 finally made the upgrade logs available from
10996 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/
">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
10997 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
10998 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting. This time
10999 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
11001 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
11002 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze. The
11003 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
11004 xserver-xorg-video* drivers. Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
11005 sure why. When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
11006 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
11007 longer needed. Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
11008 I do not know. Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
11010 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
11011 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
11012 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
11013 too surprising.</p>
11015 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
11016 and avoided, and perhaps others as well. Here are the complete list
11017 of planned removals. The complete logs is available from the URL
11018 above. Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
11019 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
11020 conffile questions. No idea why. I worked around it by using
11021 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
11024 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
11025 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
11026 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
11027 iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
11028 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
11029 nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
11030 serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
11031 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11032 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11033 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
11034 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
11035 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
11036 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
11037 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11038 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11039 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11040 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11041 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11042 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
11043 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
11044 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
11045 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
11046 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
11047 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
11048 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
11049 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
11050 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
11051 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
11052 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
11053 xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
11055 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
11057 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
11058 djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
11059 gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
11060 gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
11061 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
11062 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
11063 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
11064 libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
11065 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
11066 libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
11067 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
11068 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
11069 libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
11070 libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
11071 libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
11072 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
11073 libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
11074 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
11075 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
11076 libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
11077 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
11078 libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
11079 libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
11080 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
11081 openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
11082 python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
11083 python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
11084 python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
11085 swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
11086 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11087 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
11090 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
11092 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
11093 kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
11094 kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
11095 kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
11096 kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
11097 libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
11098 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
11099 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
11100 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
11101 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
11102 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
11103 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
11104 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
11105 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
11106 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11107 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
11108 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
11109 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
11110 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
11111 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
11112 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
11113 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
11114 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
11115 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
11116 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
11117 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
11118 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
11119 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
11121 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
11122 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
11123 djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
11124 ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
11125 kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
11126 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
11127 kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
11128 kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
11129 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
11130 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
11131 kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
11132 kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
11133 klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
11134 kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
11135 krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
11136 ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
11137 kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
11138 kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
11139 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
11140 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
11141 libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
11142 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
11143 libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
11144 libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
11145 libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
11146 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
11147 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
11148 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
11149 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
11150 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
11151 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
11152 libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
11153 openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
11154 superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
11155 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
11156 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
11157 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
11165 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu
">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
11170 <div class="padding
"></div>
11172 <div class="entry
">
11173 <div class="title
">
11174 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html
">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
11180 <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
11181 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly. A few bugs
11182 have been discovered and reported in the process
11183 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
11184 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
11185 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
584861">#584861</a> in
11186 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
11187 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
11189 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
11190 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
11191 it. To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
11192 script is inserted. To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
11193 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
11194 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
11196 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
11197 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
11198 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
11199 is created. The bug report
11200 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/
566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
11201 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
11202 to make sure the upgrade go well. Testing on virtual and real
11203 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
11204 do the trick in such settings anyway. This is a
11205 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-
26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-
804130/
">known
11206 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
11207 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
11208 working with old kernels or something like that. I really wish the
11209 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
11210 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
11211 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
11212 Debian Squeeze.</p>
11214 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades. This test
11215 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
11231 exec
< /dev/null
11233 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
11234 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
11236 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
11237 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
11238 cat
> $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
<<EOF
11242 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
11244 umount $tmpdir/proc
11246 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
11247 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
11248 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
11250 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
11252 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger. It need the test scripts
11253 # to return the correct answers.
11254 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
11255 chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
11257 # Include the desktop and laptop task
11258 for test in desktop laptop ; do
11259 echo
> $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
<<EOF
11263 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
11266 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
11267 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
11268 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
11269 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
11271 echo deb $mirror $to main
> $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
11272 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
11273 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
11274 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
11276 </pre></blockquote>
11278 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
11279 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
11280 differently so far. I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
11281 regularly and post the result on the web. The Gnome upgrade currently
11282 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
11283 kdebase-workspace-data
</p>
11285 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
11286 (KDE
167 KiB, Gnome
516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
11287 post, so I will refrain from trying. I can report that for Gnome,
11288 aptitude report
760 packages upgraded,
448 newly installed,
129 to
11289 remove and
1 not upgraded and
1024MB need to be downloaded while for
11290 KDE the same numbers are
702 packages upgraded,
507 newly installed,
11291 193 to remove and
0 not upgraded and
1117MB need to be downloaded
</p>
11293 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
11294 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
11295 booting without a hitch. Was unsure if there were still bugs with
11296 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
11297 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
11304 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
11309 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11311 <div class=
"entry">
11312 <div class=
"title">
11313 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html">Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it
</a>
11319 <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
11320 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
11321 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd. The packages with such
11322 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
11323 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart. Because of
11324 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
11325 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.
