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   5   <title>Petter Reinholdtsen</title>
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  13   <h1>
  14        <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16   </h1>
  17
  18  </div>
  19
  20
  21
  22  <div class="entry">
  23   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a></div>
  24   <div class="date">2010-06-13 11:40</div>
  25   <div class="body">
  26 <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
  27 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
  28 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
  29 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
  30 pages.</p>
  31
  32 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
  33 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
  34 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
  35 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
  36 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
  37 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
  38 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
  39 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
  40 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
  41 see how the project is doing.</p>
  42
  43 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
  44 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
  45 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
  46 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
  47 Windows.  This is great.</p>
  48 </div>
  49   <div class="tags">
  50
  51
  52
  53    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>.
  54
  55   </div>
  56  </div>
  57  <div class="padding"></div>
  58
  59  <div class="entry">
  60   <div class="title"><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></div>
  61   <div class="date">2010-06-13 09:05</div>
  62   <div class="body">
  63 <p>My
  64 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
  65 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
  66 finally made the upgrade logs available from
  67 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
  68 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
  69 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
  70 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
  71
  72 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
  73 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
  74 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
  75 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
  76 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
  77 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
  78 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
  79 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
  80
  81 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
  82 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
  83 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
  84 too surprising.</p>
  85
  86 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
  87 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
  88 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
  89 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
  90 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
  91 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
  92 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
  93 continue.</p>
  94
  95 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
  96 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
  97   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
  98   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
  99   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
 100   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
 101   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
 102   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
 103   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
 104   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
 105   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
 106   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
 107   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
 108   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
 109   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
 110   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
 111   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
 112   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
 113   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
 114   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
 115   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
 116   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
 117   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
 118   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
 119   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
 120   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
 121   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
 122   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
 123   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
 124   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
 125
 126 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
 127
 128 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
 129   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
 130   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
 131   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
 132   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
 133   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
 134   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
 135   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
 136   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
 137   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
 138   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
 139   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
 140   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
 141   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
 142   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
 143   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
 144   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
 145   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
 146   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
 147   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
 148   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
 149   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
 150   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
 151   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
 152   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
 153   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
 154   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
 155   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
 156   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
 157   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
 158   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
 159   zip</p>
 160
 161 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
 162
 163 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
 164   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
 165   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
 166   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
 167   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
 168   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
 169   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
 170   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
 171   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
 172   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
 173   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
 174   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
 175   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
 176   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
 177   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
 178   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
 179   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
 180   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
 181   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
 182   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
 183   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
 184   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
 185   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
 186   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
 187   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
 188   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
 189   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
 190   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
 191
 192 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
 193 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
 194   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
 195   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
 196   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
 197   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
 198   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
 199   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
 200   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
 201   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
 202   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
 203   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
 204   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
 205   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
 206   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
 207   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
 208   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
 209   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
 210   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
 211   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
 212   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
 213   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
 214   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
 215   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
 216   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
 217   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
 218   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
 219   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
 220   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
 221   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
 222   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
 223   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
 224   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
 225   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
 226   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
 227   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
 228   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
 229   xulrunner-1.9</p>
 230
 231 </div>
 232   <div class="tags">
 233
 234
 235
 236    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>.
 237
 238   </div>
 239  </div>
 240  <div class="padding"></div>
 241
 242  <div class="entry">
 243   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/__pne_tr__dl__snett_er_et_samfunnsgode.html">Åpne trådløsnett er et samfunnsgode</a></div>
 244   <div class="date">2010-06-12 12:45</div>
 245   <div class="body">
 246 <p>Veldig glad for å oppdage via
 247 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/06/11/1841256/Finland-To-Legalize-Use-of-Unsecured-Wi-Fi">Slashdot</a>
 248 at folk i Finland har forstått at åpne trådløsnett er et samfunnsgode.
