1 <?xml version=
"1.0" encoding=
"ISO-8859-1"?>
2 <rss version='
2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/
1.0/'
>
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from October
2014</title>
5 <description>Entries from October
2014</description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
10 <title>First Jessie based Debian Edu released (alpha0)
</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_released__alpha0_.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_released__alpha0_.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Mon,
27 Oct
2014 20:
40:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>I am happy to report that I just sent out
15 <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/
2014/
10/msg00000.html
">this
16 announcement
</a
>:
</p
>
19 The Debian Edu Team is pleased to announce the release of Debian Edu
20 Jessie
8.0+edu0~alpha0
22 Debian Edu is a complete operating system for schools. Through its
23 various installation profiles you can install servers, workstations
24 and laptops which will work together on the school network. With
25 Debian Edu, the teachers themselves or their technical support can
26 roll out a complete multi-user multi-machine study environment within
27 hours or a few days. Debian Edu comes with hundreds of applications
28 pre-installed, but you can always add more packages from Debian.
30 For those who want to give Debian Edu Jessie a try, download and
31 installation instructions are available, including detailed
32 instructions in the manual[
1] explaining the first steps, such as
33 setting up a network or adding users. Please note that the password
34 for the user your prompted for during installation must have a length
35 of at least
5 characters!
37 [
1]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie
">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie
</a
> &gt;
39 Would you like to give your school
's computer a longer life? Are you
40 tired of sneaker administration, running from computer to computer
41 reinstalling the operating system? Would you like to administrate all
42 the computers in your school using only a couple of hours every week?
43 Check out Debian Edu Jessie!
45 Skolelinux is used by at least two hundred schools all over the world,
46 mostly in Germany and Norway.
48 About Debian Edu and Skolelinux
49 ===============================
51 Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux[
2], is a Linux distribution based
52 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
53 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
54 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
55 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
56 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
57 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
58 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
59 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
60 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
61 services. The desktop contains more than
60 educational software
62 packages[
3] and more are available from the Debian archive, and
63 schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE, Xfce and MATE desktop
66 [
2]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">http://www.skolelinux.org/
</a
> &gt;
67 [
3]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html
">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html
</a
> &gt;
69 Full release notes and manual
70 =============================
72 Below the download URLs there is a list of some of the new features
73 and bugfixes of Debian Edu
8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie. The full
74 list is part of the manual. (See the feature list in the manual[
4] for
75 the English version.) For some languages manual translations are
76 available, see the manual translation overview[
5].
78 [
4]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features
">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features
</a
> &gt;
79 [
5]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/
">http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/
</a
> &gt;
84 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release (
624 MiB) you can use
86 *
<a href=
"ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-
8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso
">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-
8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso
</a
>
87 *
<a href=
"http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-
8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso
">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-
8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso
</a
>
88 * rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-
8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso .
90 The SHA1SUM of this image is:
361188818e036ce67280a572f757de82ebfeb095
92 New features for Debian Edu
8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie released
2014-
10-
27
93 ===============================================================================
99 * PXE installation now installs firmware automatically for the hardware present.
104 Everything which is new in Debian Jessie
8.0, eg:
106 * Linux kernel
3.16.x
107 * Desktop environments KDE
"Plasma
" 4.11.12, GNOME
3.14, Xfce
4.10,
108 LXDE
0.5.6 and MATE
1.8 (KDE
"Plasma
" is installed by default; to
109 choose one of the others see manual.)
110 * the browsers Iceweasel
31 ESR and Chromium
38
114 * CUPS print system
1.7.5
115 * new boot framework: systemd
116 * Educational toolbox GCompris
14.07
117 * Music creator Rosegarden
14.02
118 * Image editor Gimp
2.8.14
119 * Virtual stargazer Stellarium
0.13.0
122 * New version of debian-installer from Debian Jessie.
123 * Debian Jessie includes about
42000 packages available for
125 * More information about Debian Jessie
8.0 is provided in the release
126 notes[
6] and the installation manual[
7].
128 [
6]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes
">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes
</a
> &gt;
129 [
7]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual
">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual
</a
> &gt;
134 * Inserting incorrect DNS information in Gosa will no longer break
135 DNS completely, but instead stop DNS updates until the incorrect
136 information is corrected (Debian bug #
710362)
139 Documentation and translation updates
140 -------------------------------------
142 * The Debian Edu Jessie Manual is fully translated to German, French,
143 Italian, Danish and Dutch. Partly translated versions exist for
144 Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.