</p>
11327 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
11328 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
11337 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
11339 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
11340 </pre></blockquote>
11342 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
11346 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-
2.88
11351 </pre></blockquote>
11353 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
11354 sysvinit are not set by upstart. Not sure if it is intentional or not
11355 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.
</p>
11357 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
11358 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
11365 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
11370 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11372 <div class=
"entry">
11373 <div class=
"title">
11374 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...
</a>
11381 <a href=
"http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
11382 of Rob Weir
</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
11383 <a href=
"http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
11384 Standards Wars
</a> (PDF
25 pages). I recommend it for everyone
11385 following the standards wars of today.
</p>
11391 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard
</a>.
11396 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11398 <div class=
"entry">
11399 <div class=
"title">
11400 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site
</a>
11406 <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
11407 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
11408 information extracted from each machine. The script to do so is
11409 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
11410 the Skolelinux build servers:
</p>
11413 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
11415 Dell Computer Corporation
1
11418 eserver xSeries
345 -[
8670M1X]-
1
11422 </pre></blockquote>
11424 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
11425 provided in each machine. Here there are Intel machines without model
11426 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
11427 machines listed as [no-dmi-info]. One can add -l as a command line
11428 option to list the individual machines.
</p>
11430 <p>A larger list is
11431 <a href=
"http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
11432 city of Narvik
</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
11433 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly. In their report there
11434 are ~
1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
11435 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
11436 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
11443 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary
</a>.
11448 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11450 <div class=
"entry">
11451 <div class=
"title">
11452 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html">KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?
</a>
11458 <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
11459 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled. The
11460 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
11461 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
11464 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
11465 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#
583312</a> initially filed
11466 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
11467 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
11468 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#
524751</a> initially filed against
11469 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.
</p>
11471 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
11472 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
11473 distribution work out of the box for these users. The nvidia driver
11474 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
11475 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
11476 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
11477 distribution that work for them. I have no idea what the solution is,
11478 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.
</p>
11480 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.
</p>
11486 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
11491 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11493 <div class=
"entry">
11494 <div class=
"title">
11495 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing
</a>
11501 <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
11502 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
11503 issues are known and should be solved:
11507 <li>The wicd package seen to
11508 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting
</a> and
11509 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup
</a> when
11510 parallel booting is enabled. No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
11511 seem to be on the case.
</li>
11513 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
11514 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition
</a>
11515 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect. The
11516 maintainer is on the case.
</li>
11518 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
11519 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
11520 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back
</a> to
11521 sysv-rc. One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
11522 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
11523 sysv-rc more robust. Will investigate some more and probably upload a
11524 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
11525 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.
</li>
11529 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
11530 solvable before Squeeze is released. In addition to these there are
11531 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
11532 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.
</p>
11534 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11535 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11536 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11537 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
11539 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.
</p>
11545 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
11550 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11552 <div class=
"entry">
11553 <div class=
"title">
11554 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer
</a>
11560 <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
11561 found time today to return to the project. Having to spend less time
11562 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
11563 definitely helped freeing some time.
</p>
11565 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu. We
11566 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
11567 get disk and network controllers working. Without having these
11568 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
11569 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
11570 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
11571 an external medium is a support pain. Initially, I expected it to be
11572 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
11573 debian-installer to find and use them. This proved to be wrong.
11574 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
11575 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
11576 /cdrom/firmware/). This also proved to not work, and at this point I
11577 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
11580 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
11581 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
11582 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
11583 packages. It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
11584 "external" media devices. Today I changed it to also look in the
11585 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
11586 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu. I also changed it to
11587 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
11588 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
11589 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
11592 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
11593 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
11594 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
11595 run these before activating the firmware during installation. The
11596 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
11597 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.
</p>
11599 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
11600 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.
</p>
11606 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
11611 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11613 <div class=
"entry">
11614 <div class=
"title">
11615 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pieces_of_the_roaming_laptop_puzzle_in_Debian.html">Pieces of the roaming laptop puzzle in Debian
</a>
11621 <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
11622 Edu finally entered the Debian archive. Today, the new
11623 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser
</a>
11624 package was accepted. Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
11626 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python
</a>
11627 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
11628 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd
</a> package
11629 passed NEW on Monday. In addition, the
11630 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds
</a>
11631 package we need is in experimental (version
10-
4) since Saturday, and
11632 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.
</p>
11634 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
11635 roaming laptops. The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
11636 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
11637 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
11638 for nscd in
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
11639 #
485282</a> is implemented. The alternative setup is to use sssd with
11640 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
11641 care of the caching of passwords and group information.
</p>
11643 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
11644 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
11645 problem with the server certificate. I plan to update the Debian
11646 package to version
1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
11647 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
11648 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches. Upstream is friendly and responsive,
11649 and I am sure we will find a good solution.
