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  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "english".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_day_in_court_challenging_seizure_of_popcorn_time_no_for__domstolkontroll.html">A day in court challenging seizure of popcorn-time.no for #domstolkontroll</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28          3rd February 2017
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-02-01-popcorn-time-in-court.jpeg"></p>
  32
  33 <p>On Wednesday, I spent the entire day in court in Follo Tingrett
  34 representing <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">the member association
  35 NUUG</a>, alongside <a href="https://www.efn.no/">the member
  36 association EFN</a> and <a href="http://www.imc.no">the DNS registrar
  37 IMC</a>, challenging the seizure of the DNS name popcorn-time.no.  It
  38 was interesting to sit in a court of law for the first time in my
  39 life.  Our team can be seen in the picture above: attorney Ola
  40 Tellesbø, EFN board member Tom Fredrik Blenning, IMC CEO Morten Emil
  41 Eriksen and NUUG board member Petter Reinholdtsen.</p>
  42
  43 <p><a href="http://www.domstol.no/no/Enkelt-domstol/follo-tingrett/Nar-gar-rettssaken/Beramming/?cid=AAAA1701301512081262234UJFBVEZZZZZEJBAvtale">The
  44 case at hand</a> is that the Norwegian National Authority for
  45 Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (aka
  46 Økokrim) decided on their own, to seizure a DNS domain early last
  47 year, without following
  48 <a href="https://www.norid.no/no/regelverk/navnepolitikk/#link12">the
  49 official policy of the Norwegian DNS authority</a> which require a
  50 court decision.  The web site in question was a site covering Popcorn
  51 Time.  And Popcorn Time is the name of a technology with both legal
  52 and illegal applications.  Popcorn Time is a client combining
  53 searching a Bittorrent directory available on the Internet with
  54 downloading/distribute content via Bittorrent and playing the
  55 downloaded content on screen.  It can be used illegally if it is used
  56 to distribute content against the will of the right holder, but it can
  57 also be used legally to play a lot of content, for example the
  58 millions of movies
  59 <a href="https://archive.org/details/movies">available from the
  60 Internet Archive</a> or the collection
  61 <a href="http://vodo.net/films/">available from Vodo</a>.  We created
  62 <a href="magnet:?xt=urn:btih:86c1802af5a667ca56d3918aecb7d3c0f7173084&dn=PresentasjonFolloTingrett.mov&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fpublic.popcorn-tracker.org%3A6969%2Fannounce">a
  63 video demonstrating legally use of Popcorn Time</a> and played it in
  64 Court.  It can of course be downloaded using Bittorrent.</p>
  65
  66 <p>I did not quite know what to expect from a day in court.  The
  67 government held on to their version of the story and we held on to
  68 ours, and I hope the judge is able to make sense of it all.
  69 Unfortunately I do not have high hopes, as the Government have the
  70 upper hand here with more knowledge about the case, better training in
  71 handling criminal law and in general higher standing in the courts
  72 than fairly unknown DNS registrar and member associations.  It is
  73 expensive to be right also in Norway.  So far the case have cost more
  74 than NOK 70 000,-.  To help fund the case, NUUG and EFN have asked for
  75 donations, and managed to collect around NOK 25 000,- so far.  Given
  76 the presentation from the Government, I expect the government to
  77 appeal if the case go our way.  And if the case do not go our way, I
  78 hope we have enough funding to appeal.</p>
  79
  80 <p>From the other side came two people from Økokrim.  On the benches,
  81 appearing to be part of the group from the government were two people
  82 from the Simonsen Vogt Wiik lawyer office, and three others I am not
  83 quite sure who was.  Økokrim had proposed to present two witnesses
  84 from The Motion Picture Association, but this was rejected because
  85 they did not speak Norwegian and it was a bit late to bring in a
  86 translator, but perhaps the two from MPA were present anyway.  All
  87 seven appeared to know each other.  Good to see they take the case
  88 seriously.</p>
  89
  90 <p>If you, like me, believe the courts should be involved before a DNS
  91 domain is hijacked by the government, or you believe the Popcorn Time
  92 technology have a lot of useful and legal applications, I suggest you
  93 too <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dns-beslag-donasjon.shtml">donate to
  94 the NUUG defense fund</a>.  Both Bitcoin and bank transfer are
  95 available. If NUUG get more than we need for the legal action (very
  96 unlikely), the rest will be spend promoting free software, open
  97 standards and unix-like operating systems in Norway, so no matter what
  98 happen the money will be put to good use.</p>
  99
 100 <p>If you want to lean more about the case, I recommend you check out
 101 <a href="https://www.nuug.no/news/tags/dns-domenebeslag/">the blog
 102 posts from NUUG covering the case</a>.  They cover the legal arguments
 103 on both sides.</p>
 104
 105       </div>
 106       <div class="tags">
 107
 108
 109         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
 110
 111
 112       </div>
 113     </div>
 114     <div class="padding"></div>
 115
 116     <div class="entry">
 117       <div class="title">
 118         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Where_did_that_package_go___mdash__geolocated_IP_traceroute.html">Where did that package go? &mdash; geolocated IP traceroute</a>
 119       </div>
 120       <div class="date">
 121          9th January 2017
 122       </div>
 123       <div class="body">
 124         <p>Did you ever wonder where the web trafic really flow to reach the
 125 web servers, and who own the network equipment it is flowing through?
 126 It is possible to get a glimpse of this from using traceroute, but it
 127 is hard to find all the details.  Many years ago, I wrote a system to
 128 map the Norwegian Internet (trying to figure out if our plans for a
 129 network game service would get low enough latency, and who we needed
 130 to talk to about setting up game servers close to the users.  Back
 131 then I used traceroute output from many locations (I asked my friends
 132 to run a script and send me their traceroute output) to create the
 133 graph and the map.  The output from traceroute typically look like
 134 this:
 135
 136 <p><pre>
 137 traceroute to www.stortinget.no (85.88.67.10), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 138  1  uio-gw10.uio.no (129.240.202.1)  0.447 ms  0.486 ms  0.621 ms
 139  2  uio-gw8.uio.no (129.240.24.229)  0.467 ms  0.578 ms  0.675 ms
 140  3  oslo-gw1.uninett.no (128.39.65.17)  0.385 ms  0.373 ms  0.358 ms
 141  4  te3-1-2.br1.fn3.as2116.net (193.156.90.3)  1.174 ms  1.172 ms  1.153 ms
 142  5  he16-1-1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (195.0.244.234)  2.627 ms he16-1-1.cr2.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.244.48)  3.172 ms he16-1-1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (195.0.244.234)  2.857 ms
 143  6  ae1.ar8.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.242.39)  0.662 ms  0.637 ms ae0.ar8.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.242.23)  0.622 ms
 144  7  89.191.10.146 (89.191.10.146)  0.931 ms  0.917 ms  0.955 ms
 145  8  * * *
 146  9  * * *
 147 [...]
 148 </pre></p>
 149
 150 <p>This show the DNS names and IP addresses of (at least some of the)
 151 network equipment involved in getting the data traffic from me to the
 152 www.stortinget.no server, and how long it took in milliseconds for a
 153 package to reach the equipment and return to me.  Three packages are
 154 sent, and some times the packages do not follow the same path.  This
 155 is shown for hop 5, where three different IP addresses replied to the
 156 traceroute request.</p>
 157
 158 <p>There are many ways to measure trace routes.  Other good traceroute
 159 implementations I use are traceroute (using ICMP packages) mtr (can do
 160 both ICMP, UDP and TCP) and scapy (python library with ICMP, UDP, TCP
 161 traceroute and a lot of other capabilities).  All of them are easily
 162 available in <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>.</p>
 163
 164 <p>This time around, I wanted to know the geographic location of
 165 different route points, to visualize how visiting a web page spread
 166 information about the visit to a lot of servers around the globe.  The
 167 background is that a web site today often will ask the browser to get
 168 from many servers the parts (for example HTML, JSON, fonts,
 169 JavaScript, CSS, video) required to display the content.  This will
 170 leak information about the visit to those controlling these servers
 171 and anyone able to peek at the data traffic passing by (like your ISP,
 172 the ISPs backbone provider, FRA, GCHQ, NSA and others).</p>
 173
 174 <p>Lets pick an example, the Norwegian parliament web site
 175 www.stortinget.no.  It is read daily by all members of parliament and
 176 their staff, as well as political journalists, activits and many other
 177 citizens of Norway.  A visit to the www.stortinget.no web site will
 178 ask your browser to contact 8 other servers: ajax.googleapis.com,
 179 insights.hotjar.com, script.hotjar.com, static.hotjar.com,
 180 stats.g.doubleclick.net, www.google-analytics.com,
 181 www.googletagmanager.com and www.netigate.se.  I extracted this by
 182 asking <a href="http://phantomjs.org/">PhantomJS</a> to visit the
 183 Stortinget web page and tell me all the URLs PhantomJS downloaded to
 184 render the page (in HAR format using
 185 <a href="https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/examples/netsniff.js">their
 186 netsniff example</a>.  I am very grateful to Gorm for showing me how
 187 to do this).  My goal is to visualize network traces to all IP
 188 addresses behind these DNS names, do show where visitors personal
 189 information is spread when visiting the page.</p>
 190
 191 <p align="center"><a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml"><img
 192 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geoip-small.png" alt="map of combined traces for URLs used by www.stortinget.no using GeoIP"/></a></p>
 193
 194 <p>When I had a look around for options, I could not find any good
 195 free software tools to do this, and decided I needed my own traceroute
 196 wrapper outputting KML based on locations looked up using GeoIP.  KML
 197 is easy to work with and easy to generate, and understood by several
 198 of the GIS tools I have available.  I got good help from by NUUG
 199 colleague Anders Einar with this, and the result can be seen in
 200 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/kmltraceroute">my
 201 kmltraceroute git repository</a>.  Unfortunately, the quality of the
 202 free GeoIP databases I could find (and the for-pay databases my
 203 friends had access to) is not up to the task.  The IP addresses of
 204 central Internet infrastructure would typically be placed near the
 205 controlling companies main office, and not where the router is really
 206 located, as you can see from <a href="www.stortinget.no-geoip.kml">the
 207 KML file I created</a> using the GeoLite City dataset from MaxMind.
 208
 209 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg"><img
 210 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy-small.png" alt="scapy traceroute graph for URLs used by www.stortinget.no"/></a></p>
 211
 212 <p>I also had a look at the visual traceroute graph created by
 213 <a href="http://www.secdev.org/projects/scapy/">the scrapy project</a>,
 214 showing IP network ownership (aka AS owner) for the IP address in
 215 question.
 216 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-scapy.svg">The
 217 graph display a lot of useful information about the traceroute in SVG
 218 format</a>, and give a good indication on who control the network
 219 equipment involved, but it do not include geolocation.  This graph
 220 make it possible to see the information is made available at least for
 221 UNINETT, Catchcom, Stortinget, Nordunet, Google, Amazon, Telia, Level
 222 3 Communications and NetDNA.</p>
 223
 224 <p align="center"><a href="https://geotraceroute.com/index.php?node=4&host=www.stortinget.no"><img
 225 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-small.png" alt="example geotraceroute view for www.stortinget.no"/></a></p>
 226
 227 <p>In the process, I came across the
 228 <a href="https://geotraceroute.com/">web service GeoTraceroute</a> by
 229 Salim Gasmi.  Its methology of combining guesses based on DNS names,
 230 various location databases and finally use latecy times to rule out
 231 candidate locations seemed to do a very good job of guessing correct
 232 geolocation.  But it could only do one trace at the time, did not have
 233 a sensor in Norway and did not make the geolocations easily available
 234 for postprocessing.  So I contacted the developer and asked if he
 235 would be willing to share the code (he refused until he had time to
 236 clean it up), but he was interested in providing the geolocations in a
 237 machine readable format, and willing to set up a sensor in Norway.  So
 238 since yesterday, it is possible to run traces from Norway in this
 239 service thanks to a sensor node set up by
 240 <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG assosiation</a>, and get the
 241 trace in KML format for further processing.</p>
 242
 243 <p align="center"><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.kml"><img
 244 src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2017-01-09-www.stortinget.no-geotraceroute-kml-join.png" alt="map of combined traces for URLs used by www.stortinget.no using geotraceroute"/></a></p>
 245
 246 <p>Here we can see a lot of trafic passes Sweden on its way to
 247 Denmark, Germany, Holland and Ireland.  Plenty of places where the
 248 Snowden confirmations verified the traffic is read by various actors
 249 without your best interest as their top priority.</p>
 250
 251 <p>Combining KML files is trivial using a text editor, so I could loop
 252 over all the hosts behind the urls imported by www.stortinget.no and
 253 ask for the KML file from GeoTraceroute, and create a combined KML
 254 file with all the traces (unfortunately only one of the IP addresses
 255 behind the DNS name is traced this time.  To get them all, one would
 256 have to request traces using IP number instead of DNS names from
 257 GeoTraceroute).  That might be the next step in this project.</p>
 258
 259 <p>Armed with these tools, I find it a lot easier to figure out where
 260 the IP traffic moves and who control the boxes involved in moving it.