 249 Jeg ser på åpne trådløsnett som et fellesgode på linje med retten til
 250 ferdsel i utmark og retten til å bevege seg i strandsonen.  Jeg har
 251 glede av åpne trådløsnett når jeg finner dem, og deler gladelig nett
 252 med andre så lenge de ikke forstyrrer min bruk av eget nett.
 253 Nettkapasiteten er sjelden en begrensning ved normal browsing og enkel
 254 SSH-innlogging (som er min vanligste nettbruk), og nett kan brukes til
 255 så mye positivt og nyttig (som nyhetslesing, sjekke været, kontakte
 256 slekt og venner, holde seg oppdatert om politiske saker, kontakte
 257 organisasjoner og politikere, etc), at det for meg er helt urimelig å
 258 blokkere dette for alle som ikke gjør en flue fortred.  De som mener
 259 at potensialet for misbruk er grunn nok til å hindre all den positive
 260 og lovlydige bruken av et åpent trådløsnett har jeg dermed ingen
 261 forståelse for.  En kan ikke eksistensen av forbrytere styre hvordan
 262 samfunnet skal organiseres.  Da får en et kontrollsamfunn de færreste
 263 ønsker å leve i, og det at vi har et samfunn i Norge der tilliten til
 264 hverandre er høy gjør at samfunnet fungerer ganske godt.  Det bør vi
 265 anstrenge oss for å beholde.</p>
 266 </div>
 267   <div class="tags">
 268
 269
 270
 271    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</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>.
 272
 273   </div>
 274  </div>
 275  <div class="padding"></div>
 276
 277  <div class="entry">
 278   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a></div>
 279   <div class="date">2010-06-11 22:50</div>
 280   <div class="body">
 281 <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
 282 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
 283 have been discovered and reported in the process
 284 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
 285 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
 286 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
 287 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
 288 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
 289
 290 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
 291 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
 292 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
 293 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
 294 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
 295 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
 296
 297 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
 298 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
 299 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
 300 is created.  The bug report
 301 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
 302 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
 303 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
 304 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
 305 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
 306 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
 307 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
 308 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
 309 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
 310 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
 311 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
 312 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
 313 Debian Squeeze.</p>
 314
 315 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
 316 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
 317 trick:</p>
 318
 319 <blockquote><pre>
 320 #!/bin/sh
 321 set -ex
 322
 323 if [ "$1" ] ; then
 324     desktop=$1
 325 else
 326     desktop=gnome
 327 fi
 328
 329 from=lenny
 330 to=squeeze
 331
 332 exec &lt; /dev/null
 333 unset LANG
 334 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
 335 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
 336 fuser -mv .
 337 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
 338 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
 339 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
 340 #!/bin/sh
 341 exit 101
 342 EOF
 343 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
 344 exit_cleanup() {
 345     umount $tmpdir/proc
 346 }
 347 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
 348 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
 349 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
 350
 351 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
 352
 353 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
 354 # to return the correct answers.
 355 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
 356     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
 357
 358 # Include the desktop and laptop task
 359 for test in desktop laptop ; do
 360     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
 361 #!/bin/sh
 362 exit 2
 363 EOF
 364     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
 365 done
 366
 367 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
 368 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
 369 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
 370 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
 371
 372 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
 373 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
 374 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
 375 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
 376 fuser -mv
 377 </pre></blockquote>
 378
 379 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
 380 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
 381 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
 382 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
 383 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
 384 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
 385
 386 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
 387 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
 388 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
 389 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
 390 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
 391 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
 392 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
 393
 394 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
 395 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
 396 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
 397 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
 398 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
 399 packages.</p>
 400 </div>
 401   <div class="tags">
 402
 403
 404
 405    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>.
