1 <?xml version=
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2 <rss version='
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4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen
</title>
5 <description></description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
7 <atom:link href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel=
"self" type=
"application/rss+xml" />
10 <title>Notes on language codes for Norwegian docbook processing...
</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Notes_on_language_codes_for_Norwegian_docbook_processing___.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Notes_on_language_codes_for_Norwegian_docbook_processing___.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Fri,
10 Aug
2012 21:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
14 <description><p
>In
<a href=
"http://www.docbook.org/
">docbook
</a
> one can specify
15 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
16 this information to pick the correct translations for
'chapter
',
'see
17 also
',
'index
' etc. And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
18 this work just fine. For example a German user can start the document
19 with
&lt;book lang=
"de
"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
20 correct content with any of the docbook processors. This is not the
22 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html
">I
23 am working with at the moment
</a
>, Norwegian Bokmål.
</p
>
25 <p
>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
26 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
27 all tools. I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
28 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way. Some
29 of them do not handle it at all.
</p
>
31 <p
>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
32 this mess. Norwegian is not one, but two written variants. The
33 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål. There are three
34 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
35 is
'no
', Norwegian Nynorsk is
'nn
' and Norwegian Bokmål is
'nb
'.
36 Historically the
'no
' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
37 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
38 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
39 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure
'no
' was an
40 alias for
'nb
'.
</p
>
42 <p
>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian. The dblatex tool only
43 understand
'nn
'. There are translations for
'no
', but not
'nb
' (BTS
44 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
684391">#
684391</a
>), but due to a bug
45 (BTS
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
682936">#
682936</a
>) the
'no
'
46 language code is not recognised. The docbook-xsl tool chain only
47 recognise
'nn
' and
'nb
', but not
'no
'. The xmlto tool only recognise
48 'nn
' and
'nb
', but not
'no
'. The end result that there is no language
49 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
50 at the same time. :(
</p
>
52 <p
>The correct solution is to use
&lt;book lang=
"nb
"&gt;, but it will
53 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
54 processors. :(
</p
>
56 <p
>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/
</p
>
61 <title>Best way to create a docbook book?
</title>
62 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html
</link>
63 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html
</guid>
64 <pubDate>Tue,
31 Jul
2012 22:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
65 <description><p
>I tried to send this text to the
66 <a href=
"https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/
">docbook-apps
67 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org
</a
>, but it only accept messages
68 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
69 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
70 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
73 <p
>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
74 learning curve at the moment.
</p
>
76 <p
>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
77 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
78 docbook to handle the process. The files to build the book are
80 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig
">github
</a
>.
81 The book got around
400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
82 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
83 software docbook processors. My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
86 <p
>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
87 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
88 formats. I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
93 <li
>Using dblatex, the
&lt;part
&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
94 as
&lt;/part
&gt; do not really end the
&lt;part
&gt;. (See
95 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
683166">BTS report #
683166</a
>), the
96 xetex backend (needed to process UTF-
8) give incorrect hyphens in
97 index references spanning several pages (See
98 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
682901">BTS report #
682901</a
>), and
99 I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
100 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
682936">BTS report #
682936</a
>).
</li
>
102 <li
>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
103 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
683163">BTS report
104 #
683163</a
>).
</li
>
106 <li
>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
107 show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
108 footnote and text body, see
109 <a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
683197">BTS report #
683197</a
>), and
110 fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
111 refs listed are not right).
</li
>
113 <li
>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.
</li
>
115 <li
>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
116 index problems the xmlto + fop processing.
</li
>
120 <p
>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
121 of this book? Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
122 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?
</p
>
124 <p
>What about HTML and EPUB versions?
</p
>
129 <title>OOXML og standardisering
</title>
130 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OOXML_og_standardisering.html
</link>
131 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OOXML_og_standardisering.html
</guid>
132 <pubDate>Wed,
25 Jul
2012 21:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
133 <description><p
>DIFI har
134 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/DIFI_foresl_r___kaste_ut_ODF_og_ta_inn_OOXML_fra_statens_standardkatalog.html
">en
135 høring gående
</a
> om ny versjon av statens standardkatalog, med frist
136 2012-
09-
30, der det foreslås å fjerne ODF fra katalogen og ta inn ISO
137 OOXML. I den anledning minnes jeg
138 <a href=
"http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/FAD/Vedlegg/IKT-politikk/Refkat_v2.pdf
">notatet
139 FAD skrev
</a
> da versjon
2 av standardkatalogen var under
140 utarbeidelse, da FAD og DIFI fortsatt forsto poenget med og verdien av
141 frie og åpne standarder.
