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>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
10 <title>First Jessie based Debian Edu released (alpha0)
</title>
11 <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_released__alpha0_.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">https://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 on behalf of the Debian Edu team just
16 <a href=
"https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/
2014/
10/msg00000.html
">this
17 announcement
</a
>:
</p
>
20 The Debian Edu Team is pleased to announce the release of Debian Edu
21 Jessie
8.0+edu0~alpha0
23 Debian Edu is a complete operating system for schools. Through its
24 various installation profiles you can install servers, workstations
25 and laptops which will work together on the school network. With
26 Debian Edu, the teachers themselves or their technical support can
27 roll out a complete multi-user multi-machine study environment within
28 hours or a few days. Debian Edu comes with hundreds of applications
29 pre-installed, but you can always add more packages from Debian.
31 For those who want to give Debian Edu Jessie a try, download and
32 installation instructions are available, including detailed
33 instructions in the manual[
1] explaining the first steps, such as
34 setting up a network or adding users. Please note that the password
35 for the user your prompted for during installation must have a length
36 of at least
5 characters!
38 [
1]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie
">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie
</a
> &gt;
40 Would you like to give your school
's computer a longer life? Are you
41 tired of sneaker administration, running from computer to computer
42 reinstalling the operating system? Would you like to administrate all
43 the computers in your school using only a couple of hours every week?
44 Check out Debian Edu Jessie!
46 Skolelinux is used by at least two hundred schools all over the world,
47 mostly in Germany and Norway.
49 About Debian Edu and Skolelinux
50 ===============================
52 Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux[
2], is a Linux distribution based
53 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
54 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
55 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
56 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
57 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
58 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
59 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
60 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
61 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
62 services. The desktop contains more than
60 educational software
63 packages[
3] and more are available from the Debian archive, and
64 schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE, Xfce and MATE desktop
67 [
2]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://www.skolelinux.org/
">http://www.skolelinux.org/
</a
> &gt;
68 [
3]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html
">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html
</a
> &gt;
70 Full release notes and manual
71 =============================
73 Below the download URLs there is a list of some of the new features
74 and bugfixes of Debian Edu
8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie. The full
75 list is part of the manual. (See the feature list in the manual[
4] for
76 the English version.) For some languages manual translations are
77 available, see the manual translation overview[
5].
79 [
4]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features
">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features
</a
> &gt;
80 [
5]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/
">http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/
</a
> &gt;
85 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release (
624 MiB) you can use
87 *
<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
>
88 *
<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
>
89 * rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-
8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso .
91 The SHA1SUM of this image is:
361188818e036ce67280a572f757de82ebfeb095
93 New features for Debian Edu
8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie released
2014-
10-
27
94 ===============================================================================
100 * PXE installation now installs firmware automatically for the hardware present.
105 Everything which is new in Debian Jessie
8.0, eg:
107 * Linux kernel
3.16.x
108 * Desktop environments KDE
"Plasma
" 4.11.12, GNOME
3.14, Xfce
4.10,
109 LXDE
0.5.6 and MATE
1.8 (KDE
"Plasma
" is installed by default; to
110 choose one of the others see manual.)
111 * the browsers Iceweasel
31 ESR and Chromium
38
115 * CUPS print system
1.7.5
116 * new boot framework: systemd
117 * Educational toolbox GCompris
14.07
118 * Music creator Rosegarden
14.02
119 * Image editor Gimp
2.8.14
120 * Virtual stargazer Stellarium
0.13.0
123 * New version of debian-installer from Debian Jessie.
124 * Debian Jessie includes about
42000 packages available for
126 * More information about Debian Jessie
8.0 is provided in the release
127 notes[
6] and the installation manual[
7].
129 [
6]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes
">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes
</a
> &gt;
130 [
7]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual
">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual
</a
> &gt;
135 * Inserting incorrect DNS information in Gosa will no longer break
136 DNS completely, but instead stop DNS updates until the incorrect
137 information is corrected (Debian bug #
710362)
140 Documentation and translation updates
141 -------------------------------------
143 * The Debian Edu Jessie Manual is fully translated to German, French,
144 Italian, Danish and Dutch. Partly translated versions exist for
145 Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.
150 * Due to new Squid settings, powering off or rebooting the main
151 server takes more time.