</p>
11651 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
11652 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
11653 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
11654 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
11655 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information. The
11656 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
11657 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
11658 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used. To avoid confusion
11659 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
11660 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
11661 on the home directory servers.
</p>
11663 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
11664 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
11665 is created. Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
11666 message. The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
11667 a bug in gdm. Have not investigated if there is some other message
11668 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.
</p>
11670 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11671 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
11677 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
11682 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11684 <div class=
"entry">
11685 <div class=
"title">
11686 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html">Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable
</a>
11692 <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
11693 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
11694 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
11695 expected, if I am to believe the
11696 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
11697 on debian-devel@
</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
11698 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
11699 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen. If serious problems are
11700 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
11701 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
11704 More information about
11705 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11706 based boot sequencing
</a> is available from the Debian wiki. It is
11707 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
11708 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:
</p>
11712 </pre></blockquote>
11714 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11715 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11716 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11717 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
11723 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
11728 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11730 <div class=
"entry">
11731 <div class=
"title">
11732 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients
</a>
11738 <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
11739 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
11740 system
</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
11741 network. Each machine will automatically report its status to the
11742 central server after boot and once per night. The network setup is
11743 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
11744 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines. This is useful
11745 to update the DHCP configuration.
</p>
11747 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
11748 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary. Run
11749 this on the collector host:
</p>
11752 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
11753 </pre></blockquote>
11755 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
11756 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.
</p>
11758 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
11759 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
11760 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
11761 tables in LDAP using this information. Such tool is unfortunately not
11768 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary
</a>.
11773 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11775 <div class=
"entry">
11776 <div class=
"title">
11777 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart
</a>
11783 <p>The last few days a new boot system called
11784 <a href=
"http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd
</a>
11786 <a href=
"http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced
</a>
11788 to the free software world. I have not yet had time to play around
11789 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
11790 <a href=
"http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart
</a>, and might prove to be
11791 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
11792 based boot system. Tollef is
11793 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process
</a> of getting
11794 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work. I
11795 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
11796 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
11797 at the moment do not.
</p>
11799 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
11800 platform support. It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
11801 some new kernel features enabled to function properly. This means
11802 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
11803 system. Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
11806 <p>In the mean time, based on the
11807 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
11808 on debian-devel@
</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
11809 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
11810 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
11811 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies. A
11812 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
11813 already in experimental. If all go well, Squeeze will be released
11814 with parallel booting enabled by default.
</p>
11820 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
11825 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11827 <div class=
"entry">
11828 <div class=
"title">
11829 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html">Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing
</a>
11835 <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
11836 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
11837 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies. If you want
11838 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
11839 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11840 based boot sequencing
</a> is enabled, and add this line to
11841 /etc/default/rcS:
</p>
11844 CONCURRENCY=makefile
11845 </pre></blockquote>
11847 <p>That is it. It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
11848 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
11849 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
11850 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts. Startpar is configured
11851 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
11852 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
11853 make this happen.
</p>
11855 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result. If some services
11856 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
11857 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
11858 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies). Report bugs and get
11859 the package maintainers to fix it. :)
</p>
11861 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
11862 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct. I
11863 expect we will get there in Squeeze+
1, if we get manage to test and
11864 fix the remaining issues.
</p>
11866 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
11867 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
11868 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
11869 list of usertagged bugs related to this
</a>.
</p>
11875 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>.
11880 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11882 <div class=
"entry">
11883 <div class=
"title">
11884 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Forcing_new_users_to_change_their_password_on_first_login.html">Forcing new users to change their password on first login
</a>
11890 <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
11891 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
11892 change the password on the first login attempt.
</p>
11894 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
11895 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account. The account
11896 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
11897 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
11898 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.
</p>
11900 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
11901 settings in /etc/shadow:
</p>
11904 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
11905 Last password change : May
02,
2010
11906 Password expires : never
11907 Password inactive : never
11908 Account expires : never
11909 Minimum number of days between password change :
0
11910 Maximum number of days between password change :
99999
11911 Number of days of warning before password expires :
7
11913 </pre></blockquote>
11915 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
11916 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
11917 lowest value possible (January
1th
1970), and the maximum password age
11918 to the difference in days between that date and today. To make it
11919 simple, I went for
30 years (
30 *
365 =
10950) and January
2th (to
11920 avoid testing if
0 is a valid value).
</p>
11922 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
11926 root@tjener:~# chage -d
1 test; chage -M
10950 test
11927 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
11928 Last password change : Jan
02,
1970
11929 Password expires : never
11930 Password inactive : never
11931 Account expires : never
11932 Minimum number of days between password change :
0
11933 Maximum number of days between password change :
10950
11934 Number of days of warning before password expires :
7
11936 </pre></blockquote>
11938 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
11939 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
11940 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).