</p
>
143 <p
>Det er mange som tror at OOXML er ett spesifikt format, men det
144 brukes ofte som fellesbetegnelse for både formatet spesifisert av
145 ECMA, ISO, og formatet produsert av Microsoft Office (aka docx), som
146 dessverre ikke er det samme formatet. Fra en av de som implementerte
147 støtte for docx-formatet i KDE fikk jeg høre at ISO-spesifikasjonen
148 var en nyttig referanse, men at det var mange avvik som gjorde at en
149 ikke kunne gå ut ifra at Microsoft Office produserte dokumenter i
150 henhold til ISO-spesifikasjonen.
</p
>
152 <p
>ISOs OOXML-spesifikasjon har (eller hadde, usikker på om
153 kommentaren er oppdatert) i følge
154 <a href=
"http://surguy.net/articles/ooxml-validation-and-technical-review.xml
">Inigo
155 Surguy
</a
> feil i mer enn
10% av eksemplene, noe som i tillegg gjør
156 det vanskelig å bruke spesifikasjonen til å implementere støtte for
157 ISO OOXML. Jeg har ingen erfaring med å validere OOXML-dokumenter
159 <a href=
"http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=
5124">Microsoft
160 har laget en validator
</a
> som jeg ikke kan teste da den kun er
161 tilgjengelig på MS Windows. Finner også en annen kalt
162 <a href=
"http://code.google.com/p/officeotron/
">Office-O-Tron
</A
> som
163 er oppdatert i fjor. Lurer på om de validerer at dokumenter er i
164 formatet til Microsoft office, eller om de validerer at de er i
165 henhold til formatene spesifisert av ECMA og ISO. Det hadde også vært
166 interessant å se om docx-dokumentene publisert av det offentlige er
167 gyldige ISO OOXML-dokumenter.
</p
>
172 <title>Free Culture in Norwegian -
5 chapters done,
74 percent left to do
</title>
173 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html
</link>
174 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html
</guid>
175 <pubDate>Sat,
21 Jul
2012 20:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
176 <description><p
>I reported earlier that I am working on
177 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html
">a
178 norwegian version
</a
> of the book
179 <a href=
"http://free-culture.cc/
">Free Culture
</a
> by Lawrence Lessig.
180 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
181 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six. The source files as well as a
182 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
183 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig
">github
</a
>.
</p
>
185 <p
>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
186 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
187 completely translated. This completes
26 percent of the number of
188 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus
74
189 percent left to translate. A graph of the progress is present at the
190 bottom of the github project page. There is still room for more
191 contributors. Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
192 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
195 <p
>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
196 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
202 <title>Tips for å bli med i Skolelinux-prosjektet (som faktisk er aktivt)
</title>
203 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Tips_for___bli_med_i_Skolelinux_prosjektet__som_faktisk_er_aktivt_.html
</link>
204 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Tips_for___bli_med_i_Skolelinux_prosjektet__som_faktisk_er_aktivt_.html
</guid>
205 <pubDate>Thu,
19 Jul
2012 20:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
206 <description><p
>Jeg fikk nettopp spørsmål på epost om Skolelinux-prosjektet lever
207 fra en som var interessert i å bidra, og måtte jo konstatere at i og
208 med at spørsmålet ble stilt har prosjektet ikke lyktes med å formidle
209 sin aktivitet. Her er det jeg svarte:
</p
>
211 <p
><blockquote
>
212 <p
>Jada,
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Skolelinux-prosjektet
</a
>
213 lever, men det meste av utvikling foregår nå under paraplyen
214 <a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/
">Debian Edu
</a
> som er det
215 internasjonale navnet på prosjektet. Dugnaden i Norge organiseres av
217 <a href=
"http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/
">Fri programvare i
218 Skolen
</a
>, og det finnes minst ett selskap som selger kommersiell
219 support på løsningen (
<a href=
"http://www.slxdrift.no/
">Skolelinux
220 Drift AS
</a
>, der jeg er styremedlem). Anbefaler at du melder deg på
222 <a href=
"http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/
">debian-edu@lists.debian.org
</a
>
223 (og debian-edu-announce) og
224 <a href=
"http://medlem.friprogramvareiskolen.no/
">melder deg inn i
225 foreningen
</a
> for å få beskjed om aktivitet som planlegges. Det
227 <a href=
"http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering
">utviklersamlinger
228 i august
</a
> og utover høsten.