 261 And every time the link crosses for example the Swedish border, we can
 262 be sure Swedish Signal Intelligence (FRA) is listening, as GCHQ do in
 263 Britain and NSA in USA and cables around the globe.  (Hm, what should
 264 we tell them? :) Keep that in mind if you ever send anything
 265 unencrypted over the Internet.</p>
 266
 267 <p>PS: KML files are drawn using
 268 <a href="http://ivanrublev.me/kml/">the KML viewer from Ivan
 269 Rublev<a/>, as it was less cluttered than the local Linux application
 270 Marble.  There are heaps of other options too.</p>
 271
 272 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 273 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 274 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 275
 276       </div>
 277       <div class="tags">
 278
 279
 280         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
 281
 282
 283       </div>
 284     </div>
 285     <div class="padding"></div>
 286
 287     <div class="entry">
 288       <div class="title">
 289         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Introducing_ical_archiver_to_split_out_old_iCalendar_entries.html">Introducing ical-archiver to split out old iCalendar entries</a>
 290       </div>
 291       <div class="date">
 292          4th January 2017
 293       </div>
 294       <div class="body">
 295         <p>Do you have a large <a href="https://icalendar.org/">iCalendar</a>
 296 file with lots of old entries, and would like to archive them to save
 297 space and resources?  At least those of us using KOrganizer know that
 298 turning on and off an event set become slower and slower the more
 299 entries are in the set.  While working on migrating our calendars to a
 300 <a href="http://radicale.org/">Radicale CalDAV server</a> on our
 301 <a href="https://freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox server</a/>, my
 302 loved one wondered if I could find a way to split up the calendar file
 303 she had in KOrganizer, and I set out to write a tool.  I spent a few
 304 days writing and polishing the system, and it is now ready for general
 305 consumption.  The
 306 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/ical-archiver">code for
 307 ical-archiver</a> is publicly available from a git repository on
 308 github.  The system is written in Python and depend on
 309 <a href="http://eventable.github.io/vobject/">the vobject Python
 310 module</a>.</p>
 311
 312 <p>To use it, locate the iCalendar file you want to operate on and
 313 give it as an argument to the ical-archiver script.  This will
 314 generate a set of new files, one file per component type per year for
 315 all components expiring more than two years in the past.  The vevent,
 316 vtodo and vjournal entries are handled by the script.  The remaining
 317 entries are stored in a 'remaining' file.</p>
 318
 319 <p>This is what a test run can look like:
 320
 321 <p><pre>
 322 % ical-archiver t/2004-2016.ics
 323 Found 3612 vevents
 324 Found 6 vtodos
 325 Found 2 vjournals
 326 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2004.ics
 327 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2005.ics
 328 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2006.ics
 329 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2007.ics
 330 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2008.ics
 331 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2009.ics
 332 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2010.ics
 333 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2011.ics
 334 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2012.ics
 335 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2013.ics
 336 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vevent-2014.ics
 337 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vjournal-2007.ics
 338 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vjournal-2011.ics
 339 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-subset-vtodo-2012.ics
 340 Writing t/2004-2016.ics-remaining.ics
 341 %
 342 </pre></p>
 343
 344 <p>As you can see, the original file is untouched and new files are
 345 written with names derived from the original file.  If you are happy
 346 with their content, the *-remaining.ics file can replace the original
 347 the the others can be archived or imported as historical calendar
 348 collections.</p>
 349
 350 <p>The script should probably be improved a bit.  The error handling
 351 when discovering broken entries is not good, and I am not sure yet if
 352 it make sense to split different entry types into separate files or
 353 not.  The program is thus likely to change.  If you find it
 354 interesting, please get in touch. :)</p>
 355
 356 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 357 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 358 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 359
 360       </div>
 361       <div class="tags">
 362
 363
 364         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
 365
 366
 367       </div>
 368     </div>
 369     <div class="padding"></div>
 370
 371     <div class="entry">
 372       <div class="title">
 373         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Appstream_just_learned_how_to_map_hardware_to_packages_too_.html">Appstream just learned how to map hardware to packages too!</a>
 374       </div>
 375       <div class="date">
 376         23rd December 2016
 377       </div>
 378       <div class="body">
 379         <p>I received a very nice Christmas present today.  As my regular
 380 readers probably know, I have been working on the
 381 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the Isenkram
 382 system</a> for many years.  The goal of the Isenkram system is to make
 383 it easier for users to figure out what to install to get a given piece
 384 of hardware to work in Debian, and a key part of this system is a way
 385 to map hardware to packages.  Isenkram have its own mapping database,
 386 and also uses data provided by each package using the AppStream
 387 metadata format.  And today,
 388 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/appstream">AppStream</a> in
 389 Debian learned to look up hardware the same way Isenkram is doing it,
 390 ie using fnmatch():</p>
 391
 392 <p><pre>
 393 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias \
 394   usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
 395 Identifier: pymissile [generic]
 396 Name: pymissile
 397 Summary: Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher
 398 Package: pymissile
 399 % appstreamcli what-provides modalias usb:v0694p0002d0000
 400 Identifier: libnxt [generic]
 401 Name: libnxt
 402 Summary: utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT brick
 403 Package: libnxt
 404 ---
 405 Identifier: t2n [generic]
 406 Name: t2n
 407 Summary: Simple command-line tool for Lego NXT
 408 Package: t2n
 409 ---
 410 Identifier: python-nxt [generic]
 411 Name: python-nxt
 412 Summary: Python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot
 413 Package: python-nxt
 414 ---
 415 Identifier: nbc [generic]
 416 Name: nbc
 417 Summary: C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks
 418 Package: nbc
 419 %
 420 </pre></p>
 421
 422 <p>A similar query can be done using the combined AppStream and
 423 Isenkram databases using the isenkram-lookup tool:</p>
 424
 425 <p><pre>
 426 % isenkram-lookup usb:v1130p0202d0100dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00
 427 pymissile
 428 % isenkram-lookup usb:v0694p0002d0000
 429 libnxt
 430 nbc
 431 python-nxt
 432 t2n
 433 %
 434 </pre></p>
 435
 436 <p>You can find modalias values relevant for your machine using
 437 <tt>cat $(find /sys/devices/ -name modalias)</tt>.
 438
 439 <p>If you want to make this system a success and help Debian users
 440 make the most of the hardware they have, please
 441 help<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add
 442 AppStream metadata for your package following the guidelines</a>
 443 documented in the wiki.  So far only 11 packages provide such
 444 information, among the several hundred hardware specific packages in
 445 Debian. The Isenkram database on the other hand contain 101 packages,
 446 mostly related to USB dongles.  Most of the packages with hardware
 447 mapping in AppStream are LEGO Mindstorms related, because I have, as
 448 part of my involvement in
 449 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the Debian LEGO
 450 team</a> given priority to making sure LEGO users get proposed the
 451 complete set of packages in Debian for that particular hardware.  The
 452 team also got a nice Christmas present today.  The
 453 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/nxt-firmware">nxt-firmware
 454 package</a> made it into Debian.  With this package in place, it is
 455 now possible to use the LEGO Mindstorms NXT unit with only free
 456 software, as the nxt-firmware package contain the source and firmware
 457 binaries for the NXT brick.</p>
 458
 459 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 460 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 461 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 462
 463       </div>
 464       <div class="tags">
 465
 466
 467         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
 468
 469
 470       </div>
 471     </div>
 472     <div class="padding"></div>
 473
 474     <div class="entry">
 475       <div class="title">
 476         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_updated_with_a_lot_more_hardware_package_mappings.html">Isenkram updated with a lot more hardware-package mappings</a>
 477       </div>
 478       <div class="date">
 479         20th December 2016
 480       </div>
 481       <div class="body">
 482         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
 483 system</a> I wrote two years ago to make it easier in Debian to find
 484 and install packages to get your hardware dongles to work, is still
 485 going strong.  It is a system to look up the hardware present on or
 486 connected to the current system, and map the hardware to Debian
 487 packages.  It can either be done using the tools in isenkram-cli or
 488 using the user space daemon in the isenkram package.  The latter will
 489 notify you, when inserting new hardware, about what packages to
 490 install to get the dongle working.  It will even provide a button to
 491 click on to ask packagekit to install the packages.</p>
 492
 493 <p>Here is an command line example from my Thinkpad laptop:</p>
 494
 495 <p><pre>
 496 % isenkram-lookup
 497 bluez
 498 cheese
 499 ethtool
 500 fprintd
 501 fprintd-demo
 502 gkrellm-thinkbat
 503 hdapsd
 504 libpam-fprintd
 505 pidgin-blinklight
 506 thinkfan
 507 tlp
 508 tp-smapi-dkms
 509 tp-smapi-source
 510 tpb
 511 %
 512 </pre></p>
 513
 514 <p>It can also list the firware package providing firmware requested
 515 by the load kernel modules, which in my case is an empty list because
 516 I have all the firmware my machine need:
 517
 518 <p><pre>
 519 % /usr/sbin/isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
 520 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
 521 %
 522 </pre></p>
 523
 524 <p>The last few days I had a look at several of the around 250
 525 packages in Debian with udev rules.  These seem like good candidates
 526 to install when a given hardware dongle is inserted, and I found
 527 several that should be proposed by isenkram.  I have not had time to
 528 check all of them, but am happy to report that now there are 97
 529 packages packages mapped to hardware by Isenkram.  11 of these
 530 packages provide hardware mapping using AppStream, while the rest are
 531 listed in the modaliases file provided in isenkram.</p>
 532
 533 <p>These are the packages with hardware mappings at the moment.  The
 534 <strong>marked packages</strong> are also announcing their hardware
 535 support using AppStream, for everyone to use:</p>
 536
 537 <p>air-quality-sensor, alsa-firmware-loaders, argyll,
 538 <strong>array-info</strong>, avarice, avrdude, b43-fwcutter,
 539 bit-babbler, bluez, bluez-firmware, <strong>brltty</strong>,
 540 <strong>broadcom-sta-dkms</strong>, calibre, cgminer, cheese, colord,
 541 <strong>colorhug-client</strong>, dahdi-firmware-nonfree, dahdi-linux,
 542 dfu-util, dolphin-emu, ekeyd, ethtool, firmware-ipw2x00, fprintd,
 543 fprintd-demo, <strong>galileo</strong>, gkrellm-thinkbat, gphoto2,
 544 gpsbabel, gpsbabel-gui, gpsman, gpstrans, gqrx-sdr, gr-fcdproplus,
 545 gr-osmosdr, gtkpod, hackrf, hdapsd, hdmi2usb-udev, hpijs-ppds, hplip,
 546 ipw3945-source, ipw3945d, kde-config-tablet, kinect-audio-setup,
 547 <strong>libnxt</strong>, libpam-fprintd, <strong>lomoco</strong>,
 548 madwimax, minidisc-utils, mkgmap, msi-keyboard, mtkbabel,
 549 <strong>nbc</strong>, <strong>nqc</strong>, nut-hal-drivers, ola,
 550 open-vm-toolbox, open-vm-tools, openambit, pcgminer, pcmciautils,
 551 pcscd, pidgin-blinklight, printer-driver-splix,
 552 <strong>pymissile</strong>, python-nxt, qlandkartegt,
 553 qlandkartegt-garmin, rosegarden, rt2x00-source, sispmctl,
 554 soapysdr-module-hackrf, solaar, squeak-plugins-scratch, sunxi-tools,
 555 <strong>t2n</strong>, thinkfan, thinkfinger-tools, tlp, tp-smapi-dkms,
 556 tp-smapi-source, tpb, tucnak, uhd-host, usbmuxd, viking,
 557 virtualbox-ose-guest-x11, w1retap, xawtv, xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse,
 558 xserver-xorg-input-wacom, xserver-xorg-video-qxl,
 559 xserver-xorg-video-vmware, yubikey-personalization and
 560 zd1211-firmware</p>
 561
 562 <p>If you know of other packages, please let me know with a wishlist
 563 bug report against the isenkram-cli package, and ask the package
 564 maintainer to
 565 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">add AppStream
 566 metadata according to the guidelines</a> to provide the information
 567 for everyone.  In time, I hope to get rid of the isenkram specific
 568 hardware mapping and depend exclusively on AppStream.</p>
 569
 570 <p>Note, the AppStream metadata for broadcom-sta-dkms is matching too
 571 much hardware, and suggest that the package with with any ethernet
 572 card.  See <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/838735">bug #838735</a> for
 573 the details.  I hope the maintainer find time to address it soon.  In
 574 the mean time I provide an override in isenkram.</p>
 575
 576       </div>
 577       <div class="tags">
 578
 579
 580         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
 581
 582
 583       </div>
 584     </div>
 585     <div class="padding"></div>
 586
 587     <div class="entry">
 588       <div class="title">
 589         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oolite__a_life_in_space_as_vagabond_and_mercenary___nice_free_software.html">Oolite, a life in space as vagabond and mercenary - nice free software</a>
 590       </div>
 591       <div class="date">
 592         11th December 2016
 593       </div>
 594       <div class="body">
 595         <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-12-11-nice-oolite.png"/></p>
 596
 597 <p>In my early years, I played
 598 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Classic_Elite">the epic game
 599 Elite</a> on my PC.  I spent many months trading and fighting in
 600 space, and reached the 'elite' fighting status before I moved on.  The
 601 original Elite game was available on Commodore 64 and the IBM PC
 602 edition I played had a 64 KB executable.  I am still impressed today
 603 that the authors managed to squeeze both a 3D engine and details about
 604 more than 2000 planet systems across 7 galaxies into a binary so
 605 small.</p>
 606
 607 <p>I have known about <a href="http://www.oolite.org/">the free
 608 software game Oolite inspired by Elite</a> for a while, but did not
 609 really have time to test it properly until a few days ago.  It was
 610 great to discover that my old knowledge about trading routes were
 611 still valid.  But my fighting and flying abilities were gone, so I had
 612 to retrain to be able to dock on a space station.  And I am still not
 613 able to make much resistance when I am attacked by pirates, so I
 614 bougth and mounted the most powerful laser in the rear to be able to
 615 put up at least some resistance while fleeing for my life. :)</p>
 616
 617 <p>When playing Elite in the late eighties, I had to discover
 618 everything on my own, and I had long lists of prices seen on different
 619 planets to be able to decide where to trade what.  This time I had the
 620 advantages of the
 621 <a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Main_Page">Elite wiki</a>,
 622 where information about each planet is easily available with common
 623 price ranges and suggested trading routes.  This improved my ability
 624 to earn money and I have been able to earn enough to buy a lot of
 625 useful equipent in a few days.  I believe I originally played for
 626 months before I could get a docking computer, while now I could get it
 627 after less then a week.</p>
 628
 629 <p>If you like science fiction and dreamed of a life as a vagabond in
 630 space, you should try out Oolite.  It is available for Linux, MacOSX
 631 and Windows, and is included in Debian and derivatives since 2011.</p>
 632
 633 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
 634 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
 635 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
 636
 637       </div>
 638       <div class="tags">
 639
 640
 641         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
 642
 643
 644       </div>
 645     </div>
 646     <div class="padding"></div>
 647
 648     <div class="entry">
 649       <div class="title">
 650         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html">Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata</a>
 651       </div>
 652       <div class="date">
 653         25th November 2016
 654       </div>
 655       <div class="body">
 656         <p>Two years ago, I did some experiments with eatmydata and the Debian
 657 installation system, observing how using
 658 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">eatmydata
 659 could speed up the installation</a> quite a bit.  My testing measured
 660 speedup around 20-40 percent for Debian Edu, where we install around
 661 1000 packages from within the installer.  The eatmydata package
 662 provide a way to disable/delay file system flushing.  This is a bit
 663 risky in the general case, as files that should be stored on disk will
 664 stay only in memory a bit longer than expected, causing problems if a
 665 machine crashes at an inconvenient time.  But for an installation, if
 666 the machine crashes during installation the process is normally
 667 restarted, and avoiding disk operations as much as possible to speed
 668 up the process make perfect sense.
