]> pere.pagekite.me Git - homepage.git/blob - blog/index.rss
Generated.
[homepage.git] / blog / index.rss
1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
2 <rss version='2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/1.0/' xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
3 <channel>
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen</title>
5 <description></description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
7 <atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
8
9 <item>
10 <title>Officeshots taking shape</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html</guid>
13 <pubDate>Sun, 13 Jun 2010 11:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
14 <description>
15 &lt;p&gt;For those of us caring about document exchange and
16 interoperability, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.officeshots.org/&quot;&gt;OfficeShots&lt;/a&gt;
17 is a great service. It is to ODF documents what
18 &lt;a href=&quot;http://browsershots.org/&quot;&gt;BrowserShots&lt;/a&gt; is for web
19 pages.&lt;/p&gt;
20
21 &lt;p&gt;A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
22 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
23 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
24 interested in supporting the project. I helped him to navigate his
25 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
26 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
27 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot. The machine is
28 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
29 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
30 see how the project is doing.&lt;/p&gt;
31
32 &lt;p&gt;Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
33 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
34 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
35 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
36 Windows. This is great.&lt;/p&gt;
37 </description>
38 </item>
39
40 <item>
41 <title>Lenny-&gt;Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</title>
42 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html</link>
43 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html</guid>
44 <pubDate>Sun, 13 Jun 2010 09:05:00 +0200</pubDate>
45 <description>
46 &lt;p&gt;My
47 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html&quot;&gt;testing
48 of Debian upgrades&lt;/a&gt; from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I&#39;ve
49 finally made the upgrade logs available from
50 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/&quot;&gt;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/&lt;/a&gt;.
51 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
52 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting. This time
53 I will only focus on their removal plans.&lt;/p&gt;
54
55 &lt;p&gt;After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
56 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze. The
57 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
58 xserver-xorg-video* drivers. Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
59 sure why. When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
60 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
61 longer needed. Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
62 I do not know. Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?&lt;/p&gt;
63
64 &lt;p&gt;For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
65 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
66 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
67 too surprising.&lt;/p&gt;
68
69 &lt;p&gt;I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
70 and avoided, and perhaps others as well. Here are the complete list
71 of planned removals. The complete logs is available from the URL
72 above. Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
73 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
74 conffile questions. No idea why. I worked around it by using
75 &#39;&lt;tt&gt;echo &gt;&gt; /proc/&lt;em&gt;pidofdpkg&lt;/em&gt;/fd/0&lt;/tt&gt;&#39; to tell dpkg to
76 continue.&lt;/p&gt;
77
78 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;apt-get gnome 72&lt;/b&gt;
79 &lt;br&gt;bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
80 gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
81 iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
82 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
83 nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
84 serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
85 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
86 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
87 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
88 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
89 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
90 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
91 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
92 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
93 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
94 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
95 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
96 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
97 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
98 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
99 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
100 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
101 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
102 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
103 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
104 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
105 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
106 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
107 xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support&lt;/p&gt;
108
109 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;aptitude gnome 129&lt;/b&gt;
110
111 &lt;br&gt;bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
112 djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
113 gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
114 gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
115 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
116 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
117 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
118 libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
119 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
120 libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
121 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
122 libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
123 libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
124 libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
125 libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
126 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
127 libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
128 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
129 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
130 libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
131 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
132 libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
133 libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
134 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
135 openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
136 python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
137 python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
138 python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
139 swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
140 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
141 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
142 zip&lt;/p&gt;
143
144 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;apt-get kde 82&lt;/b&gt;
145
146 &lt;br&gt;cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
147 kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
148 kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
149 kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
150 kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
151 libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
152 xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
153 xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
154 xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
155 xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
156 xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
157 xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
158 xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
159 xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
160 xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
161 xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
162 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
163 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
164 xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
165 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
166 xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
167 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
168 xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
169 xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
170 xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
171 xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
172 xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
173 xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9&lt;/p&gt;
174
175 &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;aptitude kde 192&lt;/b&gt;
176 &lt;br&gt;bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
177 djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
178 ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
179 kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
180 kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
181 kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
182 kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
183 kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
184 kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
185 kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
186 kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
187 klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
188 kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
189 krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
190 ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
191 kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
192 kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
193 libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
194 libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
195 libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
196 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
197 libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
198 libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
199 libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
200 libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
201 libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
202 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
203 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
204 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
205 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
206 libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
207 openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
208 superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
209 texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
210 xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
211 xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
212 xulrunner-1.9&lt;/p&gt;
213
214 </description>
215 </item>
216
217 <item>
218 <title>Åpne trådløsnett er et samfunnsgode</title>
219 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/__pne_tr__dl__snett_er_et_samfunnsgode.html</link>
220 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/__pne_tr__dl__snett_er_et_samfunnsgode.html</guid>
221 <pubDate>Sat, 12 Jun 2010 12:45:00 +0200</pubDate>
222 <description>
223 &lt;p&gt;Veldig glad for å oppdage via
224 &lt;a href=&quot;http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/06/11/1841256/Finland-To-Legalize-Use-of-Unsecured-Wi-Fi&quot;&gt;Slashdot&lt;/a&gt;
225 at folk i Finland har forstått at åpne trådløsnett er et samfunnsgode.