</p
>
230 <p
>Bidra gjerne med å spre ordet om Skolelinux. Det er alt for få som
231 bidrar til pressedekning, bloggposter, twittermeldinger, etc. :)
</p
>
233 <p
>Jeg antar du har funnet
234 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju/
">bloggserien
235 min med intervjuer
</a
>. Det er antagelig også interessant for deg å
236 følge med på
<a href=
"http://planet.skolelinux.org/
">Planet
237 Skolelinux
</a
>.
</p
>
239 <p
>Hm, jeg burde vel blogge alle disse lenkene slik at de blir enklere
241 </blockquote
></p
>
242 <p
>Herved gjort. :)
</p
>
247 <title>Call for help from docbook expert to tag Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig
</title>
248 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Call_for_help_from_docbook_expert_to_tag_Free_Culture_by_Lawrence_Lessig.html
</link>
249 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Call_for_help_from_docbook_expert_to_tag_Free_Culture_by_Lawrence_Lessig.html
</guid>
250 <pubDate>Mon,
16 Jul
2012 22:
50:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
251 <description><p
>I am currently working on a
252 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html
">project
253 to translate
</a
> the book
254 <a href=
"http://free-culture.cc/
">Free Culture
</a
> by Lawrence Lessig
255 to Norwegian. And the source we base our translation on is the
256 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook
">docbook
</a
> version, to
257 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
258 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
259 tagged. The source files of this project is available from
260 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig
">github
</a
>.
</p
>
262 <p
>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
263 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert. Is there a
264 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
265 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
266 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book? This will provide a
267 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
268 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version. If you can and want
269 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
270 send pull requests with fixes. :)
</p
>
275 <title>Fri programvare -
"fri
" som i
"talefrihet
", ikke som i
"fri bar
"</title>
276 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fri_programvare____fri__som_i__talefrihet___ikke_som_i__fri_bar_.html
</link>
277 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fri_programvare____fri__som_i__talefrihet___ikke_som_i__fri_bar_.html
</guid>
278 <pubDate>Sun,
15 Jul
2012 21:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
279 <description><p
>Et ofte brukt sitat i fri programvareverden er Stallman-sitatet
280 «
<a href=
"http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.en
">Free Software,
281 "free
" as in
"free speech
", not as in
"free beer
"</a
>». Men det er
282 ikke direkte overførbart til norsk, da det baserer seg på koblingen
283 gratis/fri på engelsk. En direkte oversettelse ville være «Fri
284 programvare,
"fri
" som i
"talefrihet
", ikke som
"gratis øl
"», og det
285 går jo glipp av poenget. I forbindelse med at vi er
286 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html
">igang
287 med å oversette
</a
> <a href=
"http://free-culture.cc/
">Free Culture
</a
>
288 av Lawrence Lessig, måtte jeg forsøke a finne en bedre
289 oversettelse.
</p
>
291 <p
>Mitt forslag til oversettelse blir dermed å droppe ølet, og heller
292 fokusere på det kjente norske uttrykket
"fri bar
". Dermed blir
293 oversettelsen «Fri programvare -
"fri
" som i
"talefrihet
", ikke som i
294 "fri bar
"».
</p
>
296 <p
>Noen som har bedre forslag?
</p
>
298 <p
>Forøvrig bruker jeg fri programvare som et samlebegrep på norsk for
299 begge de engelske uttrykkene Free Software og Open Source, jamfør
300 <a href=
"http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/folder-friprogramvare.pdf
">NUUGs
301 lille folder om temaet
</a
>.
</p
>
306 <title>Dugnad for å sende norsk versjon av Free Culture til stortingets representanter!