152 * To manage printers localhost:
631 has to be used, currently www:
631
155 Regressions / known problems
156 ----------------------------
158 * Installing LTSP chroot fails with a bug related to eatmydata about
159 exim4-config failing to run its postinst (see Debian bug #
765694
160 and Debian bug #
762103).
161 * Munin collection is not properly configured on clients (Debian bug
162 #
764594). The fix is available in a newer version of munin-node.
163 * PXE setup for Main Server and Thin Client Server setup does not
164 work when installing on a machine without direct Internet access.
165 Will be fixed when Debian bug #
766960 is fixed in Jessie.
167 See the status page[
8] for the complete list.
169 [
8]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie
">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie
</a
> &gt;
174 &lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs
">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs
</a
> &gt;
179 The Debian Project was founded in
1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
180 free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
181 the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
182 volunteers from all over the world work together to create and
183 maintain Debian software. Available in
70 languages, and supporting a
184 huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal
188 For further information, please visit the Debian web pages[
9] or send
189 mail to press@debian.org.
191 [
9]
&lt;URL:
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/
">http://www.debian.org/
</a
> &gt;
197 <title>I spent last weekend recording MakerCon Nordic
</title>
198 <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_spent_last_weekend_recording_MakerCon_Nordic.html
</link>
199 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_spent_last_weekend_recording_MakerCon_Nordic.html
</guid>
200 <pubDate>Thu,
23 Oct
2014 23:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
201 <description><p
>I spent last weekend at
<a href=
"http://www.makercon.no/
">Makercon
202 Nordic
</a
>, a great conference and workshop for makers in Norway and
203 the surrounding countries. I had volunteered on behalf of the
204 Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG) to video record the talks, and we
205 had a great and exhausting time recording the entire day, two days in
206 a row. There were only two of us, Hans-Petter and me, and we used the
207 regular video equipment for NUUG, with a
208 <a href=
"http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/
">dvswitch
</a
>, a
209 camera and a VGA to DV convert box, and mixed video and slides
212 <p
>Hans-Petter did the post-processing, consisting of uploading the
213 around
180 GiB of raw video to Youtube, and the result is
214 <a href=
"https://www.youtube.com/user/MakerConNordic/
">now becoming
215 public
</a
> on the MakerConNordic account. The videos have the license
216 NUUG always use on our recordings, which is
217 <a href=
"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/
3.0/no/
">Creative
218 Commons Navngivelse-Del på samme vilkår
3.0 Norge
</a
>. Many great
219 talks available. Check it out! :)
</p
>
224 <title>listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software
</title>
225 <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html
</link>
226 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html
</guid>
227 <pubDate>Wed,
22 Oct
2014 20:
00:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
228 <description><p
>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
229 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
230 operate. First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
231 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
232 and various options for each email address. This take a while for
233 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
234 job as a list moderator. But there is a quick alternative,
235 <a href=
"http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin
">the
236 listadmin program
</a
>. It allow you to check lists for new messages
237 to moderate in a fraction of a second. Here is a test run on two
238 lists I recently took over:
</p
>
240 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
241 % time listadmin xiph
242 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
243 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
249 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
251 <p
>In
1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
252 there are no message in the moderation queue. Every morning I
253 currently moderate
68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
254 minutes. When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
255 ago, there were
400 emails waiting in the moderator queue. It took me
256 less than
15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
259 <p
>If you install
260 <a href=
"https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin
">the listadmin
261 package
</a
> from Debian and create a file
<tt
>~/.listadmin.ini
</tt
>
262 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:
</p
>
264 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
265 username username@example.org
268 discard_if_reason
"Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list.
"
271 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
272 mailman-list@lists.example.com
275 other-list@otherserver.example.org
276 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
278 <p
>There are other options to set as well. Check the manual page to
279 learn the details.
</p
>
281 <p
>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
282 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
283 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
284 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:
</p
>
286 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
287 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=
0 listadmin
288 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
290 <p
>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
291 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
292 initial screen dump (the xiph argument). Using an argument, only
293 lists matching the argument string will be processed. This make it
294 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
297 <p
>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of
68
298 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
299 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
300 time I could spend elsewhere over the years. It truly is nice free
303 <p
>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
304 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
305 <b
><a href=
"bitcoin:
15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b
</a
></b
>.