 406
 407   </div>
 408  </div>
 409  <div class="padding"></div>
 410
 411  <div class="entry">
 412   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_er_laget_for_sentraldrifting__naturligvis.html">Skolelinux er laget for sentraldrifting, naturligvis</a></div>
 413   <div class="date">2010-06-09 12:30</div>
 414   <div class="body">
 415 <p>Det er merkelig hvordan myter om Skolelinux overlever.  En slik
 416 myte er at Skolelinux ikke kan sentraldriftes og ha sentralt plasserte
 417 tjenermaskiner.  I siste Computerworld Norge er
 418 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article169432.ece">IT-sjef
 419 Viggo Billdal i Steinkjer intervjuet</a>, og forteller uten
 420 blygsel:</p>
 421
 422 <blockquote><p>Vi hadde Skolelinux, men det har vi sluttet med. Vi testet
 423 om det lønte seg med Microsoft eller en åpen plattform. Vi fant ut at
 424 Microsoft egentlig var totalt sett bedre egnet. Det var store
 425 driftskostnader med Skolelinux, blant annet på grunn av
 426 desentraliserte servere. Det var komplisert, så vi gikk vekk fra det
 427 og bruker nå bare Windows.</p></blockquote>
 428
 429 <p>En <a
 430 href="https://init.linpro.no/pipermail/skolelinux.no/bruker/2010-June/009101.html">rask
 431 sjekk</a> mot den norske brukerlista i Skolelinuxprosjektet forteller
 432 at Steinkjers forsøk foregikk fram til 2004/2005, og at Røysing skole
 433 i Steinkjer skal ha vært svært fornøyd med Skolelinux men at kommunen
 434 overkjørte skolen og krevde at de gikk over til Windows.  Et søk på
 435 nettet sendte meg til
 436 <a href="http://www.dn.no/multimedia/archive/00090/Dagens_it_nr__18_90826a.pdf">Dagens
 437 IT nr. 18 2005</a> hvor en kan lese på side 18:</p>
 438
 439 <blockquote><p>Inge Tømmerås ved Røysing skole i Steinkjer kjører ennå
 440 Microsoft, men forteller at kompetanseutfordringen med Skolelinux ikke
 441 var så stor.   Jeg syntes Skolelinux var utrolig lett å drifte uten
 442 forkunnskaper. Men man må jo selvsagt ha tilgang på ekstern kompetanse
 443 til installasjoner og maskinvarefeil, sier Tømmerås.</p></blockquote>
 444
 445 <p>Som systemarkitekten bak Skolelinux, kan jeg bare riste på hodet
 446 over påstanden om at Skolelinux krever desentraliserte tjenere.
 447 Skolelinux-arkitekturen er laget for sentralisert drift og plassering
 448 av tjenerne lokalt eller sentralt alt etter behov og nettkapasitet.
 449 Den er modellert på nettverks- og tjenerløsningen som brukes på
 450 Universitetet i Tromsø og Oslo, der jeg jobber med utvikling av
 451 driftstjenester.  Dette er det heldigvis noen som har fått med seg, og
 452 jeg er glad for å kunne sitere fra en kommentar på den overnevnte
 453 artikkelen.  Min venn og gamle kollega Sturle Sunde forteller der:
 454
 455 <blockquote>
 456 <p>I Flora kommune køyrer vi Skulelinux på skular med alt frå 15 til
 457 meir enn 500 elevar. Dei store skulane har eigen tenar, for det er
 458 mest praktisk. Eg, som er driftsansvarleg for heile nettet, ser
 459 sjeldan dei tenarane fysisk, men at dei står der gjer skulane mindre
 460 avhengige av eksterne linjer som er trege eller dyre. Dei minste
 461 skulane har ikkje eigen tenar. Å bruke sentral tenar er heller ikkje
 462 noko problem. Småskulane klarar seg fint med 1 mbit-linje til ein
 463 sentral tenar eller tenaren på ein større skule.</p>
 464
 465 <p>Det beste med Skulelinux er halvtjukke klientar. Dei treng ikkje
 466 harddisk og brukar minimalt med ressursar på tenaren fordi dei køyrer
 467 programma lokalt. Eit klasserom med 30 sju-åtte år gamle maskiner har
 468 mykje meir CPU og RAM totalt enn nokon moderne tenar til under
 469 millionen. Det trengst to kommandoar på den sentrale tenaren for å
 470 oppdatere alle klientane, både tynne og halvtjukke. Vi har ingen
 471 problem med diskar som ryk heller, som var eit problem før fordi
 472 elevane sat og sparka i maskinene. Og dei krev lite bandbreidde i
 473 nettet, so det er fullt mogleg å køyre slike på småskular med trege
 474 linjer mot tenaren på ein større skule.</p>
 475
 476 <p>Flora kommune har nesten 800 Linux-maskiner i sitt skulenett, og
 477 ein person som tek seg av drift av heile nettet, inkludert tenarar,
 478 klientar, operativsystem, programvare, heimekontorløysing og
 479 administrasjon av brukarar.</p>
 480
 481 <p>No skal det seiast at vi ikkje køyrer rein Skulelinux ut av
 482 boksen. Vi har gjort ein del tilpassingar mot noko Novell-greier som
 483 var der frå før, og som har komplisert installasjonen vår. Etter at
 484 oppsettet var gjort har løysinga vore stabil og kravd minimalt med
 485 arbeid.</p>
 486 </blockquote>
 487