</p>
11942 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
11943 sure only the user itself have the account password?
</p>
11945 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
11946 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
11948 <p>Update
2010-
05-
02 17:
20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
11949 shadow(
8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
11950 last password change to zero (
0) will force the password to be changed
11951 on the first login. This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
11952 I did not notice this in my initial testing. I have tested it on
11953 Squeeze, and '
<tt>chage -d
0 username
</tt>' do work there. I have not
11954 tested it on Lenny yet.
</p>
11956 <p>Update
2010-
05-
02-
19:
05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
11957 equivalent command to expire a password is '
<tt>passwd -e
11958 username
</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
11965 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet
</a>.
11970 <div class=
"padding"></div>
11972 <div class=
"entry">
11973 <div class=
"title">
11974 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thoughts_on_roaming_laptop_setup_for_Debian_Edu.html">Thoughts on roaming laptop setup for Debian Edu
</a>
11980 <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
11981 Debian Edu. The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
11982 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
11985 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
11986 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
11987 example called Roaming Workstations. Here are my thought on this.
11988 The setup would consist of the following:
</p>
11992 <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
11993 the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
11994 the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
11995 server. This allow the user to work also when offline. The
11996 central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
11997 request, for example mounted via CIFS. It could be mounted
11998 automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
11999 and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
12000 hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
12001 request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
12002 can be used to access it when needed. Perhaps it is enough to use
12003 the fish protocol in KDE?
</li>
12005 <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
12006 authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
12007 to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
12008 to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server. This can be done using
12009 <a href=
"http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds
</a>
12010 or the Fedora developed
12011 <a href=
"https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
12012 Security Services Daemon
</a> packages.
</li>
12014 <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
12015 using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
12016 directory, using unison.
</li>
12018 <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
12019 their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
12020 the box with CUPS. For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
12021 system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
12024 <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
12025 sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.
</li>
12027 <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
12028 cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
12029 local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.
</li>
12033 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
12034 the moment. If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
12035 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze. Some of the pieces need
12036 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
12037 (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#
566718</a>) and nslcd (or
12038 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
12039 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
12040 when disconnected from the net. If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
12041 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.
</p>
12043 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
12044 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.
</p>
12050 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
12055 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12057 <div class=
"entry">
12058 <div class=
"title">
12059 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Great_book___Content__Selected_Essays_on_Technology__Creativity__Copyright__and_the_Future_of_the_Future_.html">Great book: "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future"
</a>
12065 <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
12066 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
12067 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
12068 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
12069 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
12070 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
12071 restrictions on the web, for example from
12072 <a href=
"http://craphound.com/content/">his own site
</a>. I read the
12074 <a href=
"http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks
</a> using
12075 <a href=
"http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader
</a> and my N810. I
12076 strongly recommend this book.
</p>
12082 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web
</a>.
12087 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12089 <div class=
"entry">
12090 <div class=
"title">
12091 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?
</a>
12097 <p><a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
12098 NUUG presentation
</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
12099 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux. Setting up a
12100 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
12101 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
12102 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
12103 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
12104 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
12105 users and cryptographic keys instead.
</p>
12107 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration. Is there a
12108 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
12109 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups? With it, the
12110 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
12111 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.
</p>
12113 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
12114 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together. Anyone know?
</p>
12116 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
12117 Nagios. I have no idea how much work that will be to implement. We
12118 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
12119 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
12120 to work properly.
</p>
12122 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
12123 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
12124 configuration and integration. A natural starting point would be
12125 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
12126 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
12129 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
12130 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
12131 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home. The video show show
12132 up in a few days.
</p>
12138 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
12143 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12145 <div class=
"entry">
12146 <div class=
"title">
12147 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/After_6_years_of_waiting__the_Xreset_d_feature_is_implemented.html">After
6 years of waiting, the Xreset.d feature is implemented
</a>
12153 <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
12154 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
12155 when the user log out. A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
12156 package in
2004 (
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#
230422</a>),
12157 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
12158 Today, this finally paid off.
</p>
12160 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
12161 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
12162 been updated to use this framework. Next on my agenda is to make sure
12163 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.
</p>
12165 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
12166 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
12167 after a user. With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
12168 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
12169 framework. My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
12170 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.
<p>
12176 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
12181 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12183 <div class=
"entry">
12184 <div class=
"title">
12185 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Lenny_released__work_continues.html">Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Lenny released, work continues
</a>
12191 <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
12192 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
</a> was finally
12193 shipped. This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
12194 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up. Work on the first
12195 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
12196 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
12197 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.
</p>
12199 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?