226 Jeg ser på åpne trådløsnett som et fellesgode på linje med retten til
227 ferdsel i utmark og retten til å bevege seg i strandsonen. Jeg har
228 glede av åpne trådløsnett når jeg finner dem, og deler gladelig nett
229 med andre så lenge de ikke forstyrrer min bruk av eget nett.
230 Nettkapasiteten er sjelden en begrensning ved normal browsing og enkel
231 SSH-innlogging (som er min vanligste nettbruk), og nett kan brukes til
232 så mye positivt og nyttig (som nyhetslesing, sjekke været, kontakte
233 slekt og venner, holde seg oppdatert om politiske saker, kontakte
234 organisasjoner og politikere, etc), at det for meg er helt urimelig å
235 blokkere dette for alle som ikke gjør en flue fortred. De som mener
236 at potensialet for misbruk er grunn nok til å hindre all den positive
237 og lovlydige bruken av et åpent trådløsnett har jeg dermed ingen
238 forståelse for. En kan ikke eksistensen av forbrytere styre hvordan
239 samfunnet skal organiseres. Da får en et kontrollsamfunn de færreste
240 ønsker å leve i, og det at vi har et samfunn i Norge der tilliten til
241 hverandre er høy gjør at samfunnet fungerer ganske godt. Det bør vi
242 anstrenge oss for å beholde.&lt;/p&gt;
243 </description>
244 </item>
245
246 <item>
247 <title>Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</title>
248 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html</link>
249 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html</guid>
250 <pubDate>Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
251 <description>
252 &lt;p&gt;The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
253 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly. A few bugs
254 have been discovered and reported in the process
255 (&lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/585410&quot;&gt;#585410&lt;/a&gt; in nagios3-cgi,
256 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/584879&quot;&gt;#584879&lt;/a&gt; already fixed in
257 enscript and &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/584861&quot;&gt;#584861&lt;/a&gt; in
258 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
259 am working on a script to automate the test.&lt;/p&gt;
260
261 &lt;p&gt;The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
262 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
263 it. To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
264 script is inserted. To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
265 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
266 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).&lt;/p&gt;
267
268 &lt;p&gt;A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
269 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
270 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
271 is created. The bug report
272 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/566000&quot;&gt;#566000&lt;/a&gt; make me suspect
273 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
274 to make sure the upgrade go well. Testing on virtual and real
275 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
276 do the trick in such settings anyway. This is a
277 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/&quot;&gt;known
278 issue&lt;/a&gt; and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
279 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
280 working with old kernels or something like that. I really wish the
281 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
282 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
283 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
284 Debian Squeeze.&lt;/p&gt;
285
286 &lt;p&gt;Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades. This test
287 script, which I call &lt;tt&gt;upgrade-test&lt;/tt&gt; for now, is doing the
288 trick:&lt;/p&gt;
289
290 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
291 #!/bin/sh
292 set -ex
293
294 if [ &quot;$1&quot; ] ; then
295 desktop=$1
296 else
297 desktop=gnome
298 fi
299
300 from=lenny
301 to=squeeze
302
303 exec &amp;lt; /dev/null
304 unset LANG
305 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
306 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
307 fuser -mv .