149 * Due to new Squid settings, powering off or rebooting the main
150 server takes more time.
151 * To manage printers localhost:
631 has to be used, currently www:
631
154 Regressions / known problems
155 ----------------------------
157 * Installing LTSP chroot fails with a bug related to eatmydata about
158 exim4-config failing to run its postinst (see Debian bug #
765694
159 and Debian bug #
762103).
160 * Munin collection is not properly configured on clients (Debian bug
161 #
764594). The fix is available in a newer version of munin-node.
162 * PXE setup for Main Server and Thin Client Server setup does not
163 work when installing on a machine without direct Internet access.
164 Will be fixed when Debian bug #
766960 is fixed in Jessie.
166 See the status page[
8] for the complete list.
168 [
8]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie
">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie
</a
> &gt;
173 &lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs
">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs
</a
> &gt;
178 The Debian Project was founded in
1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
179 free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
180 the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
181 volunteers from all over the world work together to create and
182 maintain Debian software. Available in
70 languages, and supporting a
183 huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal
187 For further information, please visit the Debian web pages[
9] or send
188 mail to press@debian.org.
190 [
9]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/
">http://www.debian.org/
</a
> &gt;
196 <title>I spent last weekend recording MakerCon Nordic
</title>
197 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_spent_last_weekend_recording_MakerCon_Nordic.html
</link>
198 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_spent_last_weekend_recording_MakerCon_Nordic.html
</guid>
199 <pubDate>Thu,
23 Oct
2014 23:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
200 <description><p
>I spent last weekend at
<a href=
"http://www.makercon.no/
">Makercon
201 Nordic
</a
>, a great conference and workshop for makers in Norway and
202 the surrounding countries. I had volunteered on behalf of the
203 Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG) to video record the talks, and we
204 had a great and exhausting time recording the entire day, two days in
205 a row. There were only two of us, Hans-Petter and me, and we used the
206 regular video equipment for NUUG, with a
207 <a href=
"http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/
">dvswitch
</a
>, a
208 camera and a VGA to DV convert box, and mixed video and slides
211 <p
>Hans-Petter did the post-processing, consisting of uploading the
212 around
180 GiB of raw video to Youtube, and the result is
213 <a href=
"https://www.youtube.com/user/MakerConNordic/
">now becoming
214 public
</a
> on the MakerConNordic account. The videos have the license
215 NUUG always use on our recordings, which is
216 <a href=
"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/
3.0/no/
">Creative
217 Commons Navngivelse-Del på samme vilkår
3.0 Norge
</a
>. Many great
218 talks available. Check it out! :)
</p
>
223 <title>listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software
</title>
224 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html
</link>
225 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html
</guid>
226 <pubDate>Wed,
22 Oct
2014 20:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
227 <description><p
>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
228 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
229 operate. First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
230 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
231 and various options for each email address. This take a while for
232 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
233 job as a list moderator. But there is a quick alternative,
234 <a href=
"http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin
">the
235 listadmin program
</a
>. It allow you to check lists for new messages
236 to moderate in a fraction of a second. Here is a test run on two
237 lists I recently took over:
</p
>
239 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
240 % time listadmin xiph
241 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
242 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
248 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
250 <p
>In
1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
251 there are no message in the moderation queue. Every morning I
252 currently moderate
68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
253 minutes. When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
254 ago, there were
400 emails waiting in the moderator queue. It took me
255 less than
15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
258 <p
>If you install
259 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin
">the listadmin
260 package
</a
> from Debian and create a file
<tt
>~/.listadmin.ini
</tt
>
261 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:
</p
>
263 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
264 username username@example.org
267 discard_if_reason
"Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list.
"
270 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
271 mailman-list@lists.example.com
274 other-list@otherserver.example.org
275 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
277 <p
>There are other options to set as well. Check the manual page to
278 learn the details.