</title>
307 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html
</link>
308 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html
</guid>
309 <pubDate>Wed,
11 Jul
2012 09:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
310 <description><p
>Da opphavsrettsloven ble revidert i forrige runde rundt
2005, var
311 det skummelt å se hvor lite stortingsrepresentantene forsto hvordan
312 Internet påvirket folks forhold til kulturuttrykk, og min venn Vidar
313 og jeg spekulert på at det hadde kanskje vært fornuftig om samtlige
314 representanter fikk en norsk utgave av boken
315 <a href=
"http://free-culture.cc/
">Free Culture
</a
> av Lawrence Lessig
316 som forklarte litt om problemstillingene. Vi endte opp med å
317 prioritere utvikling i
318 <a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Skolelinux
</a
>-prosjektet i
319 stedet, så den oversatte boken så aldri dagens lys. Men i forrige uke
320 ble jeg inspirert til å ta opp tråden og se om det er mulig å få til
321 bokprosjektet denne gang, da det er tydelig at kulturdepartementet i
322 sitt nye forsøk på å gjøre opphavsrettsloven enda mer ubalansert til
323 fordel for forlag og store mediehus fortsatt trenger en annen vinkling
324 i debatten.
</p
>
326 <p
>Planen min er å oversette boka på dugnad, sette den opp for
327 trykking med en av de mange
328 <a href=
"http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trykk_på_forespørsel
">trykk på
329 forespørsel
</a
>-tjenestene, skaffe sponsor til å finansiere trykking
330 til stortingsrepresentantene og alle som har bidratt med
331 oversettelser. Kanskje vi også kan få en avtale med et forlag om
332 publisering når boka er ferdig? Kommentarene til
333 <a href=
"http://newth.net/eirik/
2011/
04/
01/e-selvpublisering/
">Eirik
335 <a href=
"http://www.espen.com/norskblogg/archives/
2008/
09/erfaringer_med_publishing_on_demand.html
">Espen
336 Andersen
</a
> om erfaringene med selvpublisering og trykk på
337 forespørsel er interessante og ikke avskrekkende, og jeg mistenker at
338 <a href=
"http://www.lulu.com/
">Lulu
</a
> er en grei leverandør av
339 trykketjenester til prosjektet.
</p
>
341 <p
>Jeg har satt opp
342 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig
">et
343 Github-prosjekt
</a
> for a lage boken, basert på Docbook-utgaven jeg
344 fant fra Hans Schou. Skolelinux har hatt byggesystem for å lage
345 oversatt HTML og PDF-utgave av Docbook-bøker i en årrekke, så jeg har
346 kopiert og utvidet dette oppsettet. Originalteksten er i Docbook, og
347 oversettelsen gjøres i .po-filer med hjelp av vanlige
348 oversetterverktøy brukt i fri programvareverden. Dernest tar
349 byggesystemet over og lager PDF og EPUB-utgave av den oversatte
350 teksten. Resultatet kan ses i Github-prosjektet. For å komme raskt
351 igang har jeg brukt maskinoversettelse av alle tekstbitene fra engelsk
352 til norsk, noe som grovoversatte ca.
1300 av de ca.
1700 tekstbitene
353 boken består av. Jeg håper nå at flere kan bidra med å få
354 oversettelsen på plass, slik at teksten kan være klar i løpet av
355 høsten. Når alt er oversatt må teksten gjennomgås for feil og
356 konsistent språk. Totalt er det nok mange timer som trengs for å
357 gjennomføre oversettelsen.
</p
>
359 <p
>Økonomien i dette er ikke avskrekkende.
169
360 stortingsrepresentanter og nesten like mange varamedlemmer bør få
361 bøker, og estimert produduksjonskostnad for hver bok er rundt
6 EURO i
362 følge et raskt estimat fra Lulu. Jeg vet ennå ikke hvor mange sider
363 det blir i størrelsen
5,
5" x
8.5" (det er ca.
140 sider i A4-format),
364 så jeg gjettet på
400 sider. Jeg tror originalutgaven har nesten
400
365 sider. For
169*
2 eksemplarer snakker vi om en trykkekostnad på
366 ca.
2000 EURO, dvs. ca
15 000 NOK. Det burde være mulig å finne en
367 sponsor for å dekke en slik sum. I tillegg kommer distribusjon og
368 porto, som antagelig kommer på like mye.
</p
>
370 <p
>Kan du bidra med oversettelse og docbook-typesetting? Ta kontakt
371 og send patcher i github. Jeg legger gjerne inn folk i prosjektet
372 slik at du kan oppdatere direkte.