 669
 670 <p>I added code in the Debian Edu specific installation code to enable
 671 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libeatmydata">eatmydata</a>,
 672 but did not have time to push it any further.  But a few months ago I
 673 picked it up again and worked with the libeatmydata package maintainer
 674 Mattia Rizzolo to make it easier for everyone to get this installation
 675 speedup in Debian.  Thanks to our cooperation There is now an
 676 eatmydata-udeb package in Debian testing and unstable, and simply
 677 enabling/installing it in debian-installer (d-i) is enough to get the
 678 quicker installations.  It can be enabled using preseeding.  The
 679 following untested kernel argument should do the trick:</p>
 680
 681 <blockquote><pre>
 682 preseed/early_command="anna-install eatmydata-udeb"
 683 </pre></blockquote>
 684
 685 <p>This should ask d-i to install the package inside the d-i
 686 environment early in the installation sequence.  Having it installed
 687 in d-i in turn will make sure the relevant scripts are called just
 688 after debootstrap filled /target/ with the freshly installed Debian
 689 system to configure apt to run dpkg with eatmydata.  This is enough to
 690 speed up the installation process.  There is a proposal to
 691 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/841153">extend the idea a bit further
 692 by using /etc/ld.so.preload instead of apt.conf</a>, but I have not
 693 tested its impact.</p>
 694
 695
 696       </div>
 697       <div class="tags">
 698
 699
 700         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
 701
 702
 703       </div>
 704     </div>
 705     <div class="padding"></div>
 706
 707     <div class="entry">
 708       <div class="title">
 709         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_profiler_for_multi_threaded_software_is_now_in_Debian.html">Coz profiler for multi-threaded software is now in Debian</a>
 710       </div>
 711       <div class="date">
 712         13th November 2016
 713       </div>
 714       <div class="body">
 715         <p><a href="http://coz-profiler.org/">The Coz profiler</a>, a nice
 716 profiler able to run benchmarking experiments on the instrumented
 717 multi-threaded program, finally
 718 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/coz-profiler">made it into
 719 Debian unstable yesterday</A>.  Lluís Vilanova and I have spent many
 720 months since
 721 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">I
 722 blogged about the coz tool</a> in August working with upstream to make
 723 it suitable for Debian.  There are still issues with clang
 724 compatibility, inline assembly only working x86 and minimized
 725 JavaScript libraries.</p>
 726
 727 <p>To test it, install 'coz-profiler' using apt and run it like this:</p>
 728
 729 <p><blockquote>
 730 <tt>coz run --- /path/to/binary-with-debug-info</tt>
 731 </blockquote></p>
 732
 733 <p>This will produce a profile.coz file in the current working
 734 directory with the profiling information.  This is then given to a
 735 JavaScript application provided in the package and available from
 736 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">a project web page</a>.
 737 To start the local copy, invoke it in a browser like this:</p>
 738
 739 <p><blockquote>
 740 <tt>sensible-browser /usr/share/coz-profiler/viewer/index.htm</tt>
 741 </blockquote></p>
 742
 743 <p>See the project home page and the
 744 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">USENIX
 745 ;login: article on Coz</a> for more information on how it is
 746 working.</p>
 747
 748       </div>
 749       <div class="tags">
 750
 751
 752         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 753
 754
 755       </div>
 756     </div>
 757     <div class="padding"></div>
 758
 759     <div class="entry">
 760       <div class="title">
 761         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_talk_with_your_loved_ones_in_private.html">How to talk with your loved ones in private</a>
 762       </div>
 763       <div class="date">
 764          7th November 2016
 765       </div>
 766       <div class="body">
 767         <p>A few days ago I ran a very biased and informal survey to get an
 768 idea about what options are being used to communicate with end to end
 769 encryption with friends and family.  I explicitly asked people not to
 770 list options only used in a work setting.  The background is the
 771 uneasy feeling I get when using Signal, a feeling shared by others as
 772 a blog post from Sander Venima about
 773 <a href="https://sandervenema.ch/2016/11/why-i-wont-recommend-signal-anymore/">why
 774 he do not recommend Signal anymore</a> (with
 775 <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12883410">feedback from
 776 the Signal author available from ycombinator</a>).  I wanted an
 777 overview of the options being used, and hope to include those options
 778 in a less biased survey later on.  So far I have not taken the time to
 779 look into the individual proposed systems.  They range from text
 780 sharing web pages, via file sharing and email to instant messaging,
 781 VOIP and video conferencing.  For those considering which system to
 782 use, it is also useful to have a look at
 783 <a href="https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard">the EFF Secure
 784 messaging scorecard</a> which is slightly out of date but still
 785 provide valuable information.</p>
 786
 787 <p>So, on to the list.  There were some used by many, some used by a
 788 few, some rarely used ones and a few mentioned but without anyone
 789 claiming to use them.  Notice the grouping is in reality quite random
 790 given the biased self selected set of participants.  First the ones
 791 used by many:</p>
 792
 793 <ul>
 794
 795 <li><a href="https://whispersystems.org/">Signal</a></li>
 796 <li>Email w/<a href="http://openpgp.org/">OpenPGP</a> (Enigmail, GPGSuite,etc)</li>
 797 <li><a href="https://www.whatsapp.com/">Whatsapp</a></li>
 798 <li>IRC w/<a href="https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/">OTR</a></li>
 799 <li>XMPP w/<a href="https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/">OTR</a></li>
 800
 801 </ul>
 802
 803 <p>Then the ones used by a few.</p>
 804
 805 <ul>
 806
 807 <li><a href="https://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Main_Page">Mumble</a></li>
 808 <li>iMessage (included in iOS from Apple)</li>
 809 <li><a href="https://telegram.org/">Telegram</a></li>
 810 <li><a href="https://jitsi.org/">Jitsi</a></li>
 811 <li><a href="https://keybase.io/download">Keybase file</a></li>
 812
 813 </ul>
 814
 815 <p>Then the ones used by even fewer people</p>
 816
 817 <ul>
 818
 819 <li><a href="https://ring.cx/">Ring</a></li>
 820 <li><a href="https://bitmessage.org/">Bitmessage</a></li>
 821 <li><a href="https://wire.com/">Wire</a></li>
 822 <li>VoIP w/<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZRTP">ZRTP</a> or controlled <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Real-time_Transport_Protocol">SRTP</a> (e.g using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSipSimple">CSipSimple</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linphone">Linphone</a>)</li>
 823 <li><a href="https://matrix.org/">Matrix</a></li>
 824 <li><a href="https://kontalk.org/">Kontalk</a></li>
 825 <li><a href="https://0bin.net/">0bin</a> (encrypted pastebin)</li>
 826 <li><a href="https://appear.in">Appear.in</a></li>
 827 <li><a href="https://riot.im/">riot</a></li>
 828 <li><a href="https://www.wickr.com/">Wickr Me</a></li>
 829
 830 </ul>
 831
 832 <p>And finally the ones mentioned by not marked as used by
 833 anyone. This might be a mistake, perhaps the person adding the entry
 834 forgot to flag it as used?</p>
 835
 836 <ul>
 837
 838 <li>Email w/Certificates <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/MIME">S/MIME</a></li>
