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  12     <div class="title">
  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21
  22     <div class="entry">
  23       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/HTC_One_X___Your_video___What_do_you_mean_.html">HTC One X - Your video?  What do you mean?</a></div>
  24       <div class="date">26th April 2012</div>
  25       <div class="body"><p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
  26 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
  27 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
  28 that the video editor application included with
  29 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
  30 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
  31 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
  32
  33 <p><blockquote>
  34 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
  35 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
  36 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat</a>"
  37 </blockquote></p>
  38
  39 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
  40
  41 <p><blockquote>
  42 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
  43 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
  44 </blockquote></p>
  45
  46 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
  47 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
  48 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
  49 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
  50 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
  51 video.  AMR is
  52 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
  53 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
  54 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
  55 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
  56 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
  57 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
  58 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
  59
  60 <p>I know why I prefer
  61 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
  62 standards</a> also for video.</p>
  63 </div>
  64       <div class="tags">
  65
  66
  67         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
  68
  69
  70       </div>
  71     </div>
  72     <div class="padding"></div>
  73
  74     <div class="entry">
  75       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Holder_de_ord_og_NUUG_lanserer_testtjeneste_med_stortingsinformasjon.html">Holder de ord og NUUG lanserer testtjeneste med stortingsinformasjon</a></div>
  76       <div class="date">22nd April 2012</div>
  77       <div class="body"><p>I
  78 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_har_mine_representanter_stemt_i_Storinget_.html">januar
  79 i fjor</a> startet vi i NUUG arbeid med å gjøre informasjon om hvem
  80 som har stemt hva på <a href="http://www.stortinget.no/">Stortinget</a>
  81 enklere tilgjengelig.  I løpet av få måneder fant vi sammen med
  82 organisasjonen <a href="http://www.holderdeord.no/">Holder de ord</a>
  83 som arbeidet mot et lignende mål.</p>
  84
  85 <p>Siden den gang har vi fått tak i maskinelt lesbart informasjon om
  86 hvem som stemte hva mellom 1990 og våren 2010, og tilgang til
  87 stortingets nye datatjeneste som har informasjon fra høsten 2011 til i
  88 dag.  Det gjenstår litt arbeid med det første datasettet, men
  89 datasettet fra høsten 2011 er klart til bruk.  Begge datasettene er
  90 tilgjengelig <a href="https://gitorious.org/nuug/folketingparser">via
  91 git</a>.</p>
  92
  93 <p>På
  94 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/holder-de-ord-datadrevet-oppfolging-av-politiske-lofter/">Go Open</a> i morgen lanserer
  95 NUUG sammen med Holder de ord <a href="http://beta.holderdeord.no/">en
  96 test-tjeneste</a> som viser hva som er og blir behandlet på Stortinget og
  97 hvem som har stemt hva siden oktober i fjor.  Du får herved mulighet
  98 til å ta en sniktitt.</p>
  99 </div>
 100       <div class="tags">
 101
 102
 103         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget</a>.
 104
 105
 106       </div>
 107     </div>
 108     <div class="padding"></div>
 109
 110     <div class="entry">
 111       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a></div>
 112       <div class="date">19th April 2012</div>
 113       <div class="body"><p>Here in Norway, the
 114 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
 115 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
 116 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
 117 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
 118 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
 119 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
 120 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
 121 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
 122 on the same level.</p>
 123
 124 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
 125 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
 126 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
 127 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
 128 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
 129 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
 130 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
 131 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
 132 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
 133 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
 134 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
 135 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
 136 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
 137 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
 138 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
 139 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