</p
>
377 <title>Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg
</title>
378 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html
</link>
379 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html
</guid>
380 <pubDate>Mon,
9 Jul
2012 00:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
381 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">Debian Edu /
382 Skolelinux
</a
> project have users all over the globe, but until
383 recently we have not known about any users in Norway
's neighbour
384 country Sweden. This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
385 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
386 to adjust and scale the just released
387 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/
2012/
20120311.html
">Debian Edu
388 Wheezy
</a
> setup to his liking. He granted me an interview, and I am
389 happy to share his answers with you here.
</p
>
391 <p
><strong
>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?
</strong
></p
>
393 <p
>I
'm a
44 year old country guy that have been working
12 years at
394 the same school as
50% IT-manager and
50% Teacher. My educational
395 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
396 "folkhighschool
" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups. In
397 Norwegian I believe it
's called
"Vuxenupplaring
". I also have a master
398 in
"Technology and social change
". So I
'm not really a tech guy, I
399 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
400 perspective when working with IT.
</p
>
402 <p
><strong
>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
403 project?
</strong
></p
>
405 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
406 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
407 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
408 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
409 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
410 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
412 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
413 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
415 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
416 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
417 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
418 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
419 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
420 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
421 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
422 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
423 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
424 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to
"beat around the bush
" by
425 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
426 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
427 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
428 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
429 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
430 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
431 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
432 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time. Our
433 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
434 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
435 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
436 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit
"oldish
" applications. Debian is
439 <p
><strong
>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
440 Edu?
</strong
></p
>
442 <p
>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
443 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
444 year (
2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
445 sound from working with them. It
's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
446 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
447 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.
</p
>
449 <p
>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
450 install time. In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
451 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
452 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
453 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
454 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
455 support for single-sign on. That will make the transition to free
456 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
457 need. No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
458 some applications can
't be open source. As for us we really need to
459 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes. We run a journalist
460 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
461 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association). Our
462 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
463 are done. This is important if you want to get a job.
</p
>
465 <p
>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
466 magazines. We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
467 market to Adobe. The only
"equivalent
" to InDesign in the opensource
468 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
469 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
470 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
471 edit and compile a newspaper. But politically at our school we are not
472 there yet. And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.
</p
>
474 <p
>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
475 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
476 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
477 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
478 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
479 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
480 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
481 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise. Those
482 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
483 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
484 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
485 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
486 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
487 sound file.
</p
>
489 <p
>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
490 will try. The problem is the students have certain expectations when
491 they start an education towards a profession. So the programs has to
492 look and feel professional. Good thing with radio, there are many
493 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
494 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
495 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
496 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
497 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.
</p
>
499 <p
><strong
>Which free software do you use daily?
</strong
></p
>
501 <p
>Myself I
'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days. I use almost
502 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
503 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
506 <p
><strong
>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
507 get schools to use free software?
</strong
></p
>
509 <p
>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
510 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
511 it
's also very important that the multimedia support is working
512 flawlessly. The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
513 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
514 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
515 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
516 idea. It
's also important that the open source software works even for
517 the administration. It
's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
518 open source, if the principal has to run Windows. It also creates a
519 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
520 will create a difference in
"status
" between classes, so a good
521 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
522 desktop is essential. At least at our school, where we have mixed
523 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.
</p
>
525 <p
>Update
2012-
07-
09 08:
30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
526 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
527 article
<a href=
"https://lwn.net/Articles/
481607/
">Radio station
528 management with Airtime
</a
>,
529 <a href=
"http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/
">Airtime
</a
> which
530 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
531 <a href=
"http://www.rivendellaudio.org/
">Rivendell
</a
> which claim to
532 be complete radio broadcast automation solution. All of them seem
533 useful to the aspiring radio producer.
</p
>
538 <title>Why do schools waste money on IT?
</title>
539 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html
</link>
540 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html
</guid>
541 <pubDate>Sun,
8 Jul
2012 09:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
542 <description><p
>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
543 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
544 in schools and municipalities. We provide what the happy users of
545 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
546 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution. I
547 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
548 Steinberg in his blog post
549 "<a href=
"http://www.mysociety.org/
2012/
06/
19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/
">Can
550 you recognize the million pound chair?
</a
>". Read it and weep for the
551 spending of your tax money.
</p
>
553 <p
>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
554 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
555 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
556 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
557 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system