 839 <li><a href="https://www.crypho.com/">Crypho</a></li>
 840 <li><a href="https://cryptpad.fr/">CryptPad</a></li>
 841 <li><a href="https://github.com/ricochet-im/ricochet">ricochet</a></li>
 842
 843 </ul>
 844
 845 <p>Given the network effect it seem obvious to me that we as a society
 846 have been divided and conquered by those interested in keeping
 847 encrypted and secure communication away from the masses.  The
 848 finishing remarks <a href="https://vimeo.com/97505679">from Aral Balkan
 849 in his talk "Free is a lie"</a> about the usability of free software
 850 really come into effect when you want to communicate in private with
 851 your friends and family.  We can not expect them to allow the
 852 usability of communication tool to block their ability to talk to
 853 their loved ones.</p>
 854
 855 <p>Note for example the option IRC w/OTR.  Most IRC clients do not
 856 have OTR support, so in most cases OTR would not be an option, even if
 857 you wanted to.  In my personal experience, about 1 in 20 I talk to
 858 have a IRC client with OTR.  For private communication to really be
 859 available, most people to talk to must have the option in their
 860 currently used client.  I can not simply ask my family to install an
 861 IRC client.  I need to guide them through a technical multi-step
 862 process of adding extensions to the client to get them going.  This is
 863 a non-starter for most.</p>
 864
 865 <p>I would like to be able to do video phone calls, audio phone calls,
 866 exchange instant messages and share files with my loved ones, without
 867 being forced to share with people I do not know.  I do not want to
 868 share the content of the conversations, and I do not want to share who
 869 I communicate with or the fact that I communicate with someone.
 870 Without all these factors in place, my private life is being more or
 871 less invaded.</p>
 872
 873       </div>
 874       <div class="tags">
 875
 876
 877         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
 878
 879
 880       </div>
 881     </div>
 882     <div class="padding"></div>
 883
 884     <div class="entry">
 885       <div class="title">
 886         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_own_self_balancing_Lego_Segway.html">My own self balancing Lego Segway</a>
 887       </div>
 888       <div class="date">
 889          4th November 2016
 890       </div>
 891       <div class="body">
 892         <p>A while back I received a Gyro sensor for the NXT
 893 <a href="mindstorms.lego.com">Mindstorms</a> controller as a birthday
 894 present.  It had been on my wishlist for a while, because I wanted to
 895 build a Segway like balancing lego robot.  I had already built
 896 <a href="http://www.nxtprograms.com/NXT2/segway/">a simple balancing
 897 robot</a> with the kids, using the light/color sensor included in the
 898 NXT kit as the balance sensor, but it was not working very well.  It
 899 could balance for a while, but was very sensitive to the light
 900 condition in the room and the reflective properties of the surface and
 901 would fall over after a short while.  I wanted something more robust,
 902 and had
 903 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NGY1044">the
 904 gyro sensor from HiTechnic</a> I believed would solve it on my
 905 wishlist for some years before it suddenly showed up as a gift from my
 906 loved ones. :)</p>
 907
 908 <p>Unfortunately I have not had time to sit down and play with it
 909 since then.  But that changed some days ago, when I was searching for
 910 lego segway information and came across a recipe from HiTechnic for
 911 building
 912 <a href="http://www.hitechnic.com/blog/gyro-sensor/htway/">the
 913 HTWay</a>, a segway like balancing robot.  Build instructions and
 914 <a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/upload/786-HTWayC.nxc">source
 915 code</a> was included, so it was just a question of putting it all
 916 together.  And thanks to the great work of many Debian developers, the
 917 compiler needed to build the source for the NXT is already included in
 918 Debian, so I was read to go in less than an hour.  The resulting robot
 919 do not look very impressive in its simplicity:</p>
 920
 921 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-robot.jpeg"></p>
 922
 923 <p>Because I lack the infrared sensor used to control the robot in the
 924 design from HiTechnic, I had to comment out the last task
 925 (taskControl).  I simply placed /* and */ around it get the program
 926 working without that sensor present.  Now it balances just fine until
 927 the battery status run low:</p>
 928
 929 <p align="center"><video width="70%" controls="true">
 930    <source src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-balancing.ogv" type="video/ogg">
 931 </video></p>
 932
 933 <p>Now we would like to teach it how to follow a line and take remote
 934 control instructions using the included Bluetooth receiver in the NXT.</p>
 935
 936 <p>If you, like me, love LEGO and want to make sure we find the tools
 937 they need to work with LEGO in Debian and all our derivative
 938 distributions like Ubuntu, check out
 939 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the LEGO designers
 940 project page</a> and join the Debian LEGO team.  Personally I own a
 941 RCX and NXT controller (no EV3), and would like to make sure the
 942 Debian tools needed to program the systems I own work as they
 943 should.</p>
 944
 945       </div>
 946       <div class="tags">
 947
 948
 949         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
 950
 951
 952       </div>
 953     </div>
 954     <div class="padding"></div>
 955
 956     <div class="entry">
 957       <div class="title">
 958         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile phone</a>
 959       </div>
 960       <div class="date">
 961         10th October 2016
 962       </div>
 963       <div class="body">
 964         <p>In July
 965 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">I
 966 wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working</a> without
 967 the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone).  It is
 968 time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.</p>
 969
 970 <p>The Signal app have worked fine for several months now, and I use
 971 it regularly to chat with my loved ones.  I had a major snag at the
 972 end of my summer vacation, when the the app completely forgot my
 973 setup, identity and keys.  The reason behind this major mess was
 974 running out of disk space.  To avoid that ever happening again I have
 975 started storing everything in <tt>userdata/</tt> in git, to be able to
 976 roll back to an earlier version if the files are wiped by mistake.  I
 977 had to use it once after introducing the git backup.  When rolling
 978 back to an earlier version, one need to use the 'reset session' option
 979 in Signal to get going, and notify the people you talk with about the
 980 problem.  I assume there is some sequence number tracking in the
 981 protocol to detect rollback attacks.  The git repository is rather big
 982 (674 MiB so far), but I have not tried to figure out if some of the
 983 content can be added to a .gitignore file due to lack of spare
 984 time.</p>
 985
 986 <p>I've also hit the 90 days timeout blocking, and noticed that this
 987 make it impossible to send messages using Signal.  I could still
 988 receive them, but had to patch the code with a new timestamp to send.
 989 I believe the timeout is added by the developers to force people to
 990 upgrade to the latest version of the app, even when there is no
 991 protocol changes, to reduce the version skew among the user base and
 992 thus try to keep the number of support requests down.</p>
 993
 994 <p>Since my original recipe, the Signal source code changed slightly,
 995 making the old patch fail to apply cleanly.  Below is an updated
 996 patch, including the shell wrapper I use to start Signal.  The
 997 original version required a new user to locate the JavaScript console
 998 and call a function from there.  I got help from a friend with more
 999 JavaScript knowledge than me to modify the code to provide a GUI
1000 button instead.  This mean that to get started you just need to run
1001 the wrapper and click the 'Register without mobile phone' to get going
1002 now.  I've also modified the timeout code to always set it to 90 days
1003 in the future, to avoid having to patch the code regularly.</p>
1004
1005 <p>So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:</p>
1006
1007 <ol>
1008
1009 <li>First, install required packages to get the source code and the
1010 browser you need.  Signal only work with Chrome/Chromium, as far as I
1011 know, so you need to install it.
1012
1013 <pre>
1014 apt install git tor chromium
1015 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
1016 </pre></li>
1017
1018 <li>Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch
1019 block below.</li>
1020
1021 <li>Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using
1022 <tt>`pwd`/run-signal-app</tt>).
1023
1024 <li>Click on the 'Register without mobile phone', will in a phone
1025 number you can receive calls to the next minute, receive the
1026 verification code and enter it into the form field and press
1027 'Register'.  Note, the phone number you use will be user Signal
1028 username, ie the way others can find you on Signal.</li>
1029
1030 <li>You can now use Signal to contact others.  Note, new contacts do
1031 not show up in the contact list until you restart Signal, and there is
1032 no way to assign names to Contacts.  There is also no way to create or
1033 update chat groups.  I suspect this is because the web app do not have
1034 a associated contact database.</li>
1035
1036 </ol>
1037
1038 <p>I am still a bit uneasy about using Signal, because of the way its
1039 main author moxie0 reject federation and accept dependencies to major
1040 corporations like Google (part of the code is fetched from Google) and
1041 Amazon (the central coordination point is owned by Amazon).  See for
1042 example
1043 <a href="https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37">the
1044 LibreSignal issue tracker</a> for a thread documenting the authors
1045 view on these issues.  But the network effect is strong in this case,
1046 and several of the people I want to communicate with already use
1047 Signal.  Perhaps we can all move to <a href="https://ring.cx/">Ring</a>
1048 once it <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/830265">work on my
1049 laptop</a>?  It already work on Windows and Android, and is included
1050 in <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">Debian</a> and
1051 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ring">Ubuntu</a>, but not
1052 working on Debian Stable.</p>
1053
1054 <p>Anyway, this is the patch I apply to the Signal code to get it
1055 working.  It switch to the production servers, disable to timeout,
1056 make registration easier and add the shell wrapper:</p>
1057
1058 <pre>
1059 cd Signal-Desktop; cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p1
1060 diff --git a/js/background.js b/js/background.js
1061 index 24b4c1d..579345f 100644
1062 --- a/js/background.js
1063 +++ b/js/background.js
1064 @@ -33,9 +33,9 @@
1065          });
1066      });
1067
1068 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
1069 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org';
1070      var SERVER_PORTS = [80, 4433, 8443];
1071 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
1072 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
1073      var messageReceiver;
1074      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
1075          if (messageReceiver) {
1076 diff --git a/js/expire.js b/js/expire.js
1077 index 639aeae..beb91c3 100644
1078 --- a/js/expire.js
1079 +++ b/js/expire.js
1080 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
1081  ;(function() {
1082      'use strict';
1083 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
1084 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = Date.now() + (90 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
1085
1086      window.extension = window.extension || {};
1087
1088 diff --git a/js/views/install_view.js b/js/views/install_view.js
1089 index 7816f4f..1d6233b 100644
1090 --- a/js/views/install_view.js
1091 +++ b/js/views/install_view.js
1092 @@ -38,7 +38,8 @@
1093              return {
1094                  'click .step1': this.selectStep.bind(this, 1),
1095                  'click .step2': this.selectStep.bind(this, 2),
1096 -                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3)
1097 +                'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3),
1098 +                'click .callreg': function() { extension.install('standalone') },
1099              };
1100          },
1101          clearQR: function() {
1102 diff --git a/options.html b/options.html
1103 index dc0f28e..8d709f6 100644
1104 --- a/options.html
1105 +++ b/options.html
1106 @@ -14,7 +14,10 @@
1107          &lt;div class='nav'>
1108            &lt;h1>{{ installWelcome }}&lt;/h1>
1109            &lt;p>{{ installTagline }}&lt;/p>
1110 -          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a> &lt;/div>
1111 +          &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a>
1112 +           &lt;br> &lt;a class="button callreg">Register without mobile phone&lt;/a>
1113 +
1114 +         &lt;/div>
1115            &lt;span class='dot step1 selected'>&lt;/span>
1116            &lt;span class='dot step2'>&lt;/span>
1117            &lt;span class='dot step3'>&lt;/span>
1118 --- /dev/null   2016-10-07 09:55:13.730181472 +0200
1119 +++ b/run-signal-app   2016-10-10 08:54:09.434172391 +0200
1120 @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
1121 +#!/bin/sh
1122 +set -e
1123 +cd $(dirname $0)
1124 +mkdir -p userdata
1125 +userdata="`pwd`/userdata"
1126 +if [ -d "$userdata" ] && [ ! -d "$userdata/.git" ] ; then
1127 +    (cd $userdata && git init)
1128 +fi
1129 +(cd $userdata && git add . && git commit -m "Current status." || true)
1130 +exec chromium \
1131 +  --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
1132 +  --user-data-dir=$userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
1133 EOF
1134 chmod a+rx run-signal-app
1135 </pre>
1136
1137 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1138 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1139 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1140
1141       </div>
1142       <div class="tags">
1143
1144
1145         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1146
1147
1148       </div>
1149     </div>
1150     <div class="padding"></div>
1151
1152     <div class="entry">
1153       <div class="title">
1154         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram__Appstream_and_udev_make_life_as_a_LEGO_builder_easier.html">Isenkram, Appstream and udev make life as a LEGO builder easier</a>
1155       </div>
1156       <div class="date">
1157          7th October 2016
1158       </div>
1159       <div class="body">
1160         <p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
1161 system</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
1162 packages support the hardware in a given machine.  The command line
1163 tool <tt>isenkram-lookup</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
1164 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
1165 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
1166 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
1167 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
1168 while using the computer.  For example, if you plug in a smart card
1169 reader, the system will ask if you want to install <tt>pcscd</tt> if
1170 that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
1171 camera the system will ask if you want to install <tt>cheese</tt> if
1172 cheese is currently missing.  This already work just fine.</p>
1173
1174 <p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
1175 package names.  When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
1176 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
1177 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
1178 http.  This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
1179 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.</p>
1180
1181 <p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings.  The modalias
1182 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
1183 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
1184 globbing.  It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
1185 identifiers.</p>
1186
1187 <p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
1188 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
1189 isenkram propose obsolete packages too.  But along came AppStream, a
1190 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
1191 software packages.  When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
1192 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
1193 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
1194 mapping hardware to packages.  This idea was accepted and AppStream is
1195 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
1196 distribution neutral way.  I wrote
1197 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
1198 recipe on how to add such meta-information</a> in a blog post last
1199 December.  If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
1200 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.</p>
1201
1202 <p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
1203 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream.  The effect is
1204 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
1205 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
1206 it working.  The intention is that this should allow the local user to
1207 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
1208 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.</p>
1209
1210 <p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
1211 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
1212 annoying.  The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
1213 the USB device for programming the unit.  This used to work, but no
1214 longer in Jessie and Stretch.  After some investigation and asking
1215 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
1216 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices.  The
1217 ConsoleKit mechanism from <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>
1218 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
1219 plugdev group during login.  Michael Biebl told me that this method
1220 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead.  This was good
1221 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
1222 directory like LDAP.  Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
1223 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
1224 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
1225 setup.  Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
1226 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.</p>
1227
1228 <p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'.  It can either be
1229 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
1230 /lib/udev/rules.d/70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices.  As the
1231 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
1232 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages.  Here
1233 is one example.  For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
1234 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/60-nqc.rules</tt> file now look like this:
1235
1236 <p><pre>
1237 SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="0001", \
1238     SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
1239 </pre></p>
1240
1241 <p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end.  I suspect all
1242 packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
1243 changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
1244 <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>).  Perhaps a lintian check should be created
1245 to detect this?</p>
1246
1247 <p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
1248 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
1249 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
1250 <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>.  If it is, I guess the
1251 indirect method is the preferred way.  Michael
1252 <a href="https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
1253 documentation from the systemd project</a> and I hope it will make
1254 this clearer.  For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
1255 is already handled by <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>, and add the tag
1256 directly if no such class exist.</p>
1257
1258 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
1259 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
1260 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
1261
1262 <p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
1263 please join us on our IRC channel
1264 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> and join
1265 the <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
1266 LEGO team</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday.  A mailing
1267 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)</p>
1268
1269 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
1270 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
1271 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
1272
1273       </div>
1274       <div class="tags">
1275
1276
1277         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
1278
1279
1280       </div>
1281     </div>
1282     <div class="padding"></div>
1283
1284     <div class="entry">
1285       <div class="title">
1286         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html">First draft Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook now public</a>
1287       </div>
1288       <div class="date">
1289         30th August 2016
1290       </div>
1291       <div class="body">
1292         <p>In April we
1293 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">started
1294 to work</a> on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on
1295 how to set up and administrate a Debian system.  Today I am happy to
1296 report that the first draft is now publicly available.  You can find
1297 it on <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/get/">get the Debian
1298 Administrator's Handbook page</a> (under Other languages).  The first
1299 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
1300 proofreading the content.  If you want to help out, please start
1301 contributing using
1302 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
1303 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
1304 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
1305 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
1306 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
1307 contributors</a>.  A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
1308 and update weblate if you find errors.</p>
1309
1310 <p>Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
1311 electronic form.</p>
1312
1313       </div>
1314       <div class="tags">
1315
1316
1317         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1318
1319
1320       </div>
1321     </div>
1322     <div class="padding"></div>
1323
1324     <div class="entry">
1325       <div class="title">
1326         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">Coz can help you find bottlenecks in multi-threaded software - nice free software</a>
1327       </div>
1328       <div class="date">
1329         11th August 2016
1330       </div>
1331       <div class="body">
1332         <p>This summer, I read a great article
1333 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">coz:
1334 This Is the Profiler You're Looking For</a>" in USENIX ;login: about
1335 how to profile multi-threaded programs.  It presented a system for
1336 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
1337 testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up" parts of
1338 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run.  It does this by
1339 slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up" code is running
1340 and measure how this affect processing time.  The processing time is
1341 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
1342 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END).  It
1343 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
1344 runtime and running the program several times instead.</p>
1345
1346 <p>The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
1347 get the system into Debian.  I
1348 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=830708">created
1349 a WNPP request for it</a> and contacted upstream to try to make the
1350 system ready for Debian by sending patches.  The build process need to
1351 be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and
1352 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
1353 profiling information included in the source package.