308 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
309 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
310 cat &gt; $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &amp;lt;&amp;lt;EOF
311 #!/bin/sh
312 exit 101
313 EOF
314 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
315 exit_cleanup() {
316 umount $tmpdir/proc
317 }
318 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
319 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
320 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
321
322 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
323
324 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger. It need the test scripts
325 # to return the correct answers.
326 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
327 chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
328
329 # Include the desktop and laptop task
330 for test in desktop laptop ; do
331 echo &gt; $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &amp;lt;&amp;lt;EOF
332 #!/bin/sh
333 exit 2
334 EOF
335 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
336 done
337
338 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
339 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
340 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
341 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
342
343 echo deb $mirror $to main &gt; $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
344 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
345 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
346 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
347 fuser -mv
348 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
349
350 &lt;p&gt;I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
351 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
352 differently so far. I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
353 regularly and post the result on the web. The Gnome upgrade currently
354 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
355 kdebase-workspace-data&lt;/p&gt;
356
357 &lt;p&gt;I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
358 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
359 post, so I will refrain from trying. I can report that for Gnome,
360 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
361 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
362 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
363 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded&lt;/p&gt;
364
365 &lt;p&gt;I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
366 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
367 booting without a hitch. Was unsure if there were still bugs with
368 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
369 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
370 packages.&lt;/p&gt;
371 </description>
372 </item>
373
374 <item>
375 <title>Skolelinux er laget for sentraldrifting, naturligvis</title>
376 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_er_laget_for_sentraldrifting__naturligvis.html</link>
377 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_er_laget_for_sentraldrifting__naturligvis.html</guid>
378 <pubDate>Wed, 9 Jun 2010 12:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
379 <description>
380 &lt;p&gt;Det er merkelig hvordan myter om Skolelinux overlever. En slik
381 myte er at Skolelinux ikke kan sentraldriftes og ha sentralt plasserte
382 tjenermaskiner. I siste Computerworld Norge er
383 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article169432.ece&quot;&gt;IT-sjef
384 Viggo Billdal i Steinkjer intervjuet&lt;/a&gt;, og forteller uten
385 blygsel:&lt;/p&gt;
386
387 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Vi hadde Skolelinux, men det har vi sluttet med. Vi testet
388 om det lønte seg med Microsoft eller en åpen plattform. Vi fant ut at
389 Microsoft egentlig var totalt sett bedre egnet. Det var store
390 driftskostnader med Skolelinux, blant annet på grunn av
391 desentraliserte servere. Det var komplisert, så vi gikk vekk fra det
392 og bruker nå bare Windows.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
393
394 &lt;p&gt;En &lt;a
395 href=&quot;https://init.linpro.no/pipermail/skolelinux.no/bruker/2010-June/009101.html&quot;&gt;rask
396 sjekk&lt;/a&gt; mot den norske brukerlista i Skolelinuxprosjektet forteller
397 at Steinkjers forsøk foregikk fram til 2004/2005, og at Røysing skole
398 i Steinkjer skal ha vært svært fornøyd med Skolelinux men at kommunen
399 overkjørte skolen og krevde at de gikk over til Windows. Et søk på
400 nettet sendte meg til
401 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dn.no/multimedia/archive/00090/Dagens_it_nr__18_90826a.pdf&quot;&gt;Dagens
402 IT nr. 18 2005&lt;/a&gt; hvor en kan lese på side 18:&lt;/p&gt;
403
404 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Inge Tømmerås ved Røysing skole i Steinkjer kjører ennå
405 Microsoft, men forteller at kompetanseutfordringen med Skolelinux ikke
406 var så stor. ­ Jeg syntes Skolelinux var utrolig lett å drifte uten
407 forkunnskaper. Men man må jo selvsagt ha tilgang på ekstern kompetanse
408 til installasjoner og maskinvarefeil, sier Tømmerås.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
409
410 &lt;p&gt;Som systemarkitekten bak Skolelinux, kan jeg bare riste på hodet
411 over påstanden om at Skolelinux krever desentraliserte tjenere.