 140 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
 141 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
 142
 143 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
 144 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
 145 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
 146 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
 147 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
 148 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
 149 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
 150 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
 151
 152 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
 153 from Simon Phipps
 154 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
 155 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
 156
 157 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
 158 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
 159 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
 160 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
 161 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
 162 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
 163 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
 164 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
 165 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
 166 </div>
 167       <div class="tags">
 168
 169
 170         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
 171
 172
 173       </div>
 174     </div>
 175     <div class="padding"></div>
 176
 177     <div class="entry">
 178       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Forskning___GPL_gir_lokal_frihet_og_kontroll_gjennom_omfordeling_av_makt_fra_produsent_til_bruker_.html">Forskning: "GPL gir lokal frihet og kontroll gjennom omfordeling av makt fra produsent til bruker"</a></div>
 179       <div class="date">15th April 2012</div>
 180       <div class="body"><p>Da jeg googlet etter noe annet kom jeg tilfeldigvis over
 181 <a href="http://www.duo.uio.no/sok/work.html?WORKID=58309">en
 182 hovedfagsoppgave</a> ved Universitetet i Oslo som diskuterer verdien
 183 av GPLs fire friheter for brukerne av IT-systemer.  Jeg ble fascinert
 184 over det som presenteres der.  Her er sammendraget:</p>
 185
 186 <p><blockquote>
 187
 188 <p>Motivasjonen til å skrive denne oppgaven er en personlig undring
 189 over hvorfor det primært, og ofte eksklusivt, fokuseres på det
 190 økonomiske aspektet ved utredninger om fri programvare er et godt valg
 191 for det offentlige. Fri og produsenteid programvare bygger på
 192 fundamentalt forskjellige ideologier som kan ha implikasjoner utover
 193 økonomiske kostnader. Kunnskapskulturen som er med på å definere fri
 194 programvare er basert på åpenhet, og er en verdi i seg selv.</p>
 195
 196 <p>Oppgavens tema er programvarelisensen GPL og frihet. GPL-lisensiert
 197 programvare gir visse friheter i forhold til produsenteid
 198 programvare. Mitt spørsmål er om, og eventuelt i hvilken utstrekning,
 199 disse frihetene blir benyttet av ulike brukere og hvordan de
 200 manifesterer seg for disse brukerne. Sentrale spørsmål i oppgaven
 201 er:</p>
 202
 203 <ul>
 204 <li>Hvordan fordeles handlekraft gjennom lisensieringen av programvaren?</li>
 205 <li>Hvilke konsekvenser har programvarelisensen for de ulike brukere? </li>
 206 </ul>
 207
 208 <p>Fri programvare gir blant annet brukeren mulighet til å studere og
 209 modifisere kildekoden. Denne formen for frihet erverves gjennom
 210 kunnskap og krever at brukeren også er en ekspert. Hva skjer med
 211 frihetene til GPL når sluttbrukeren er en annen? Dette diskuteres i
 212 dialog med informantene.</p>
 213
 214 <p>Jeg har i denne oppgaven samlet inn intervjudata fra IKT-ansvarlige
 215 ved grunnskolene i Nittedal kommune, driftsansvarlig og IKT-veilederen
 216 for skolene i kommunen, samt IKT-koordinator for utdanning i Akershus
 217 fylkeskommune og bokmåloversettere av OpenOffice.org. Den empiriske
 218 delen av oppgaven er delt inn i to seksjoner; den første omhandler
 219 operativsystemet Skolelinux, den andre kontorprogrampakken
 220 OpenOffice.org.</p>
 221
 222 <p>Som vi vil se gir GPL lokal frihet og kontroll gjennom omfordeling
 223 av makt fra produsent til bruker. Brukerens makt analyseres gjennom
 224 begrepene brukermedvirkning og handlingsfrihet. Det blir også lagt
 225 vekt på strukturelle forhold rundt bruken av teknologi, og spesielt de
 226 økonomiske begrepene nettverkseksternaliteter, innlåsing og
 227 stiavhengighet. Dette er begreper av spesiell nytte når objektet som
 228 omsettes eller distribueres er et kommunikasjonsprodukt, fordi verdien
 229 til et slikt gode for en potensiell bruker avhenger av antall
 230 eksisterende brukere av godet. I tilknytning til denne problematikken
 231 inneholder oppgaven også en diskusjon rundt åpne standarder og
 232 formater.</p>
 233
 234 <p>Oppgaven konkluderer med at de «fire frihetene» som GPL-lisensen er
 235 laget for å beskytte er av avgjørende betydning for bruken av
 236 OpenOffice.org og Skolelinux, i Akershus fylkeskommune såvel som i
 237 skolene i Nittedal. Distribusjonen av handlekraft er ikke helt
 238 symmetrisk. Det er først og fremst de profesjonelle utviklerne i
 239 Skolelinux som direkte kan nyttiggjøre seg friheten til å endre kode,
 240 mens en sluttbruker som Nittedal kommune nyttiggjør seg den økonomiske
 241 friheten til å kunne distribuere programmene. Det er imidlertid også
 242 slik at ingen aktør klarer seg uten alle disse «frihetene».</p>
 243 </blockquote></p>
 244
 245 <p>Jeg fant også en masteroppgave fra 2006, men der ligger ikke
 246 komplett oppgave tilgjengelig.  På tide å holde et øye med
 247 <a href="http://www.duo.uio.no/sok/search.html?q=skolelinux">Skolelinux-søket</a>
 248 til DUO...</p>
 249
 250 </div>
 251       <div class="tags">
 252
 253
 254         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>.