1354 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.</p>
1355
1356 <p>The way the system work is fairly simple.  To run an coz experiment
1357 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
1358
1359 <p><blockquote><pre>
1360 coz run --- program-to-run
1361 </pre></blockquote></p>
1362
1363 <p>This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
1364 information.  To show what part of the code affect the performance
1365 most, use a web browser and either point it to
1366 <a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/</a>
1367 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch).  Check out this web
1368 site to have a look at several example profiling runs and get an idea what the end result from the profile runs look like.  To make the
1369 profiling more useful you include &lt;coz.h&gt; and insert the
1370 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
1371 code, rebuild and run the profiler.  This allow coz to do more
1372 targeted experiments.</p>
1373
1374 <p>A video published by ACM
1375 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg">presenting the
1376 Coz profiler</a> is available from Youtube.  There is also a paper
1377 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
1378 titled
1379 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger">Coz:
1380 finding code that counts with causal profiling</a>.</p>
1381
1382 <p><a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz">The source code</a>
1383 for Coz is available from github.  It will only build with clang
1384 because it uses a
1385 <a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=55606">C++
1386 feature missing in GCC</a>, but I've submitted
1387 <a href="https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/67">a patch to solve
1388 it</a> and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.</p>
1389
1390 <p>Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
1391 of software in Debian.  I would very much like some help with the
1392 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
1393 C++ libraries.</p>
1394
1395       </div>
1396       <div class="tags">
1397
1398
1399         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
1400
1401
1402       </div>
1403     </div>
1404     <div class="padding"></div>
1405
1406     <div class="entry">
1407       <div class="title">
1408         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sales_number_for_the_Free_Culture_translation__first_half_of_2016.html">Sales number for the Free Culture translation, first half of 2016</a>
1409       </div>
1410       <div class="date">
1411          5th August 2016
1412       </div>
1413       <div class="body">
1414         <p>As my regular readers probably remember, the last year I published
1415 a French and Norwegian translation of the classic
1416 <a href="http://www.free-culture.cc/">Free Culture book</a> by the
1417 founder of the Creative Commons movement, Lawrence Lessig.  A bit less
1418 known is the fact that due to the way I created the translations,
1419 using docbook and po4a, I also recreated the English original.  And
1420 because I already had created a new the PDF edition, I published it
1421 too.  The revenue from the books are sent to the Creative Commons
1422 Corporation.  In other words, I do not earn any money from this
1423 project, I just earn the warm fuzzy feeling that the text is available
1424 for a wider audience and more people can learn why the Creative
1425 Commons is needed.</p>
1426
1427 <p>Today, just for fun, I had a look at the sales number over at
1428 Lulu.com, which take care of payment, printing and shipping.  Much to
1429 my surprise, the English edition is selling better than both the
1430 French and Norwegian edition, despite the fact that it has been
1431 available in English since it was first published.  In total, 24 paper
1432 books was sold for USD $19.99 between 2016-01-01 and 2016-07-31:</p>
1433
1434 <table border="0">
1435 <tr><th>Title / language</th><th>Quantity</th></tr>
1436 <tr><td><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html">Culture Libre / French</a></td><td align="right">3</td></tr>
1437 <tr><td><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">Fri kultur / Norwegian</a></td><td align="right">7</td></tr>
1438 <tr><td><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22440520.html">Free Culture / English</a></td><td align="right">14</td></tr>
1439 </table>
1440
1441 <p>The books are available both from Lulu.com and from large book
1442 stores like Amazon and Barnes&Noble.  Most revenue, around $10 per
1443 book, is sent to the Creative Commons project when the book is sold
1444 directly by Lulu.com.  The other channels give less revenue.  The
1445 summary from Lulu tell me 10 books was sold via the Amazon channel, 10
1446 via Ingram (what is this?) and 4 directly by Lulu.  And Lulu.com tells
1447 me that the revenue sent so far this year is USD $101.42.  No idea
1448 what kind of sales numbers to expect, so I do not know if that is a
1449 good amount of sales for a 10 year old book or not.  But it make me
1450 happy that the buyers find the book, and I hope they enjoy reading it
1451 as much as I did.</p>
1452
1453 <p>The ebook edition is available for free from
1454 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Github</a>.</p>
1455
1456 <p>If you would like to translate and publish the book in your native
1457 language, I would be happy to help make it happen.  Please get in
1458 touch.</p>
1459
1460       </div>
1461       <div class="tags">
1462
1463
1464         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
1465
1466
1467       </div>
1468     </div>
1469     <div class="padding"></div>
1470
1471     <div class="entry">
1472       <div class="title">
1473         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Techno_TV_broadcasting_live_across_Norway_and_the_Internet___debconf16___nuug__on__frikanalen.html">Techno TV broadcasting live across Norway and the Internet (#debconf16, #nuug) on @frikanalen</a>
1474       </div>
1475       <div class="date">
1476          1st August 2016
1477       </div>
1478       <div class="body">
1479         <p>Did you know there is a TV channel broadcasting talks from DebConf
1480 16 across an entire country?  Or that there is a TV channel
1481 broadcasting talks by or about
1482 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625529/">Linus Torvalds</a>,
1483 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625599/">Tor</a>,
1484 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/624019/">OpenID</A>,
1485 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625624/">Common Lisp</a>,
1486 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625446/">Civic Tech</a>,
1487 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625090/">EFF founder John Barlow</a>,
1488 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625432/">how to make 3D
1489 printer electronics</a> and many more fascinating topics?  It works
1490 using only free software (all of it
1491 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from Github</a>), and
1492 is administrated using a web browser and a web API.</p>
1493
1494 <p>The TV channel is the Norwegian open channel
1495 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a>, and I am involved
1496 via <a href="https://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG member association</a> in
1497 running and developing the software for the channel.  The channel is
1498 organised as a member organisation where its members can upload and
1499 broadcast what they want (think of it as Youtube for national
1500 broadcasting television).  Individuals can broadcast too.  The time
1501 slots are handled on a first come, first serve basis.  Because the
1502 channel have almost no viewers and very few active members, we can
1503 experiment with TV technology without too much flack when we make
1504 mistakes.  And thanks to the few active members, most of the slots on
1505 the schedule are free.  I see this as an opportunity to spread
1506 knowledge about technology and free software, and have a script I run
1507 regularly to fill up all the open slots the next few days with
1508 technology related video.  The end result is a channel I like to
1509 describe as Techno TV - filled with interesting talks and
1510 presentations.</p>
1511
1512 <p>It is available on channel 50 on the Norwegian national digital TV
1513 network (RiksTV).  It is also available as a multicast stream on
1514 Uninett.  And finally, it is available as
1515 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/">a WebM unicast stream</a> from
1516 Frikanalen and NUUG.  Check it out. :)</p>
1517
1518       </div>
1519       <div class="tags">
1520
1521
1522         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
1523
1524
1525       </div>
1526     </div>
1527     <div class="padding"></div>
1528
1529     <div class="entry">
1530       <div class="title">
1531         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html">Unlocking HTC Desire HD on Linux using unruu and fastboot</a>
1532       </div>
1533       <div class="date">
1534          7th July 2016
1535       </div>
1536       <div class="body">
1537         <p>Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
1538 to be a slight challenge.  Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
1539 again.  It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
1540 <a href="https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy">an
1541 hardened Android installation</a> from the Tor project blog on a
1542 device I had access to.  It is a old mobile phone with a broken
1543 microphone The initial idea had been to just
1544 <a href="http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace">install
1545 CyanogenMod on it</a>, but did not quite find time to start on it
1546 until a few days ago.</p>
1547
1548 <p>The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
1549 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
1550 'fastboot' before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
1551 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running 'fastboot
1552 oem get_identifier_token', (5) request the device unlocking key using
1553 the <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/">HTC developer web
1554 site</a> and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.</p>
1555
1556 <p>Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
1557 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027.  This
1558 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
1559 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
1560 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not.  So I had to
1561 come up with a different approach.  I got a lot of help from AndyCap
1562 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
1563 him.</p>
1564
1565 <p>First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
1566 <a href="http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00.0029.exe">the
1567 windows binary for HTC Desire HD</a> downloaded as 'the RUU' from HTC.
1568 For this there is is <a href="https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/">a github
1569 project named unruu</a> using libunshield.  The unshield tool did not
1570 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
1571 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
1572 devices it would work for.</p>
1573
1574 <p>Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device.  For this I
1575 followed some instructions
1576 <a href="http://www.htc1guru.com/2013/09/new-ruu-zips-posted/">available
1577 from HTC1Guru.com</a>, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
1578 machine with Debian testing:</p>
1579
1580 <p><pre>
1581 adb reboot-bootloader
1582 fastboot oem rebootRUU
1583 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
1584 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
1585 fastboot reboot
1586 </pre></p>
1587
1588 <p>The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
1589 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
1590 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
1591 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
1592 too.</p>
1593
1594 <p>With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
1595 instructions on the HTC developer web site.  I got the device token
1596 like this:</p>
1597
1598 <p><pre>
1599 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2>&1 | sed 's/(bootloader) //'
1600 </pre>
1601
1602 <p>And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
1603 this:</p>
1604
1605 <p><pre>
1606 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
1607 </pre></p>
1608
1609 <p>And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
1610 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
1611 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
1612 before I start.  We will see what happen next.  Perhaps I should
1613 install <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> on it. :)</p>
1614
1615       </div>
1616       <div class="tags">
1617
1618
1619         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
1620
1621
1622       </div>
1623     </div>
1624     <div class="padding"></div>
1625
1626     <div class="entry">
1627       <div class="title">
1628         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">How to use the Signal app if you only have a land line (ie no mobile phone)</a>
1629       </div>
1630       <div class="date">
1631          3rd July 2016
1632       </div>
1633       <div class="body">
1634         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to test
1635 <a href="https://whispersystems.org/">the Signal app</a>, as it is
1636 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
1637 friends and family are already using it.  As I by choice do not own a
1638 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected.  And I wanted to
1639 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
1640 machine.  But yesterday I managed to get it working.  I used the
1641 Github source, compared it to the source in
1642 <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US">the
1643 Signal Chrome app</a> available from the Chrome web store, applied
1644 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
1645 asked for the hidden "register without a smart phone" form.  Here is
1646 the recipe how I did it.</p>
1647
1648 <p>First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
1649
1650 <pre>
1651 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
1652 </pre>
1653
1654 <p>Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
1655 able to talk to other Signal users:</p>
1656
1657 <pre>
1658 cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p0
1659 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js
1660 --- ./js/background.js  2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
1661 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js    2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
1662 @@ -47,8 +47,8 @@
1663          });
1664      });
1665
1666 -    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
1667 -    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
1668 +    var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:4433';
1669 +    var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
1670      var messageReceiver;
1671      window.getSocketStatus = function() {
1672          if (messageReceiver) {
1673 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
1674 --- ./js/expire.js      2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
1675 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
1676 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
1677  ;(function() {
1678      'use strict';
1679 -    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
1680 +    var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 1474492690000;
1681
1682      window.extension = window.extension || {};
1683
1684 EOF
1685 </pre>
1686
1687 <p>The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
1688 an expiration timestamp.  This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
1689 It is set 90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
1690 The value is seconds since 1970 times 1000, as far as I can tell.</p>
1691
1692 <p>Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
1693 script to launch Signal in Chromium.</p>
1694
1695 <pre>
1696 #!/bin/sh
1697 cd $(dirname $0)
1698 mkdir -p userdata
1699 exec chromium \
1700   --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
1701   --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
1702 </pre>
1703
1704 <p> The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
1705 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
1706 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
1707 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
1708 connections if they use source IP address.</p>
1709
1710 <p>When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
1711 "Standalone Registration" in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