</p
>
307 <p
>Update
2014-
10-
27: Added missing
'username
' statement in
308 configuration example. Also, I
've been told that the
309 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=
0 setting do not work for everyone. Not
315 <title>Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation
</title>
316 <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html
</link>
317 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html
</guid>
318 <pubDate>Fri,
17 Oct
2014 14:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
319 <description><p
>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
320 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
321 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
322 Normally something more is needed. But thanks to
323 <a href=
"https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html
">my isenkram
324 package
</a
> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
325 to do this using simple preseeding.
</p
>
327 <p
>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
328 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
329 the kernel modules for the hardware). (It can also install user space
330 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
331 of this story.)
</p
>
333 <p
>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
334 values are needed. First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
335 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
336 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system. This is done by
337 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
338 isenkram-cli package. The package name is next passed to debootstrap
339 for installation. With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
340 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
341 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
342 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.
</p
>
344 <p
>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
345 most firmware unfortunately is non-free. This is done by preseeding
346 the apt-mirror-setup step. This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
347 hardware it is the only option in Debian.
</p
>
349 <p
>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
350 firmware installed automatically by the installer:
</p
>
352 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
353 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
354 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
355 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
357 <p
>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
358 both firmware and user space packages when using this method. It also
359 do not work well, so use version
0.15 or later. Installing both
360 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
361 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
362 and one for user space programs. The firmware task is enabled by
363 default, while the one for user space programs is not. This split is
364 implemented in the package currently in unstable.
</p
>
366 <p
>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
367 this recipe work for you. :)
</p
>
369 <p
>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work. First and
370 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
371 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/. So the
372 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find. First there
373 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):
</p
>
375 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
376 Task: isenkram-packages
378 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
379 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
381 Test-new-install: show show
383 Packages: for-current-hardware
385 Task: isenkram-firmware
387 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
388 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
389 packages are proposed.
390 Test-new-install: mark show
392 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
393 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
395 <p
>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
396 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
397 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/. The scripts use other scripts to get a
398 list of packages to install. The for-current-hardware-firmware script
399 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
401 <p
><blockquote
><pre
>
406 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
407 </pre
></blockquote
></p
>
409 <p
>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
410 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)
</p
>
412 <p
>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
413 installed, run
<tt
>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
414 --new-install
</tt
> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
417 <p
><a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/
">Debian Edu
</a
> will be
418 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
419 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.
</p
>
424 <title>Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo
</title>
425 <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html
</link>
426 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html
</guid>
427 <pubDate>Sat,
4 Oct
2014 15:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
428 <description><p
>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen. Above the
429 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
430 with Linux kernel
3.2.0-
23 (ie probably version
12.04 LTS) was stuck
431 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:
</p
>
433 <p align=
"center
"><img width=
"70%
" src=
"https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/
2014-
10-
04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg
"></p
>
435 <p
>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
436 about this hidden Linux installation. It is interesting what
437 <a href=
"http://revealingerrors.com/
">errors can reveal
</a
>.
</p
>
442 <title>New lsdvd release version
0.17 is ready
</title>
443 <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html
</link>
444 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html
</guid>
445 <pubDate>Sat,
4 Oct
2014 08:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
446 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/
">lsdvd project
</a
>
447 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
448 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
449 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
452 <p
>I just wrapped up
453 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/
32896061/
">a
454 new lsdvd release
</a
>, available in git or from
455 <a href=
"https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/
">the
456 download page
</a
>. This is the changelog dated
2014-
10-
03 for version
461 <li
>Ignore
'phantom
' audio, subtitle tracks
</li
>
462 <li
>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
463 non-existant, to work around additional copy protection
</li
>
464 <li
>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles
</li
>
465 <li
>Fix pallete display of first entry
</li
>
466 <li
>Fix include orders
</li
>
467 <li
>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway
</li
>
468 <li
>Fix the chapter count
</li
>
469 <li
>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
470 the palette size is the same.
</li
>
471 <li
>Fix array printing.
</li
>
472 <li
>Correct subsecond calculations.
</li
>
473 <li
>Add sector information to the output format.
</li
>
474 <li
>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
475 with more GCC compiler warnings.
</li
>
479 <p
>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
480 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
481 project the last nine years. Please check it out. :)
</p
>