</p>
12201 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
12202 next major release, based on Squeeze. We will try to get as many of
12203 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
12204 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.
</p>
12210 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
12215 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12217 <div class=
"entry">
12218 <div class=
"title">
12219 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration
</a>
12225 <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
12226 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
12227 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
12228 Nagios. The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
12229 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
12232 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
12233 configured as a Munin and Nagios server. In addition, it is
12234 configured to be a server for the
12235 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
12236 system
</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu. The SiteSummary
12237 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
12238 work. In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
12239 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
12240 computer submitting information to this collector. This allow for
12241 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
12242 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
12243 packages got etc. This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
12244 and Nagios configuration.
</p>
12246 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
12247 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
12248 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
12249 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.
</p>
12251 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
12252 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
12253 services detected). In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
12254 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
12255 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
12256 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
12259 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
12260 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
12261 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
12262 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.
</p>
12264 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
12265 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP. The system
12266 administrator need to run "
<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
12267 nagiosadmin
</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
12268 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages. After that,
12269 everything is taken care of.</p>
12275 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu
">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug
">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary
">sitesummary</a>.
12280 <div class="padding
"></div>
12282 <div class="entry
">
12283 <div class="title
">
12284 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Relative_popularity_of_document_formats__MS_Office_vs__ODF_.html
">Relative popularity of document formats (MS Office vs. ODF)</a>
12290 <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
12291 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
12292 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage. I searched using
12293 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
12296 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
12297 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
12298 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
12299 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500 </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
12302 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
12303 got these numbers:</p>
12306 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
12307 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
12308 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299 </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
12309 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187 </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
12312 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
12314 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
12315 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
12316 they are conduced in another country. Because of this, I did the same
12317 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
12318 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
12322 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
12323 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
12324 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
12325 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500 </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
12328 <p>And with 'site:no':
12331 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
12332 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
12333 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
12334 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186 </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
12337 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
12344 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug
">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard
">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web
">web</a>.
12349 <div class="padding
"></div>
12351 <div class="entry
">
12352 <div class="title
">
12353 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html
">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
12360 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/
2009/
08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html
">a
12361 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
12362 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages. His interesting point is that the
12363 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
12364 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
12365 can be fixed in ISO. Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
12366 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
12367 close to solving the problems. I was part of the Norwegian committee
12368 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
12369 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
12371 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
12372 with the future ahead of it. We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
12373 seminar this autumn.</p>
12379 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug
">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard
">standard</a>.
12384 <div class="padding
"></div>
12386 <div class="entry
">
12387 <div class="title
">
12388 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html
">Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</a>
12394 <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
12395 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
12396 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing. This
12397 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
12398 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
12399 installation. Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
12400 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
12402 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
12403 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
12404 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
12410 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem
">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug
">nuug</a>.
12415 <div class="padding
"></div>
12417 <div class="entry
">
12418 <div class="title
">
12419 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html
">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
12425 <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
12426 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
12427 take over the package and become the new upstream. The number of
12428 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
12429 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
12430 the package up to date.</p>
12432 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
12433 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman. About 10 days ago, I made
12434 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
12435 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
12436 distributions. We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
12437 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge. Since the
12438 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
12439 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/
">Savannah</a>, and continue
12440 development there. The project is registered and currently waiting
12441 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
12442 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
12443 working on the future release.</p>
12445 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
12446 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
12452 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem
">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug
">nuug</a>.
12457 <div class="padding
"></div>
12459 <div class="entry
">
12460 <div class="title
">
12461 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html
">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
12467 <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
12468 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
12469 could find more ways to speed up the boot system. This was an Ubuntu
12471 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint
">developer
12472 gathering</a>. It was quite productive. We also discussed the future
12473 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
12474 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
12475 asynchronous and event base. The Ubuntu approach using udev and
12476 upstart might be a good way forward. Time will show.</p>
12478 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
12479 process in Debian. All of these should be applied to get a quick
12484 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
12486 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
12487 clock is in UTC.</li>
12489 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
12490 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot
">dependency
12491 based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
12495 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
12496 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/
">Carlos
12499 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
12500 unstable yesterday. When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
12501 from the boot sequence. It depend on very correct dependency
12502 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
12503 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
12506 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
12507 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
12508 startup speed as well. Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
12509 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
12510 possible to run a of them in the same process. A quick way to test
12511 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
12512 insserv'. Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
12518 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem
">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
12523 <div class="padding
"></div>
12525 <div class="entry
">
12526 <div class="title
">
12527 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html
">Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot</a>
12533 <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
12534 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
12535 do not yet know them.</p>
12537 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/
">valgrind</a>, a
12538 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
12539 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
12540 and it will report any problems on stdout. It is even better if the
12541 program include debug information. With debug information, it is able
12542 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
12543 occurs. It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
12544 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
12545 'using uninitialised value in control logic'. This tool has made it
12546 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
12547 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
12549 <p>The second one is
12550 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity
">Coverity</a> which is
12551 a source code checker. It is able to process the source of a program
12552 and find problems in the logic without running the program. It
12553 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
12554 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel. It is now a commercial tool
12555 and the company behind it is running
12556 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/
">a community service</a> for the
12557 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
12558 their source checked for free. Several thousand defects have been
12559 found and fixed so far. It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
12560 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
12561 Y lines O to P can never be executed'. The projects included in the
12562 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
12563 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
12565 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
12566 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
12567 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
12568 surrounded by today.</p>
12574 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>.