412 Skolelinux-arkitekturen er laget for sentralisert drift og plassering
413 av tjenerne lokalt eller sentralt alt etter behov og nettkapasitet.
414 Den er modellert på nettverks- og tjenerløsningen som brukes på
415 Universitetet i Tromsø og Oslo, der jeg jobber med utvikling av
416 driftstjenester. Dette er det heldigvis noen som har fått med seg, og
417 jeg er glad for å kunne sitere fra en kommentar på den overnevnte
418 artikkelen. Min venn og gamle kollega Sturle Sunde forteller der:
419
420 &lt;blockquote&gt;
421 &lt;p&gt;I Flora kommune køyrer vi Skulelinux på skular med alt frå 15 til
422 meir enn 500 elevar. Dei store skulane har eigen tenar, for det er
423 mest praktisk. Eg, som er driftsansvarleg for heile nettet, ser
424 sjeldan dei tenarane fysisk, men at dei står der gjer skulane mindre
425 avhengige av eksterne linjer som er trege eller dyre. Dei minste
426 skulane har ikkje eigen tenar. Å bruke sentral tenar er heller ikkje
427 noko problem. Småskulane klarar seg fint med 1 mbit-linje til ein
428 sentral tenar eller tenaren på ein større skule.&lt;/p&gt;
429
430 &lt;p&gt;Det beste med Skulelinux er halvtjukke klientar. Dei treng ikkje
431 harddisk og brukar minimalt med ressursar på tenaren fordi dei køyrer
432 programma lokalt. Eit klasserom med 30 sju-åtte år gamle maskiner har
433 mykje meir CPU og RAM totalt enn nokon moderne tenar til under
434 millionen. Det trengst to kommandoar på den sentrale tenaren for å
435 oppdatere alle klientane, både tynne og halvtjukke. Vi har ingen
436 problem med diskar som ryk heller, som var eit problem før fordi
437 elevane sat og sparka i maskinene. Og dei krev lite bandbreidde i
438 nettet, so det er fullt mogleg å køyre slike på småskular med trege
439 linjer mot tenaren på ein større skule.&lt;/p&gt;
440
441 &lt;p&gt;Flora kommune har nesten 800 Linux-maskiner i sitt skulenett, og
442 ein person som tek seg av drift av heile nettet, inkludert tenarar,
443 klientar, operativsystem, programvare, heimekontorløysing og
444 administrasjon av brukarar.&lt;/p&gt;
445
446 &lt;p&gt;No skal det seiast at vi ikkje køyrer rein Skulelinux ut av
447 boksen. Vi har gjort ein del tilpassingar mot noko Novell-greier som
448 var der frå før, og som har komplisert installasjonen vår. Etter at
449 oppsettet var gjort har løysinga vore stabil og kravd minimalt med
450 arbeid.&lt;/p&gt;
451 &lt;/blockquote&gt;
452
453 &lt;p&gt;Jeg vet at Narvik, Harstad og Oslo er kommuner der Skolelinux
454 sentraldriftes med sentrale tjenere. Det forteller meg at Steinkjers
455 IT-sjef neppe bør skylde på Skolelinux-løsningen for sine 5 år gamle
456 minner.&lt;/p&gt;
457 </description>
458 </item>
459
460 <item>
461 <title>Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</title>
462 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html</link>
463 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html</guid>
464 <pubDate>Sun, 6 Jun 2010 23:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
465 <description>
466 &lt;p&gt;If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
467 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
468 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd. The packages with such
469 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
470 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart. Because of
471 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
472 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.&lt;/p&gt;
473
474 &lt;p&gt;With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
475 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
476 COLUMNS):&lt;/p&gt;
477
478 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
479 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
480 previous=N
481 PREVLEVEL=
482 RUNLEVEL=
483 runlevel=S
484 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
485 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
486 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
487 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
488
489 &lt;p&gt;With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
490 script.&lt;/p&gt;
491
492 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
493 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
494 previous=N
495 PREVLEVEL=N
496 RUNLEVEL=S
497 runlevel=S
498 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
499
500 &lt;p&gt;The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
501 sysvinit are not set by upstart. Not sure if it is intentional or not
502 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.&lt;/p&gt;
503
504 &lt;p&gt;For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
505 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
506 choice.&lt;/p&gt;
507 </description>
508 </item>
509
510 <item>
511 <title>A manual for standards wars...</title>
512 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html</link>