 488 <p>Jeg vet at Narvik, Harstad og Oslo er kommuner der Skolelinux
 489 sentraldriftes med sentrale tjenere.  Det forteller meg at Steinkjers
 490 IT-sjef neppe bør skylde på Skolelinux-løsningen for sine 5 år gamle
 491 minner.</p>
 492 </div>
 493   <div class="tags">
 494
 495
 496
 497    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 498
 499   </div>
 500  </div>
 501  <div class="padding"></div>
 502
 503  <div class="entry">
 504   <div class="title"><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></div>
 505   <div class="date">2010-06-06 23:55</div>
 506   <div class="body">
 507 <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
 508 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
 509 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
 510 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
 511 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
 512 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
 513 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
 514
 515 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
 516 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
 517 COLUMNS):</p>
 518
 519 <blockquote><pre>
 520 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
 521 previous=N
 522 PREVLEVEL=
 523 RUNLEVEL=
 524 runlevel=S
 525 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
 526 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
 527 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
 528 </pre></blockquote>
 529
 530 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
 531 script.</p>
 532
 533 <blockquote><pre>
 534 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
 535 previous=N
 536 PREVLEVEL=N
 537 RUNLEVEL=S
 538 runlevel=S
 539 </pre></blockquote>
 540
 541 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
 542 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
 543 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
 544
 545 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
 546 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
 547 choice.</p>
 548 </div>
 549   <div class="tags">
 550
 551
 552
 553    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>.
 554
 555   </div>
 556  </div>
 557  <div class="padding"></div>
 558
 559  <div class="entry">
 560   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a></div>
 561   <div class="date">2010-06-06 14:15</div>
 562   <div class="body">
 563 <p>Via the
 564 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
 565 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
 566 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
 567 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
 568 following the standards wars of today.</p>
 569 </div>
 570   <div class="tags">
 571
 572
 573
 574    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>.
 575
 576   </div>
 577  </div>
 578  <div class="padding"></div>
 579
 580  <div class="entry">
 581   <div class="title"><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></div>
 582   <div class="date">2010-06-03 12:05</div>
 583   <div class="body">
 584 <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
 585 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
 586 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
 587 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
 588 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
 589
 590 <blockquote><pre>
 591 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
 592   vendor                    count
 593   Dell Computer Corporation     1
 594     PowerEdge 1750              1
 595   IBM                           1
 596     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
 597   Intel                         2
 598   [no-dmi-info]                 3
 599 maintainer:~#
 600 </pre></blockquote>
 601
 602 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
 603 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
 604 information listed with Intel as vendor and mo model, and virtual Xen
 605 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
 606 option to list the individual machines.</p>
 607
 608 <p>A larger list is
 609 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
 610 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
 611 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
 612 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
 613 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
 614 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
 615 collector.</p>
 616 </div>
 617   <div class="tags">
 618
 619
 620
 621    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>.