12579 <div class="padding
"></div>
12581 <div class="entry
">
12582 <div class="title
">
12583 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html
">No patch is not better than a useless patch</a>
12590 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/
2009/
04/
12/
214">claim that no
12591 patch is better than a useless patch</a>. I completely disagree, as a
12592 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
12593 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
12594 time on fixing it. No patch do not provide any of these positive
12601 Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian
">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english
">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug
">nuug</a>.
12606 <div class="padding
"></div>
12608 <div class="entry
">
12609 <div class="title
">
12610 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html
">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
12616 <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
12617 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net. The
12618 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
12619 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
12620 vlc. I finally found a way to do it today. I spent an hour or so
12621 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation. The
12622 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
12623 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
12625 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
12627 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
12628 --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
12629 --intf=dummy
</pre></blockquote>
12631 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
12632 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
12633 dummy interface. The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
12634 sure no X interface is needed.
</p>
12636 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
12637 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
12638 the vlc process with SIGTERM. Here is a complete script
12639 <tt>vlc-record
</tt> to use from
<tt>at
</tt> or
<tt>cron
</tt>:
</p>
12641 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
12646 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
12647 --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
12648 --intf=dummy < /dev/null
> /dev/null
2>&
1 &
12652 wait $pid
</pre></blockquote>
12658 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video
</a>.
12663 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12665 <div class=
"entry">
12666 <div class=
"title">
12667 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html">Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications
</a>
12673 <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
12674 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure. It is the
12675 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
12676 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
12677 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
12678 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
12679 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
12682 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
12683 independently of the server applications. One can even allow users to
12684 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
12685 protocol and format. In the normal case, only one client application
12686 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
12687 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
12688 blocked from doing so.
</p>
12690 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
12691 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
12692 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
12693 requirements change.
</p>
12695 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
12696 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
12697 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.
</p>
12703 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard
</a>.
12708 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12710 <div class=
"entry">
12711 <div class=
"title">
12712 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering
</a>
12718 <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
12719 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering. I got a bit done tuning the
12720 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
12721 implementation avahi. It look like it could be useful for us. Almost
12722 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
12723 get to know the Skolelinux system. Walter Bender, involved in the
12724 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
12725 also helped me improve my OLPC installation. He also showed me that
12726 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
12727 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian. As a
12728 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu. We also
12729 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
12730 proved to be too hard for us. The application seem to need more work
12731 before it is ready for me. I look forward to getting home and relax
12738 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
12743 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12745 <div class=
"entry">
12746 <div class=
"title">
12747 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">Time for new LDAP schemas replacing RFC
2307?
</a>
12753 <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
12754 optimal. There is RFC
2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
12755 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC
2307bis, with
12756 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory. The RFC
12757 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
12758 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.
</p>
12760 <p>In
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux
</a>,
12761 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
12762 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
12763 and LTSP configuration in LDAP. These objects have a lot in common,
12764 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
12765 object per entity. For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
12766 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
12767 DNS information and another with DHCP information. The schemas
12768 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
12769 object. In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
12770 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
12771 It just do not scale. I believe it is time for a few RFC
12772 specifications to cleam up this mess.
</p>
12774 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
12775 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
12776 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
12777 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.
</p>
12779 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
12780 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.
</p>
12782 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
12783 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up. Time to start a
12784 new IETF work group?
</p>
12790 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
12795 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12797 <div class=
"entry">
12798 <div class=
"title">
12799 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">Checking server hardware support status for Dell, HP and IBM servers
</a>
12805 <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
12806 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
12807 contract expire for each server. We have a machine (and service)
12808 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
12809 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
12810 each machine. To make it easier for us to track support contract
12811 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
12812 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
12813 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
12814 machines. I extended a perl script already being used to import
12815 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
12816 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
12817 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
12818 for the relevant machines. This make the support status information
12819 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
12820 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
12821 The result of this work documented that
27% of the machines in the
12822 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
12823 them.