513 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html</guid>
514 <pubDate>Sun, 6 Jun 2010 14:15:00 +0200</pubDate>
515 <description>
516 &lt;p&gt;Via the
517 &lt;a href=&quot;http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html&quot;&gt;blog
518 of Rob Weir&lt;/a&gt; I came across the very interesting essay named
519 &lt;a href=&quot;http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf&quot;&gt;The Art of
520 Standards Wars&lt;/a&gt; (PDF 25 pages). I recommend it for everyone
521 following the standards wars of today.&lt;/p&gt;
522 </description>
523 </item>
524
525 <item>
526 <title>Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</title>
527 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html</link>
528 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html</guid>
529 <pubDate>Thu, 3 Jun 2010 12:05:00 +0200</pubDate>
530 <description>
531 &lt;p&gt;When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
532 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
533 information extracted from each machine. The script to do so is
534 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
535 the Skolelinux build servers:&lt;/p&gt;
536
537 &lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
538 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
539 vendor count
540 Dell Computer Corporation 1
541 PowerEdge 1750 1
542 IBM 1
543 eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]- 1
544 Intel 2
545 [no-dmi-info] 3
546 maintainer:~#
547 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
548
549 &lt;p&gt;The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
550 provided in each machine. Here there are Intel machines without model
551 information listed with Intel as vendor and mo model, and virtual Xen
552 machines listed as [no-dmi-info]. One can add -l as a command line
553 option to list the individual machines.&lt;/p&gt;
554
555 &lt;p&gt;A larger list is
556 &lt;a href=&quot;http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/&quot;&gt;available from the the
557 city of Narvik&lt;/a&gt;, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
558 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly. In their report there
559 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
560 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
561 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
562 collector.&lt;/p&gt;
563 </description>
564 </item>
565
566 <item>
567 <title>Togsatsing på norsk, mot sykkel</title>
568 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Togsatsing_p___norsk__mot_sykkel.html</link>
569 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Togsatsing_p___norsk__mot_sykkel.html</guid>
570 <pubDate>Wed, 2 Jun 2010 23:45:00 +0200</pubDate>
571 <description>
572 &lt;p&gt;Det står dårlig til med toget når en finner på å la det
573 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/article3677060.ece&quot;&gt;kappkjøre
574 med sykkel&lt;/a&gt;... Jeg tror det trengs strukturendringer for å få
575 fikset på togproblemene i Norge.&lt;/p&gt;
576
577 &lt;p&gt;Mon tro hva toglinje mellom Narvik og Tromsø ville hatt slags
578 effekt på området der?&lt;/p&gt;
579 </description>
580 </item>
581
582 <item>
583 <title>KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?</title>
584 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html</link>
585 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html</guid>
586 <pubDate>Tue, 1 Jun 2010 17:05:00 +0200</pubDate>
587 <description>
588 &lt;p&gt;It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
589 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled. The
590 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
591 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
592 wait.&lt;/p&gt;
593
594 &lt;p&gt;I came across two bugs related to this issue,
595 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/583312&quot;&gt;#583312&lt;/a&gt; initially filed
596 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
597 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
598 &lt;a href=&quot;http://bugs.debian.org/524751&quot;&gt;#524751&lt;/a&gt; initially filed against
599 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.&lt;/p&gt;
600
601 &lt;p&gt;To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
602 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
603 distribution work out of the box for these users. The nvidia driver
604 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
605 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
606 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
607 distribution that work for them. I have no idea what the solution is,
608 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.&lt;/p&gt;
609
610 &lt;p&gt;I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.&lt;/p&gt;
611 </description>
612 </item>
613
614 </channel>
615 </rss>