 255
 256
 257       </div>
 258     </div>
 259     <div class="padding"></div>
 260
 261     <div class="entry">
 262       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a></div>
 263       <div class="date">15th April 2012</div>
 264       <div class="body"><p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
 265 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
 266 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
 267 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
 268 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
 269 up in the recently released
 270 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
 271 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
 272
 273 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 274
 275 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
 276 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
 277 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
 278 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
 279 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
 280 information technology and science/technology.</p>
 281
 282 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
 283 project?</strong></p>
 284
 285 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
 286 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
 287 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
 288 contributing.</p>
 289
 290 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 291 Edu?</strong></p>
 292
 293 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
 294 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
 295 Debian Project!</p>
 296
 297 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 298 Edu?</strong></p>
 299
 300 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
 301 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
 302 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
 303 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
 304 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
 305 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
 306 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
 307
 308 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
 309 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
 310
 311 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 312
 313 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
 314 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
 315 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
 316 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
 317
 318 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 319 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 320
 321 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
 322 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
 323 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
 324 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
 325 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
 326 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
 327 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
 328
 329 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
 330 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
 331 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
 332 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
 333 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
 334 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
 335 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
 336 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
 337 </div>
 338       <div class="tags">
 339
 340
 341         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
 342
 343
 344       </div>
 345     </div>
 346     <div class="padding"></div>
 347
 348     <div class="entry">
 349       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jeg_skal_p__konferansen_Go_Open_2012.html">Jeg skal på konferansen Go Open 2012</a></div>
 350       <div class="date">13th April 2012</div>
 351       <div class="body"><p>Jeg har tenkt meg på konferansen <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go
 352 Open 2012</a> i Oslo 23. april.
 353 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Medlemsforeningen NUUG</a> deler ut
 354 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/prisen/">prisen for fremme av fri
 355 programvare i Norge</a> der i år.  Kommer du?</p>
 356 </div>
 357       <div class="tags">
 358
 359
 360         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
 361
 362
 363       </div>
 364     </div>
 365     <div class="padding"></div>
 366
 367     <div class="entry">
 368       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a></div>
 369       <div class="date"> 8th April 2012</div>
 370       <div class="body"><p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
 371 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
 372 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
 373 contributor to the
 374 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
 375 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
 376
 377 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 378
 379 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
 380 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
 381
 382 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
 383 project?</strong></p>
 384
 385 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
 386 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
 387 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
 388 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
 389 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
 390 "localisation".</p>
 391
 392 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 393 Edu?</strong></p>
 394
 395 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 396 Edu?</strong></p>
 397
 398 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
 399 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
 400 education system.</p>
 401
 402 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
 403 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
 404 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
 405 money on the latest hardware.</p>
 406
 407 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 408
 409 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
 410 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
 411 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
 412
 413 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 414 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 415
 416 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
 417 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
 418 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
 419 </div>
 420       <div class="tags">
 421
 422
 423         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
 424
 425
 426       </div>
 427     </div>
 428     <div class="padding"></div>
 429
 430     <div class="entry">
 431       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_the_KDE_menu_is_slow_when__usr__is_NFS_mounted___and_a_workaround.html">Why the KDE menu is slow when /usr/ is NFS mounted - and a workaround</a></div>
 432       <div class="date"> 6th April 2012</div>
 433       <div class="body"><p>Recently I have spent time with
 434 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
 435 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
 436 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
 437 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
 438 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
 439 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
 440 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
 441 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
 442
 443 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
 444 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
 445 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
 446 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
 447 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
 448 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
 449 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
 450 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
 451
 452 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
 453 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
 454 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
 455 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
 456 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
 457 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
 458 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
 459 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
 460
 461 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
 462 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
 463 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
 464 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
 465 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
 466 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
 467 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
 468 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
 469 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
 470 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
 471
 472 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
 473 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
 474 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
 475 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
 476
 477 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
 478 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
 479 </div>
 480       <div class="tags">
 481
 482
 483         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 484
 485
 486       </div>
 487     </div>
 488     <div class="padding"></div>
 489
 490     <div class="entry">
 491       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a></div>
 492       <div class="date"> 5th April 2012</div>
 493       <div class="body"><p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
 494 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
 495 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
 496 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