27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
12824 using machines a bit longer than the
3 years a normal support contract
12825 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
12826 services. After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
12827 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
12828 them break down. When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
12829 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
12832 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
12833 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
12834 Werner Forsbring. The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
12835 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
12836 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code. I know the HTML
12837 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
12838 introduce more dependencies. This is the current incarnation:
</p>
12843 use WWW::Mechanize;
12846 sub get_support_info {
12847 my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
12850 if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
12851 # fetch website from Dell support
12852 my $url = "http://support.euro.dell.com/support/topics/topic.aspx/emea/shared/support/my_systems_info/no/details?c=no
&cs=nodhs1
&l=no
&s=dhs
&ServiceTag=$serial";
12853 my $webpage = get($url);
12854 return undef unless ($webpage);
12857 my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
12858 foreach my $line (@lines) {
12859 next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
12860 $line =~ s/
<[^
>]+
?>/;/gm;
12861 $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$
1/;
12863 my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
12864 @f = @f[
13 .. $#f];
12866 while ($f[
3] eq "DELL") {
12867 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[
0,
5,
7,
10];
12869 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
12870 localtime(str2time($startstr)));
12871 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
12872 localtime(str2time($endstr)));
12873 $str .= "$type $start -
> $end ";
12874 @f = @f[
14 .. $#f];
12875 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
12877 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
12878 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
12879 if ($lastend lt $today);
12881 } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
12882 my $mech = WWW::Mechanize-
>new();
12884 'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
12887 'BODServiceID' =
> 'NA',
12888 'RegisteredPurchaseDate' =
> '',
12890 'productNumber' =
> $productnumber,
12891 'serialNumber1' =
> $serial,
12893 $mech-
>submit_form( form_number =
> 2,
12894 fields =
> $fields );
12895 # Next step is screen scraping
12896 my $content = $mech-
>content();
12898 $content =~ s/
<[^
>]+
?>/;/gm;
12899 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
12900 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
12901 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
12903 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
12905 while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
12906 my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
12907 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
12908 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
12909 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
12910 localtime(str2time($startstr)));
12911 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
12912 localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
12914 $str .= "$type ($status) $start -
> $end ";
12916 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
12917 if ($end lt $today);
12919 } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
12920 # This code ignore extended support contracts.
12921 my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{
4}).+\]-/;
12922 if ($producttype
&& $serial) {
12924 get("http://www-
947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty
&brandind=
5000008&Submit=Submit
&type=$producttype
&serial=$serial");
12926 $content =~ s/
<[^
>]+
?>/;/gm;
12927 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
12928 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
12929 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
12931 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
12932 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
12934 $str .= "($status) -
> $end ";
12936 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
12937 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
12938 if ($end lt $today);
12946 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
12947 serial numbers. The information passed in as arguments are fetched
12948 from dmidecode.
</p>
12951 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "
1234567890"
12953 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge
2950", "
1234567");
12954 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries
345 -[
867061X]-",
12958 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
12959 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)
</p>
12961 <p>Update
2009-
03-
06: The IBM page do not include extended support
12962 contracts, so it is useless in that case. The original Dell code do
12963 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
12970 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
12975 <div class=
"padding"></div>
12977 <div class=
"entry">
12978 <div class=
"title">
12979 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center
</a>
12985 <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
12986 in our computing center. This give us a challenge in tracking the
12987 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
12988 removed. Some times the location register is not updated when a
12989 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
12990 the "missing" computer.
</p>
12992 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
12993 <a href=
"http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx
</a> to write and read bar
12994 code blocks as defined in the
12995 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
12996 Standard
</a>. This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
12997 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
12998 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture. The bar code standard
12999 allow up to
2 KiB to be written in the tag. There is another project
13000 with
<a href=
"http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
13001 writer written in postscript
</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
13002 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
13005 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
13006 machines in our computing center. If both racks and computers are
13007 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
13008 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
13009 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
13010 locations, and can detect movements and removals.
</p>
13012 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
13013 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names. Next, I
13014 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
13015 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read. This worked
13016 fairly well. If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
13017 side, all tags in the image could be read. Because of limited space
13018 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
13019 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
13020 about half the rack. I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
13021 to
60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.
</p>
13023 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
13024 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
13025 easier automatic tracking of computers.
</p>
13031 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>.
13036 <div class=
"padding"></div>
13038 <div class=
"entry">
13039 <div class=
"title">
13040 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_web_browser_developers_make_a_video_player___.html">When web browser developers make a video player...
</a>
13046 <p>As part of the work we do in
<a href=
"http://www.nuug.no">NUUG
</a>
13047 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
13048 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording. Putting a
13049 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
13050 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy. I hope this
13051 will become easier when the
<video
> tag is implemented in all
13052 browsers, but I am not sure. We provide the recordings in several
13053 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H
.264 and Quicktime, and want the
13054 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
13055 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
13056 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
13057 <video
> tag, the
<object
> tag, the
<embed
> tag and
13058 the
<applet
> tag. All of these take a lot of options, and
13059 finding the best options is a major challenge.