1712 repository.  I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
1713 Chromium debugging tool, visited the 'Console' tab and wrote
1714 'extension.install("standalone")' on the console prompt to get the
1715 registration form.  Then I entered by land line phone number and
1716 pressed 'Call'.  5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
1717 repeated the verification code three times.  After entering the number
1718 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
1719 Signal from my laptop.
1720
1721 <p>As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
1722 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
1723 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
1724 setup.  It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
1725 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
1726 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
1727 So better than many options, but not great.  And sadly the usage is
1728 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
1729 to associate it to my home and person.  I would prefer it if only
1730 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal.  There are options
1731 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
1732 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.</p>
1733
1734 <p><strong>Update 2017-01-10</strong>: There is an updated blog post
1735 on this topic in
1736 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">Experience
1737 and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile
1738 phone</a>.</p>
1739
1740       </div>
1741       <div class="tags">
1742
1743
1744         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
1745
1746
1747       </div>
1748     </div>
1749     <div class="padding"></div>
1750
1751     <div class="entry">
1752       <div class="title">
1753         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?</a>
1754       </div>
1755       <div class="date">
1756          6th June 2016
1757       </div>
1758       <div class="body">
1759         <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
1760 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
1761 multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
1762 MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
1763 the various players claimed support for.  The range was from 55 to 130
1764 MIME types.  I suspect most media formats are supported by all
1765 players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
1766 their desktop files.  There are probably also some bogus MIME types
1767 listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p>
1768
1769 <p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
1770 the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
1771 and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
1772 favorite media player VLC.  The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
1773 yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
1774 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
1775 player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p>
1776
1777 <p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?  It is VLC, followed by
1778 totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
1779 kmplayer.  I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
1780 several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
1781 toten and parole.</p>
1782
1783 <p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as
1784 supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
1785 desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
1786 audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
1787 video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
1788 video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo.  Personally I find
1789 it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
1790 players in Debian.  As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
1791 formats.</p>
1792
1793       </div>
1794       <div class="tags">
1795
1796
1797         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
1798
1799
1800       </div>
1801     </div>
1802     <div class="padding"></div>
1803
1804     <div class="entry">
1805       <div class="title">
1806         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html">A program should be able to open its own files on Linux</a>
1807       </div>
1808       <div class="date">
1809          5th June 2016
1810       </div>
1811       <div class="body">
1812         <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I
1813 decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a
1814 talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine.  I
1815 wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed
1816 the day before I would give the talk.  The next day I took a plane to
1817 the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I
1818 started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover
1819 that kpresenter refused to load its own data file.  I cursed a bit and
1820 started making the slides again from memory, to have something to
1821 present when I arrived.  I tested that the saved files could be
1822 loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued.  I continued to polish the
1823 slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer
1824 be loaded into kpresenter.  In the end I had to rewrite the slides
1825 three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and
1826 shorter.  After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem &ndash;
1827 kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand.
1828 Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great
1829 program to make slides.  The point I'm trying to make is that we
1830 expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is
1831 embarrassing to its developers if it can't.</p>
1832
1833 <p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data
1834 files from the desktop file browser?  It is not a uncommon problem.  A
1835 while back I discovered that the screencast recorder
1836 gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file
1837 browser would refuse to open.  No video player claimed to understand
1838 such file.  I tracked down the cause being <tt>file --mime-type</tt>
1839 returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had
1840 installed listed as a MIME type they would understand.  I asked for
1841 <a href="http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its
1842 behavour</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead.  I also asked
1843 several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give
1844 the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files.  After a
1845 while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the
1846 output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.</p>
1847
1848 <p>But history repeats itself.  A few days ago I tested the music
1849 system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file
1850 browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files
1851 (*.rg).  I've reported <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the
1852 rosegarden problem to BTS</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be
1853 included in the next upload.  To increase the chance of me remembering
1854 how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files
1855 from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.</p>
1856
1857 <p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types.
1858 There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file.  The output from
1859 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the
1860 shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/).  The file MIME
1861 type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this
1862 information is collected from
1863 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the
1864 desktop files</a> available in /usr/share/applications/.  If there is
1865 one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is
1866 activated when asking to open a given file.  If there are more, one
1867 can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and
1868 selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar.  In general
1869 this work well.  But it depend on each program picking a good MIME
1870 type (preferably
1871 <a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a
1872 MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared MIME
1873 registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME
1874 type in its list of supported MIME types.</p>
1875
1876 <p>The <tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml</tt> entry for
1877 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the
1878 Shared MIME database</a> look like this:</p>
1879
1880 <p><blockquote><pre>
1881 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
1882 &lt;mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"&gt;
1883   &lt;mime-type type="audio/x-rosegarden"&gt;
1884     &lt;sub-class-of type="application/x-gzip"/&gt;
1885     &lt;comment&gt;Rosegarden project file&lt;/comment&gt;
1886     &lt;glob pattern="*.rg"/&gt;
1887   &lt;/mime-type&gt;
1888 &lt;/mime-info&gt;
1889 </pre></blockquote></p>
1890
1891 <p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip
1892 (it is a gzipped XML file).  Note, it is much better to use an
1893 official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own
1894 unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.</p>
1895
1896 <p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list
1897 audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the
1898 file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:</p>
1899
1900 <p><blockquote><pre>
1901 % grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop
1902 MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi;
1903 X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition
1904 %
1905 </pre></blockquote></p>
1906
1907 <p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the
1908 MimeType= line.</p>
1909
1910 <p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when
1911 selected from the file browser, please check out the output from
1912 <tt>file --mime-type</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and
1913 MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check
1914 that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming
1915 support for this MIME type.  If not, please report a bug to have it
1916 fixed. :)</p>
1917
1918       </div>
1919       <div class="tags">
1920
1921
1922         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
1923
1924
1925       </div>
1926     </div>
1927     <div class="padding"></div>
1928
1929     <div class="entry">
1930       <div class="title">
1931         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Tor___from_its_creators_mouth_11_years_ago.html">Tor - from its creators mouth 11 years ago</a>
1932       </div>
1933       <div class="date">
1934         28th May 2016
1935       </div>
1936       <div class="body">
1937         <p>A little more than 11 years ago, one of the creators of Tor, and
1938 the current President of <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">the Tor
1939 project</a>, Roger Dingledine, gave a talk for the members of the
1940 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User group</a> (NUUG).  A
1941 video of the talk was recorded, and today, thanks to the great help
1942 from David Noble, I finally was able to publish the video of the talk
1943 on Frikanalen, the Norwegian open channel TV station where NUUG
1944 currently publishes its talks.  You can
1945 <a href="http://frikanalen.no/se">watch the live stream using a web
1946 browser</a> with WebM support, or check out the recording on the video
1947 on demand page for the talk
1948 "<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625599">Tor: Anonymous
1949 communication for the US Department of Defence...and you.</a>".</p>
1950
1951 <p>Here is the video included for those of you using browsers with
1952 HTML video and Ogg Theora support:</p>
1953
1954 <p><video width="70%" poster="http://simula.gunkies.org/media/625599/large_thumb/20050421-tor-frikanalen.jpg" controls>
1955   <source src="http://simula.gunkies.org/media/625599/theora/20050421-tor-frikanalen.ogv" type="video/ogg"/>
1956 </video></p>
1957
1958 <p>I guess the gist of the talk can be summarised quite simply: If you
1959 want to help the military in USA (and everyone else), use Tor. :)</p>
1960
1961       </div>
1962       <div class="tags">
1963
1964
1965         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
1966
1967
1968       </div>
1969     </div>
1970     <div class="padding"></div>
1971
1972     <div class="entry">
1973       <div class="title">
1974         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_with_PackageKit_support___new_version_0_23_available_in_Debian_unstable.html">Isenkram with PackageKit support - new version 0.23 available in Debian unstable</a>
1975       </div>
1976       <div class="date">
1977         25th May 2016
1978       </div>
1979       <div class="body">
1980         <p><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/isenkram">The isenkram
1981 system</a> is a user-focused solution in Debian for handling hardware
1982 related packages.  The idea is to have a database of mappings between
1983 hardware and packages, and pop up a dialog suggesting for the user to
1984 install the packages to use a given hardware dongle.  Some use cases
1985 are when you insert a Yubikey, it proposes to install the software
1986 needed to control it; when you insert a braille reader list it
1987 proposes to install the packages needed to send text to the reader;
1988 and when you insert a ColorHug screen calibrator it suggests to
1989 install the driver for it.  The system work well, and even have a few
1990 command line tools to install firmware packages and packages for the
1991 hardware already in the machine (as opposed to hotpluggable hardware).</p>
1992
1993 <p>The system was initially written using aptdaemon, because I found
1994 good documentation and example code on how to use it.  But aptdaemon
1995 is going away and is generally being replaced by
1996 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/PackageKit/">PackageKit</a>,
1997 so Isenkram needed a rewrite.  And today, thanks to the great patch
1998 from my college Sunil Mohan Adapa in the FreedomBox project, the
1999 rewrite finally took place.  I've just uploaded a new version of
2000 Isenkram into Debian Unstable with the patch included, and the default
2001 for the background daemon is now to use PackageKit.  To check it out,
2002 install the <tt>isenkram</tt> package and insert some hardware dongle
2003 and see if it is recognised.</p>
2004
2005 <p>If you want to know what kind of packages isenkram would propose for
2006 the machine it is running on, you can check out the isenkram-lookup
2007 program.  This is what it look like on a Thinkpad X230:</p>
2008
2009 <p><blockquote><pre>
2010 % isenkram-lookup
2011 bluez
2012 cheese
2013 fprintd
2014 fprintd-demo
2015 gkrellm-thinkbat
2016 hdapsd
2017 libpam-fprintd
2018 pidgin-blinklight
2019 thinkfan
2020 tleds
2021 tp-smapi-dkms
2022 tp-smapi-source
2023 tpb
2024 %p
2025 </pre></blockquote></p>
2026
2027 <p>The hardware mappings come from several places.  The preferred way
2028 is for packages to announce their hardware support using
2029 <a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
2030 cross distribution appstream system</a>.
2031 See
2032 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">previous
2033 blog posts about isenkram</a> to learn how to do that.</p>
2034
2035       </div>
2036       <div class="tags">
2037
2038
2039         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
2040
2041
2042       </div>
2043     </div>
2044     <div class="padding"></div>
2045
2046     <div class="entry">
2047       <div class="title">
2048         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Discharge_rate_estimate_in_new_battery_statistics_collector_for_Debian.html">Discharge rate estimate in new battery statistics collector for Debian</a>
2049       </div>
2050       <div class="date">
2051         23rd May 2016
2052       </div>
2053       <div class="body">
2054         <p>Yesterday I updated the
2055 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats
2056 package in Debian</a> with a few patches sent to me by skilled and
2057 enterprising users.  There were some nice user and visible changes.
2058 First of all, both desktop menu entries now work.  A design flaw in
2059 one of the script made the history graph fail to show up (its PNG was
2060 dumped in ~/.xsession-errors) if no controlling TTY was available.