</p
>
280 <p
>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
281 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
282 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
283 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:
</p
>
285 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
286 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=
0 listadmin
287 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
289 <p
>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
290 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
291 initial screen dump (the xiph argument). Using an argument, only
292 lists matching the argument string will be processed. This make it
293 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
296 <p
>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of
68
297 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
298 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
299 time I could spend elsewhere over the years. It truly is nice free
302 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
303 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
304 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
306 <p
>Update
2014-
10-
27: Added missing
'username
' statement in
307 configuration example. Also, I
've been told that the
308 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=
0 setting do not work for everyone. Not
314 <title>Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation
</title>
315 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html
</link>
316 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html
</guid>
317 <pubDate>Fri,
17 Oct
2014 14:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
318 <description><p
>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
319 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
320 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
321 Normally something more is needed. But thanks to
322 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html
">my isenkram
323 package
</a
> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
324 to do this using simple preseeding.
</p
>
326 <p
>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
327 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
328 the kernel modules for the hardware). (It can also install user space
329 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
330 of this story.)
</p
>
332 <p
>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
333 values are needed. First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
334 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
335 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system. This is done by
336 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
337 isenkram-cli package. The package name is next passed to debootstrap
338 for installation. With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
339 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
340 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
341 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.
</p
>
343 <p
>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
344 most firmware unfortunately is non-free. This is done by preseeding
345 the apt-mirror-setup step. This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
346 hardware it is the only option in Debian.
</p
>
348 <p
>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
349 firmware installed automatically by the installer:
</p
>
351 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
352 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
353 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
354 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
356 <p
>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
357 both firmware and user space packages when using this method. It also
358 do not work well, so use version
0.15 or later. Installing both
359 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
360 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
361 and one for user space programs. The firmware task is enabled by
362 default, while the one for user space programs is not. This split is
363 implemented in the package currently in unstable.
</p
>
365 <p
>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
366 this recipe work for you. :)
</p
>
368 <p
>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work. First and
369 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
370 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/. So the
371 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find. First there
372 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):
</p
>
374 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
375 Task: isenkram-packages
377 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
378 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
380 Test-new-install: show show
382 Packages: for-current-hardware
384 Task: isenkram-firmware
386 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
387 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
388 packages are proposed.
389 Test-new-install: mark show
391 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
392 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
394 <p
>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
395 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
396 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/. The scripts use other scripts to get a
397 list of packages to install. The for-current-hardware-firmware script
398 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
400 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
405 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
406 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
408 <p
>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
409 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)
</p
>
411 <p
>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
412 installed, run
<tt
>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
413 --new-install
</tt
> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
416 <p
><a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/
">Debian Edu
</a
> will be
417 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
418 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.
</p
>
423 <title>Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo
</title>
424 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html
</link>
425 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html
</guid>
426 <pubDate>Sat,
4 Oct
2014 15:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
427 <description><p
>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen. Above the
428 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
429 with Linux kernel
3.2.0-
23 (ie probably version
12.04 LTS) was stuck
430 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:
</p
>
432 <p align=
"center
"><img width=
"70%
" src=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2014-
10-
04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg
"></p
>
434 <p
>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
435 about this hidden Linux installation. It is interesting what
436 <a href=
"http://revealingerrors.com/
">errors can reveal
</a
>.
</p
>
441 <title>New lsdvd release version
0.17 is ready
</title>
442 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html
</link>
443 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html
</guid>
444 <pubDate>Sat,
4 Oct
2014 08:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
445 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/
">lsdvd project
</a
>
446 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
447 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
448 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
451 <p
>I just wrapped up
452 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/
32896061/
">a
453 new lsdvd release
</a
>, available in git or from
454 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/
">the
455 download page
</a
>. This is the changelog dated
2014-
10-
03 for version
460 <li
>Ignore
'phantom
' audio, subtitle tracks
</li
>
461 <li
>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
462 non-existant, to work around additional copy protection
</li
>
463 <li
>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles
</li
>
464 <li
>Fix pallete display of first entry
</li
>
465 <li
>Fix include orders
</li
>
466 <li
>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway
</li
>
467 <li
>Fix the chapter count
</li
>
468 <li
>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
469 the palette size is the same.
</li
>
470 <li
>Fix array printing.
</li
>
471 <li
>Correct subsecond calculations.
</li
>
472 <li
>Add sector information to the output format.
</li
>
473 <li
>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
474 with more GCC compiler warnings.
</li
>
478 <p
>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
479 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
480 project the last nine years. Please check it out. :)
</p
>