</p>
13061 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from
<a
13062 href=
"http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com
</a>, to see how it handled
13063 a
<video
> tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
13064 I was not very impressed. The browser start by fetching a picture
13065 from the video stream. Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
13066 definitely very early in the recording. So far, so good. Next,
13067 instead of streaming the
76 MiB video file, it start to download all
13068 of it, but do not start to play the video. This mean I have to wait
13069 for several minutes for the downloading to finish. When the download
13070 is done, the playing of the video do not start! Waiting for the
13071 download, but I do not get to see the video? Some testing later, I
13072 discover that I have to add the
controls="true" attribute to be able
13073 to get a play button to pres to start the video. Adding
13074 autoplay="true" did not help. I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
13075 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
13076 <video
> tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
13077 playing when the download is done.
</p>
13079 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
13080 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
13081 from the nuug site
</a>. Will have to test it with the new Firefox
13084 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature. I was unable
13085 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
13086 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video. I
13087 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)
</p>
13093 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web
</a>.
13098 <div class=
"padding"></div>
13100 <div class=
"entry">
13101 <div class=
"title">
13102 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick
</a>
13108 <p>The
<a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group
</a> is
13109 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
13110 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
13111 directly with the video stream. For this, we use the
13112 <a href=
"http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch
</a> package from
13113 the Debian video team. As this require quite one computer per video
13114 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
13115 borrow laptops. And to avoid having to install extra software on
13116 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
13117 bootable USB stick. The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
13118 source, sink and mixer applications and
13119 <a href=
"http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab
</a>. To allow this setup to
13120 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
13121 <a href=
"http://www.avahi.org/">avahi
</a> to connect the various parts
13122 together. And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
13123 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
13124 with USB sources. We have not yet tested this setup in a production
13125 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
13126 video mixer in a very short time frame. We will need it for
13127 <a href=
"http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open
2009</a>.
</p>
13129 <p><a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
13130 USB image
</a> is for a
1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
13131 larger stick as well.
</p>
13137 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video
</a>.
13142 <div class=
"padding"></div>
13144 <div class=
"entry">
13145 <div class=
"title">
13146 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html">Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release
</a>
13152 <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
13153 Oslo. Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
13154 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
13155 LTSP installation. LTSP now work out of the box on the
10-network.
13156 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
13157 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box. Was working on getting the
13158 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
13159 finish it before the weekend was up.
</p>
13161 <p>Did not find time to look at the
4 VGA cards in one box we got from
13162 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
13163 development gathering. Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
13164 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
13165 of these cards.
</p>
13171 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp
</a>.
13176 <div class=
"padding"></div>
13178 <div class=
"entry">
13179 <div class=
"title">
13180 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html">The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian
</a>
13186 <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
13187 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
13188 default in Debian Edu. We need an embedded video playing plugin with
13189 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
13190 all the multimedia content available on the web. The test results and
13191 notes are available on
13192 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
13193 Debian wiki
</a>. I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
13194 fill this need. My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
13195 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages. A lot of the MIME
13196 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
13197 video/ogg), just do not work. And simple formats like the
13198 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
13199 totem and vlc plugins. I hope the situation will improve soon. No
13200 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.
</p>
13202 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin. It seem to
13203 be the only one fitting our needs. :/
</p>
13209 Tags:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia
</a>,
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web
</a>.
13214 <div class=
"padding"></div>
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"text-align: right;"><a href=
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt=
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</a></li>
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3)
</a></li>
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (
3)
</a></li>
13350 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (
5)
</a></li>
13352 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (
7)
</a></li>
13363 <li><a href=
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13)
</a></li>
13365 <li><a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (
1)
</a></li>
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</a></li>
13369 <li><a href=
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4)
</a></li>
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</a></li>
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65)
</a></li>
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118)
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9)
</a></li>
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7)
</a></li>
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4)
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32)
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17)
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8)
</a></li>
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6)
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (
1)
</a></li>
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (
25)
</a></li>
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (
219)
</a></li>
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (
148)
</a></li>
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6)
</a></li>
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2)
</a></li>
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41)
</a></li>
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61)
</a></li>
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1)
</a></li>
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11)
</a></li>
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2)
</a></li>
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (
6)
</a></li>
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1)
</a></li>
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4)
</a></li>
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2)
</a></li>
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4)
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4)
</a></li>
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39)
</a></li>
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3)
</a></li>
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5)
</a></li>
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12)
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1)
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7)
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35)
</a></li>
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4)
</a></li>
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"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (
26)
</a></li>
13463 <p style=
"text-align: right">
13464 Created by
<a href=
"http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.4
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