 622
 623   </div>
 624  </div>
 625  <div class="padding"></div>
 626
 627  <div class="entry">
 628   <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Togsatsing_p___norsk__mot_sykkel.html">Togsatsing på norsk, mot sykkel</a></div>
 629   <div class="date">2010-06-02 23:45</div>
 630   <div class="body">
 631 <p>Det står dårlig til med toget når en finner på å la det
 632 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/article3677060.ece">kappkjøre
 633 med sykkel</a>...  Jeg tror det trengs strukturendringer for å få
 634 fikset på togproblemene i Norge.</p>
 635
 636 <p>Mon tro hva toglinje mellom Narvik og Tromsø ville hatt slags
 637 effekt på området der?</p>
 638 </div>
 639   <div class="tags">
 640
 641
 642
 643    Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
 644
 645   </div>
 646  </div>
 647  <div class="padding"></div>
 648
 649  <div class="entry">
 650   <div class="title"><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></div>
 651   <div class="date">2010-06-01 17:05</div>
 652   <div class="body">
 653 <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
 654 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
 655 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
 656 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
 657 wait.</p>
 658
 659 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
 660 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
 661 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
 662 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
 663 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
 664 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
 665
 666 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
 667 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
 668 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
 669 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
 670 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
 671 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
 672 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
 673 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
 674
 675 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
 676 </div>
 677   <div class="tags">
 678
 679
 680
 681    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>.
 682
 683   </div>
 684  </div>
 685  <div class="padding"></div>
 686
 687  <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="index.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS feed" width="36" height="14"></a></p>
 688
 689 <div id="sidebar">
 690
 691
 692
 693
 694
 695 <h2>Archive</h2>
 696 <ul>
 697
 698 <li>2010
 699 <ul>
 700
 701 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 702
 703 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
 704
 705 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
 706
 707 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
 708
 709 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 710
 711 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (10)</a></li>
 712
 713 </ul></li>
 714
 715 <li>2009
 716 <ul>
 717
 718 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
 719
 720 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
 721
 722 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
 723
 724 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
 725
 726 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 727
 728 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
 729
 730 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
 731
 732 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 733
 734 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
 735
 736 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 737
 738 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 739
 740 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 741
 742 </ul></li>
 743
 744 <li>2008
 745 <ul>
 746
 747 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
 748
 749 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 750
 751 </ul></li>
 752
 753 </ul>
 754
 755
 756
 757 <h2>Tags</h2>
 758 <ul>
 759
 760  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (11)</a></li>
 761
 762  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
 763
 764  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
 765
 766  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (10)</a></li>
 767
 768  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (26)</a></li>
 769
 770  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (26)</a></li>
 771
 772  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (38)</a></li>
 773
 774  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (1)</a></li>
 775
 776  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (7)</a></li>
 777
 778  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (2)</a></li>
 779
 780  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (1)</a></li>
 781
 782  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
 783
 784  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (5)</a></li>
 785
 786  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (68)</a></li>
 787
 788  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (76)</a></li>
 789
 790  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (13)</a></li>
 791
 792  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (12)</a></li>
 793
 794  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (10)</a></li>
 795
 796  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
 797
 798  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (9)</a></li>
 799
 800  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (3)</a></li>
 801
 802  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (13)</a></li>
 803
 804  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (1)</a></li>
 805
 806  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (10)</a></li>
 807
 808  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (1)</a></li>
 809
 810  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (6)</a></li>
 811
 812 </ul>
 813
 814 </div>
 815
 816 <p style="text-align: right">
 817 Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v3.7</a>
 818 </p>
 819 </body>
 820 </html>