 497 for schools.  Check out his article
 498 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
 499 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
 500 </div>
 501       <div class="tags">
 502
 503
 504         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 505
 506
 507       </div>
 508     </div>
 509     <div class="padding"></div>
 510
 511     <div class="entry">
 512       <div class="title"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a></div>
 513       <div class="date"> 1st April 2012</div>
 514       <div class="body"><p>Germany is a core area for the
 515 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
 516 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
 517 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
 518
 519 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 520
 521 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
 522 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
 523 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
 524 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
 525 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
 526 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
 527 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
 528 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
 529
 530 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
 531 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
 532 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
 533 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
 534 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
 535 the end of April this year.</p>
 536
 537 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
 538 project?</strong></p>
 539
 540 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
 541 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
 542 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
 543 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
 544 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
 545 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
 546 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
 547 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
 548 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
 549 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
 550 Skolelinux.</p>
 551
 552 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
 553 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
 554 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
 555 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
 556 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
 557 the admin teachers.</p>
 558
 559 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 560 Edu?</strong></p>
 561
 562 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
 563 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
 564 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
 565
 566 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
 567 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
 568 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
 569 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
 570 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
 571
 572 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 573 Edu?</strong></p>
 574
 575 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
 576
 577 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 578
 579 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
 580 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
 581 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
 582 LibreOffice.</p>
 583
 584 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 585 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 586
 587 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
 588 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
 589 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
 590 </div>
 591       <div class="tags">
 592
 593
 594         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju</a>.
 595
 596
 597       </div>
 598     </div>
 599     <div class="padding"></div>
 600
 601     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="index.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
 602     <div id="sidebar">
 603
 604
 605
 606 <h2>Archive</h2>
 607 <ul>
 608
 609 <li>2012
 610 <ul>
 611
 612 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
 613
 614 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
 615
 616 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
 617
 618 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (10)</a></li>
 619
 620 </ul></li>
 621
 622 <li>2011
 623 <ul>
 624
 625 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
 626
 627 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
 628
 629 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
 630
 631 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
 632
 633 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
 634
 635 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
 636
 637 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 638
 639 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 640
 641 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
 642
 643 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 644
 645 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 646
 647 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
 648
 649 </ul></li>
 650
 651 <li>2010
 652 <ul>
 653
 654 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 655
 656 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
 657
 658 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
 659
 660 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
 661
 662 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 663
 664 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
 665
 666 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
 667
 668 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
 669
 670 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
 671
 672 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
 673
 674 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
 675
 676 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
 677
 678 </ul></li>
 679
 680 <li>2009
 681 <ul>
 682
 683 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
 684
 685 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
 686
 687 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
 688
 689 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
 690
 691 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 692
 693 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
 694
 695 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
 696
 697 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 698
 699 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
 700
 701 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 702
 703 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 704
 705 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 706
 707 </ul></li>
 708
 709 <li>2008
 710 <ul>
 711
 712 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
 713
 714 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 715
 716 </ul></li>
 717
 718 </ul>
 719
 720
 721
 722 <h2>Tags</h2>
 723 <ul>
 724
 725  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
 726
 727  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
 728
 729  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
 730
 731  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (2)</a></li>
 732
 733  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
 734
 735  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
 736
 737  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (54)</a></li>
 738
 739  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (99)</a></li>
 740
 741  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (8)</a></li>
 742
 743  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (124)</a></li>
 744
 745  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (15)</a></li>
 746
 747  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
 748
 749  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (23)</a></li>
 750
 751  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (15)</a></li>
 752
 753  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
 754
 755  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (4)</a></li>
 756
 757  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
 758
 759  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (16)</a></li>
 760
 761  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (159)</a></li>
 762
 763  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (123)</a></li>
 764
 765  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
 766
 767  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (24)</a></li>
 768
 769  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (47)</a></li>
 770
 771  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
 772
 773  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
 774
 775  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
 776
 777  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (4)</a></li>
 778
 779  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
 780
 781  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
 782
 783  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (23)</a></li>
 784
 785  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
 786
 787  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (26)</a></li>
 788
 789  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (1)</a></li>
 790
 791  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (4)</a></li>
 792
 793  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (9)</a></li>
 794
 795  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (6)</a></li>
 796
 797  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (25)</a></li>
 798
 799  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (1)</a></li>
 800
 801  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (19)</a></li>
 802
 803 </ul>
 804
 805
 806     </div>
 807     <p style="text-align: right">
 808  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.4</a>
 809 </p>
 810
 811   </body>
 812 </html>