2061 The script worked when called from the command line, but not when
2062 called from the desktop menu.  I changed this to look for a DISPLAY
2063 variable or a TTY before deciding where to draw the graph, and now the
2064 graph window pop up as expected.</p>
2065
2066 <p>The next new feature is a discharge rate estimator in one of the
2067 graphs (the one showing the last few hours).  New is also the user of
2068 colours showing charging in blue and discharge in red.  The percentages
2069 of this graph is relative to last full charge, not battery design
2070 capacity.</p>
2071
2072 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-rate.png"/></p>
2073
2074 <p>The other graph show the entire history of the collected battery
2075 statistics, comparing it to the design capacity of the battery to
2076 visualise how the battery life time get shorter over time.  The red
2077 line in this graph is what the previous graph considers 100 percent:
2078
2079 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-05-23-battery-stats-history.png"/></p>
2080
2081 <p>In this graph you can see that I only charge the battery to 80
2082 percent of last full capacity, and how the capacity of the battery is
2083 shrinking. :(</p>
2084
2085 <p>The last new feature is in the collector, which now will handle
2086 more hardware models.  On some hardware, Linux power supply
2087 information is stored in /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/, while the
2088 collector previously only looked in /sys/class/power_supply/AC/.  Now
2089 both are checked to figure if there is power connected to the
2090 machine.</p>
2091
2092 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
2093 check out the
2094 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
2095 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
2096 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from <a
2097 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
2098 Patches are very welcome.</p>
2099
2100 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2101 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2102 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2103
2104       </div>
2105       <div class="tags">
2106
2107
2108         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2109
2110
2111       </div>
2112     </div>
2113     <div class="padding"></div>
2114
2115     <div class="entry">
2116       <div class="title">
2117         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/French_edition_of_Lawrence_Lessigs_book_Cultura_Libre_on_Amazon_and_Barnes___Noble.html">French edition of Lawrence Lessigs book Cultura Libre on Amazon and Barnes & Noble</a>
2118       </div>
2119       <div class="date">
2120         21st May 2016
2121       </div>
2122       <div class="body">
2123         <p>A few weeks ago the French paperback edition of Lawrence Lessigs
2124 2004 book Cultura Libre was published.  Today I noticed that the book
2125 is now available from book stores.  You can now buy it from
2126 <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Libre-French-Lawrence-Lessig/dp/8269018260">Amazon</a>
2127 ($19.99),
2128 <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/culture-libre-lawrence-lessig/1123776705">Barnes
2129 & Noble</a> ($?) and as always from
2130 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html">Lulu.com</a>
2131 ($19.99).  The revenue is donated to the Creative Commons project.  If
2132 you buy from Lulu.com, they currently get $10.59, while if you buy
2133 from one of the book stores most of the revenue go to the book store
2134 and the Creative Commons project get much (not sure how much
2135 less).</p>
2136
2137 <p>I was a bit surprised to discover that there is a kindle edition
2138 sold by Amazon Digital Services LLC on Amazon.  Not quite sure how
2139 that edition was created, but if you want to download a electronic
2140 edition (PDF, EPUB, Mobi) generated from the same files used to create
2141 the paperback edition, they are
2142 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">available
2143 from github</a>.</p>
2144
2145       </div>
2146       <div class="tags">
2147
2148
2149         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
2150
2151
2152       </div>
2153     </div>
2154     <div class="padding"></div>
2155
2156     <div class="entry">
2157       <div class="title">
2158         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_want_the_courts_to_be_involved_before_the_police_can_hijack_a_news_site_DNS_domain___domstolkontroll_.html">I want the courts to be involved before the police can hijack a news site DNS domain (#domstolkontroll)</a>
2159       </div>
2160       <div class="date">
2161         19th May 2016
2162       </div>
2163       <div class="body">
2164         <p>I just donated to the
2165 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dns-beslag-donasjon.shtml">NUUG defence
2166 "fond"</a> to fund the effort in Norway to get the seizure of the news
2167 site popcorn-time.no tested in court.  I hope everyone that agree with
2168 me will do the same.</p>
2169
2170 <p>Would you be worried if you knew the police in your country could
2171 hijack DNS domains of news sites covering free software system without
2172 talking to a judge first?  I am.  What if the free software system
2173 combined search engine lookups, bittorrent downloads and video playout
2174 and was called Popcorn Time?  Would that affect your view?  It still
2175 make me worried.</p>
2176
2177 <p>In March 2016, the Norwegian police seized (as in forced NORID to
2178 change the IP address pointed to by it to one controlled by the
2179 police) the DNS domain popcorn-time.no, without any supervision from
2180 the courts.  I did not know about the web site back then, and assumed
2181 the courts had been involved, and was very surprised when I discovered
2182 that the police had hijacked the DNS domain without asking a judge for
2183 permission first.  I was even more surprised when I had a look at
2184 <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://popcorn-time.no">the web
2185 site content on the Internet Archive</A>, and only found news coverage
2186 about Popcorn Time, not any material published without the right
2187 holders permissions.</p>
2188
2189 <p>The seizure was widely covered in the Norwegian press (see for
2190 example <a href="http://www.hegnar.no/Nyheter/Naeringsliv/2016/03/Popcorn-time.no-beslaglagt-av-OEkokrim">Hegnar Online</a> and
2191 <a href="http://itavisen.no/2016/03/08/okokrim-har-beslaglagt-popcorn-time-no/">ITavisen<a/>
2192 and
2193 <a href="http://www.nrk.no/kultur/okokrim-gar-til-aksjon-mot-popcorn-time-1.12842452">NRK</a>),
2194 at first due to the press release sent out by Økokrim, but then based
2195 on
2196 <a href="http://blogg.torvund.net/2016/03/09/okokrims-beslag-i-domenet-popcorn-time-no/">protests
2197 from the law professor Olav Torvund</a> and
2198 <a href="http://www.klassekampen.no/article/20160311/ARTICLE/160319995">lawyer
2199 Jon Wessel-Aas</a>.  It even got some
2200 <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/norwegian-authorities-sued-over-popcorn-time-domain-seizure-160418/">coverage
2201 on TorrentFreak</a>.</p>
2202
2203 <p>I
2204 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NUUG_contests_Norwegian_police_DNS_seizure_of_popcorn_time_no.html">
2205 wrote about the case a month ago</a>, when the
2206 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> (NUUG),
2207 where I am an active member, decided to ask the courts to test this seizure.
2208 The request was denied, but NUUG and its co-requestor EFN have not
2209 given up, and now they are rallying for support to get the seizure
2210 legally challenged.  They accept both bank and Bitcoin transfer for
2211 those that want to support the request.</p>
2212
2213 <p>If you as me believe news sites about free software should not be
2214 censored, even if the free software have both legal and illegal
2215 applications, and that DNS hijacking should be tested by the courts, I
2216 suggest you <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dns-beslag-donasjon.shtml">show
2217 your support by donating to NUUG</a>.</a>
2218
2219       </div>
2220       <div class="tags">
2221
2222
2223         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
2224
2225
2226       </div>
2227     </div>
2228     <div class="padding"></div>
2229
2230     <div class="entry">
2231       <div class="title">
2232         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_now_with_ZFS_on_Linux_included.html">Debian now with ZFS on Linux included</a>
2233       </div>
2234       <div class="date">
2235         12th May 2016
2236       </div>
2237       <div class="body">
2238         <p>Today, after many years of hard work from many people,
2239 <a href="http://zfsonlinux.org/">ZFS for Linux</a> finally entered
2240 Debian.  The package status can be seen on
2241 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/zfs-linux">the package tracker
2242 for zfs-linux</a>.  and
2243 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
2244 team status page</a>. If you want to help out, please join us.
2245 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">The
2246 source code</a> is available via git on Alioth.  It would also be
2247 great if you could help out with
2248 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/dkms">the dkms package</a>, as
2249 it is an important piece of the puzzle to get ZFS working.</p>
2250
2251       </div>
2252       <div class="tags">
2253
2254
2255         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2256
2257
2258       </div>
2259     </div>
2260     <div class="padding"></div>
2261
2262     <div class="entry">
2263       <div class="title">
2264         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">What is the best multimedia player in Debian?</a>
2265       </div>
2266       <div class="date">
2267          8th May 2016
2268       </div>
2269       <div class="body">
2270         <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
2271 Debian claim support for most file formats.</strong></p>
2272
2273 <p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
2274 plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
2275 Edu.  I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
2276 for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
2277 plugin supported most file formats / media types.
2278 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
2279 result</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
2280 not been updated for a while.  But browser plugins are less relevant
2281 these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
2282 players.</p>
2283
2284 <p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
2285 player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
2286 Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why.  The cause is a
2287 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
2288 desktop file</a>.  In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
2289 of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
2290 only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
2291 two for VLC.  This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
2292 compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
2293 instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
2294 support most file formats.</p>
2295
2296 <p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
2297 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
2298 table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
2299 in the table</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
2300 listed first in the table.</p>
2301
2302 </p>The best multimedia player in Debian?  It is totem, followed by
2303 parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
2304 kmplayer.  Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
2305 support?</p>
2306
2307       </div>
2308       <div class="tags">
2309
2310
2311         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
2312
2313
2314       </div>
2315     </div>
2316     <div class="padding"></div>
2317
2318     <div class="entry">
2319       <div class="title">
2320         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Pyra___handheld_computer_with_Debian_preinstalled.html">The Pyra - handheld computer with Debian preinstalled</a>
2321       </div>
2322       <div class="date">
2323          4th May 2016
2324       </div>
2325       <div class="body">
2326         A friend of mine made me aware of
2327 <a href="https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/">The Pyra</a>, a
2328 handheld computer which will be delivered with Debian preinstalled.  I
2329 would love to get one of those for my birthday. :)</p>
2330
2331 <p>The machine is a complete ARM-based PC with micro HDMI, SATA, USB
2332 plugs and many others connectors, and include a full keyboard and a 5"
2333 LCD touch screen.  The 6000mAh battery is claimed to provide a whole
2334 day of battery life time, but I have not seen any independent tests
2335 confirming this.  The vendor is still collecting preorders, and the
2336 last I heard last night was that 22 more orders were needed before
2337 production started.</p>
2338
2339 <p>As far as I know, this is the first handheld preinstalled with
2340 Debian.  Please let me know if you know of any others.  Is it the
2341 first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?</p>
2342
2343       </div>
2344       <div class="tags">
2345
2346
2347         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2348
2349
2350       </div>
2351     </div>
2352     <div class="padding"></div>
2353
2354     <div class="entry">
2355       <div class="title">
2356         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NUUG_contests_Norwegian_police_DNS_seizure_of_popcorn_time_no.html">NUUG contests Norwegian police DNS seizure of popcorn-time.no</a>
2357       </div>
2358       <div class="date">
2359         18th April 2016
2360       </div>
2361       <div class="body">
2362         <p>It is days like today I am really happy to be a member of
2363 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the Norwegian Unix User group</a>, a
2364 member association for those of us believing in free software, open
2365 standards and unix-like operating systems.  NUUG announced today it
2366 will
2367 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Pressemelding__NUUG_og_EFN_begj_rer_rettslig_pr_ving_for_DNS_domenebeslag_av_popcorn_time_no.shtml">try
2368 to bring the seizure of the DNS domain popcorn-time.no as
2369 unlawful</a>, to stand up for the principle that writing about a
2370 controversial topic is not infringing copyrights, and censuring web
2371 pages by hijacking DNS domain should be decided by the courts, not the
2372 police.  The DNS domain was seized by the Norwegian National Authority
2373 for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime
2374 a month ago.  I hope this bring more paying members to NUUG to give
2375 the association the financial muscle needed to bring this case as far
2376 as it must go to stop this kind of DNS hijacking.</p>
2377
2378       </div>
2379       <div class="tags">
2380
2381
2382         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
2383
2384
2385       </div>
2386     </div>
2387     <div class="padding"></div>
2388
2389     <div class="entry">
2390       <div class="title">
2391         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_F__Stone___an_inspiration_for_us_all.html">I.F. Stone - an inspiration for us all</a>
2392       </div>
2393       <div class="date">
2394         13th April 2016
2395       </div>
2396       <div class="body">
2397         <p>I first got to know I.F. Stone when I came across an article by Jon
2398 Schwarz on The Intercept
2399 <a href="https://theintercept.com/2015/05/07/new-documentary-legacy-f-stone/">about
2400 his extraordinary contribution to investigative journalism in
2401 USA</a>. The article is about a new documentary in two parts
2402 (<a href="https://vimeo.com/123974841">part one is 12 minutes</a> and
2403 <a href="https://vimeo.com/123974842">part two is 30 minutes</a>), and
2404 I found both truly fascinating.  It is amazing what he was able to
2405 find by digging up public sources and government papers.  He
2406 documented lots of government abuse and cover ups, and I find
2407 <a href="http://www.ifstone.org/weekly.php">his weekly news letters</a>
2408 inspiring to read even today.</p>
2409
2410 <p><blockquote>
2411 All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.
2412 <br>- I. F. Stone
2413 </blockquote></p>
2414
2415 <p>His starting point was that reporters should not assume governments
2416 and corporations are telling the truth, but verify all their claims as
2417 much as possible.  I wonder how many Norwegian reporters can be said
2418 to follow the principles of I. F. Stone.  They are definitely in short
2419 supply.  If you, like me half a year ago, have never heard of him,
2420 check him out.</p>
2421
2422       </div>
2423       <div class="tags">
2424
2425
2426         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>.
2427
2428
2429       </div>
2430     </div>
2431     <div class="padding"></div>
2432
2433     <div class="entry">
2434       <div class="title">
2435         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_French_paperback_edition_of_the_book_Free_Culture_by_Lawrence_Lessig_is_now_available.html">A French paperback edition of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig is now available</a>
2436       </div>
2437       <div class="date">
2438         12th April 2016
2439       </div>
2440       <div class="body">
2441         <p>I'm happy to report that
2442 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html">the
2443 French paperback edition</a> of
2444 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">my
2445 project to translate</a> the <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free
2446 Culture</a> book by Lawrence Lessig is now available for sale on
2447 Lulu.com.  Once I have formally verified my proof reading copy, which
2448 should be in the mail, the paperback edition should be available in
2449 book stores like Amazon and Barnes & Noble too.</p>
2450
2451 <p>This French edition, Culture Libre, is the work of the
2452 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a> developer Benoît
2453 Guillon, who created the PO file from the initial translation
2454 available from
2455 <a href="http://www.wikilivres.ca/wiki/Culture_libre">the Wikilivres
2456 wiki pages</a> and completed and corrected the translation to match
2457 the original docbook edition my project is using, as well as
2458 coordinated the proof reading of the final result.  I believe the end
2459 result look great, but I am biased and do not read French.  In
2460 addition to the paperback edition, the book is available in PDF, EPUB
2461 and Mobi format from the github project page linked to above.</p>
2462
2463 <p>When enabling book store distribution on Lulu.com, I had to nearly
2464 triple the price to allow the book stores some profit.  I also had to
2465 accept that I will get some revenue when a book is sold via Lulu.com.
2466 But because of the non-commercial clause in the book license
2467 (CC-BY-NC), this might be a problem.  To bypass the problem I
2468 discussed how to handle the revenue with the author, and we agreed
2469 that the revenue for these editions go to the
2470 <a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons non-profit
2471 Corporation</a> who handle donations to the Creative Commons project.
2472 So far they have earned around USD 70 on sales of the
2473 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22440520.html">English</a>
2474 and
2475 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">Norwegian
2476 Bokmål</a> editions, according to Lulu.com.  They will get the revenue
2477 for the French edition too.  Their revenue is higher if you buy the
2478 book directly from Lulu.com instead of via a book store, so I
2479 recommend you buy directly from Lulu.com.</p>
2480
2481 <p>Perhaps you would like to get the book published in your language?
2482 The translation is done using a web based translator service, so the
2483 technical bar to enter is fairly low.  Get in touch if you would like
2484 to make this happen.</p>
2485
2486       </div>
2487       <div class="tags">
2488
2489
2490         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
2491
2492
2493       </div>
2494     </div>
2495     <div class="padding"></div>
2496
2497     <div class="entry">
2498       <div class="title">
2499         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html">Lets make a Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook</a>
2500       </div>
2501       <div class="date">
2502         10th April 2016
2503       </div>
2504       <div class="body">
2505         <p>During this weekends
2506 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Oslo__Takk_for_feilfiksingsfesten.shtml">bug
2507 squashing party and developer gathering</a>, we decided to do our part
2508 to make sure there are good books about Debian available in Norwegian
2509 Bokmål, and got in touch with the people behind the
2510 <a href="http://debian-handbook.info/">Debian Administrator's Handbook
2511 project</a> to get started.  If you want to help out, please start
2512 contributing using
2513 <a href="https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/">the
2514 hosted weblate project page</a>, and get in touch using
2515 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators">the
2516 translators mailing list</a>.  Please also check out
2517 <a href="https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/">the instructions for
2518 contributors</a>.</p>
2519
2520 <p>The book is already available on paper in English, French and
2521 Japanese, and our goal is to get it available on paper in Norwegian
2522 Bokmål too.  In addition to the paper edition, there are also EPUB and
2523 Mobi versions available.  And there are incomplete translations
2524 available for many more languages.</p>
2525
2526       </div>
2527       <div class="tags">
2528
2529
2530         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2531
2532
2533       </div>
2534     </div>
2535     <div class="padding"></div>
2536
2537     <div class="entry">
2538       <div class="title">
2539         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_in_two_hundred_Debian_users_using_ZFS_on_Linux_.html">One in two hundred Debian users using ZFS on Linux?</a>
2540       </div>
2541       <div class="date">
2542          7th April 2016
2543       </div>
2544       <div class="body">
2545         <p>Just for fun I had a look at the popcon number of ZFS related
2546 packages in Debian, and was quite surprised with what I found.  I use
2547 ZFS myself at home, but did not really expect many others to do so.
2548 But I might be wrong.</p>
2549
2550 <p>According to
2551 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=spl-linux">the popcon
2552 results for spl-linux</a>, there are 1019 Debian installations, or
2553 0.53% of the population, with the package installed.  As far as I know
2554 the only use of the spl-linux package is as a support library for ZFS
2555 on Linux, so I use it here as proxy for measuring the number of ZFS
2556 installation on Linux in Debian.  In the kFreeBSD variant of Debian
2557 the ZFS feature is already available, and there
2558 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=zfsutils">the popcon
2559 results for zfsutils</a> show 1625 Debian installations or 0.84% of
2560 the population.  So I guess I am not alone in using ZFS on Debian.</p>
2561
2562 <p>But even though the Debian project leader Lucas Nussbaum
2563 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2015/04/msg00006.html">announced
2564 in April 2015</a> that the legal obstacles blocking ZFS on Debian were
2565 cleared, the package is still not in Debian.  The package is again in
2566 the NEW queue.  Several uploads have been rejected so far because the
2567 debian/copyright file was incomplete or wrong, but there is no reason
2568 to give up.  The current status can be seen on
2569 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-zfsonlinux-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
2570 team status page</a>, and
2571 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-zfsonlinux/zfs.git">the
2572 source code</a> is available on Alioth.</p>
2573
2574 <p>As I want ZFS to be included in next version of Debian to make sure
2575 my home server can function in the future using only official Debian
2576 packages, and the current blocker is to get the debian/copyright file
2577 accepted by the FTP masters in Debian, I decided a while back to try
2578 to help out the team.  This was the background for my blog post about
2579 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">creating,
2580 updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>, and I
2581 used the techniques I explored there to try to find any errors in the
2582 copyright file.  It is not very easy to check every one of the around
2583 2000 files in the source package, but I hope we this time got it
2584 right.  If you want to help out, check out the git source and try to
2585 find missing entries in the debian/copyright file.</p>
2586
2587       </div>
2588       <div class="tags">
2589
2590
2591         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2592
2593
2594       </div>
2595     </div>
2596     <div class="padding"></div>
2597
2598     <div class="entry">
2599       <div class="title">
2600         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/syslog_trusted_timestamp___chain_of_trusted_timestamps_for_your_syslog.html">syslog-trusted-timestamp - chain of trusted timestamps for your syslog</a>
2601       </div>
2602       <div class="date">
2603          2nd April 2016
2604       </div>
2605       <div class="body">
2606         <p>Two years ago, I had
2607 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Public_Trusted_Timestamping_services_for_everyone.html">a
2608 look at trusted timestamping options available</a>, and among
2609 other things noted a still open
2610 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/742553">bug in the tsget script</a>
2611 included in openssl that made it harder than necessary to use openssl
2612 as a trusted timestamping client.  A few days ago I was told
2613 <a href="https:/www.difi.no/">the Norwegian government office DIFI</a> is
2614 close to releasing their own trusted timestamp service, and in the
2615 process I was happy to learn about a replacement for the tsget script
2616 using only curl:</p>
2617
2618 <p><pre>
2619 openssl ts -query -data "/etc/shells" -cert -sha256 -no_nonce \
2620   | curl -s -H "Content-Type: application/timestamp-query" \
2621          --data-binary "@-" http://zeitstempel.dfn.de > etc-shells.tsr
2622 openssl ts -reply -text -in etc-shells.tsr
2623 </pre></p>
2624
2625 <p>This produces a binary timestamp file (etc-shells.tsr) which can be
2626 used to verify that the content of the file /etc/shell with the
2627 calculated sha256 hash existed at the point in time when the request
2628 was made.  The last command extract the content of the etc-shells.tsr
2629 in human readable form.  The idea behind such timestamp is to be able
2630 to prove using cryptography that the content of a file have not
2631 changed since the file was stamped.</p>
2632
2633 <p>To verify that the file on disk match the public key signature in
2634 the timestamp file, run the following commands.  It make sure you have
2635 the required certificate for the trusted timestamp service available
2636 and use it to compare the file content with the timestamp.  In
2637 production, one should of course use a better method to verify the
2638 service certificate.</p>
2639
2640 <p><pre>
2641 wget -O ca-cert.txt https://pki.pca.dfn.de/global-services-ca/pub/cacert/chain.txt
2642 openssl ts -verify -data /etc/shells -in etc-shells.tsr -CAfile ca-cert.txt -text
2643 </pre></p>
2644
2645 <p>Wikipedia have a lot more information about
2646 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping">trusted
2647 Timestamping</a> and
2648 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_timestamping">linked
2649 timestamping</a>, and there are several trusted timestamping services
2650 around, both as commercial services and as free and public services.
2651 Among the latter is
2652 <a href="https://www.pki.dfn.de/zeitstempeldienst/">the
2653 zeitstempel.dfn.de service</a> mentioned above and
2654 <a href="https://freetsa.org/">freetsa.org service</a> linked to from the
2655 wikipedia web site.  I believe the DIFI service should show up on
2656 https://tsa.difi.no, but it is not available to the public at the
2657 moment.  I hope this will change when it is into production.  The
2658 <a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3161">RFC 3161</a> trusted
2659 timestamping protocol standard is even implemented in LibreOffice,
2660 Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat, making it possible to verify when
2661 a document was created.</p>
2662
2663 <p>I would find it useful to be able to use such trusted timestamp
2664 service to make it possible to verify that my stored syslog files have
2665 not been tampered with.  This is not a new idea.  I found one example
2666 implemented on the Endian network appliances where
2667 <a href="http://help.endian.com/entries/21518508-Enabling-Timestamping-on-log-files-">the
2668 configuration of such feature was described in 2012</a>.</p>
2669
2670 <p>But I could not find any free implementation of such feature when I
2671 searched, so I decided to try to
2672 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/syslog-trusted-timestamp">build
2673 a prototype named syslog-trusted-timestamp</a>.  My idea is to
2674 generate a timestamp of the old log files after they are rotated, and
2675 store the timestamp in the new log file just after rotation.  This
2676 will form a chain that would make it possible to see if any old log
2677 files are tampered with.  But syslog is bad at handling kilobytes of
2678 binary data, so I decided to base64 encode the timestamp and add an ID
2679 and line sequence numbers to the base64 data to make it possible to
2680 reassemble the timestamp file again.  To use it, simply run it like
2681 this:
2682
2683 <p><pre>
2684 syslog-trusted-timestamp /path/to/list-of-log-files
2685 </pre></p>
2686
2687 <p>This will send a timestamp from one or more timestamp services (not
2688 yet decided nor implemented) for each listed file to the syslog using
2689 logger(1).  To verify the timestamp, the same program is used with the
2690 --verify option:</p>
2691
2692 <p><pre>
2693 syslog-trusted-timestamp --verify /path/to/log-file /path/to/log-with-timestamp
2694 </pre></p>
2695
2696 <p>The verification step is not yet well designed.  The current
2697 implementation depend on the file path being unique and unchanging,
2698 and this is not a solid assumption.  It also uses process number as
2699 timestamp ID, and this is bound to create ID collisions.  I hope to
2700 have time to come up with a better way to handle timestamp IDs and
2701 verification later.</p>
2702
2703 <p>Please check out
2704 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/syslog-trusted-timestamp">the
2705 prototype for syslog-trusted-timestamp on github</a> and send
2706 suggestions and improvement, or let me know if there already exist a
2707 similar system for timestamping logs already to allow me to join
2708 forces with others with the same interest.</p>
2709
2710 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
2711 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
2712 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
2713
2714       </div>
2715       <div class="tags">
2716
2717
2718         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
2719
2720
2721       </div>
2722     </div>
2723     <div class="padding"></div>
2724
2725     <div class="entry">
2726       <div class="title">
2727         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Full_battery_stats_collector_is_now_available_in_Debian.html">Full battery stats collector is now available in Debian</a>
2728       </div>
2729       <div class="date">
2730         23rd March 2016
2731       </div>
2732       <div class="body">
2733         <p>Since this morning, the battery-stats package in Debian include an
2734 extended collector that will collect the complete battery history for
2735 later processing and graphing.  The original collector store the
2736 battery level as percentage of last full level, while the new
2737 collector also record battery vendor, model, serial number, design
2738 full level, last full level and current battery level.  This make it
2739 possible to predict the lifetime of the battery as well as visualise
2740 the energy flow when the battery is charging or discharging.</p>
2741
2742 <p>The new tools are available in <tt>/usr/share/battery-stats/</tt>
2743 in the version 0.5.1 package in unstable.  Get the new battery level graph
2744 and lifetime prediction by running:
2745
2746 <p><pre>
2747 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph /var/log/battery-stats.csv
2748 </pre></p>
2749
2750 <p>Or select the 'Battery Level Graph' from your application menu.</p>
2751
2752 <p>The flow in/out of the battery can be seen by running (no menu
2753 entry yet):</p>
2754
2755 <p><pre>
2756 /usr/share/battery-stats/battery-stats-graph-flow
2757 </pre></p>
2758
2759 <p>I'm not quite happy with the way the data is visualised, at least
2760 when there are few data points.  The graphs look a bit better with a
2761 few years of data.</p>
2762
2763 <p>A while back one important feature I use in the battery stats
2764 collector broke in Debian.  The scripts in
2765 <tt>/usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/</tt> were no longer executed.  I
2766 suspect it happened when Jessie started using systemd, but I do not
2767 know.  The issue is reported as
2768 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/818649">bug #818649</a> against
2769 pm-utils.  I managed to work around it by adding an udev rule to call
2770 the collector script every time the power connector is connected and
2771 disconnected.  With this fix in place it was finally time to make a
2772 new release of the package, and get it into Debian.</p>
2773
2774 <p>If you are interested in how your laptop battery is doing, please
2775 check out the
2776 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>
2777 in Debian unstable, or rebuild it on Jessie to get it working on
2778 Debian stable. :) The upstream source is available from
2779 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
2780 As always, patches are very welcome.</p>
2781
2782       </div>
2783       <div class="tags">
2784
2785
2786         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2787
2788
2789       </div>
2790     </div>
2791     <div class="padding"></div>
2792
2793     <div class="entry">
2794       <div class="title">
2795         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/UsingQR____Electronic__paper_invoices_using_JSON_and_QR_codes.html">UsingQR - "Electronic" paper invoices using JSON and QR codes</a>
2796       </div>
2797       <div class="date">
2798         19th March 2016
2799       </div>
2800       <div class="body">
2801         <p>Back in 2013 I proposed
2802 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Electronic__paper_invoices___using_vCard_in_a_QR_code.html">a
2803 way to make paper and PDF invoices easier to process electronically by
2804 adding a QR code with the key information about the invoice</a>.  I
2805 suggested using vCard field definition, to get some standard format
2806 for name and address, but any format would work.  I did not do
2807 anything about the proposal, but hoped someone one day would make
2808 something like it.  It would make it possible to efficiently send
2809 machine readable invoices directly between seller and buyer.</p>
2810
2811 <p>This was the background when I came across a proposal and
2812 specification from the web based accounting and invoicing supplier
2813 <a href="http://www.visma.com/">Visma</a> in Sweden called
2814 <a href="http://usingqr.com/">UsingQR</a>.  Their PDF invoices contain
2815 a QR code with the key information of the invoice in JSON format.
2816 This is the typical content of a QR code following the UsingQR
2817 specification (based on a real world example, some numbers replaced to
2818 get a more bogus entry).  I've reformatted the JSON to make it easier
2819 to read.  Normally this is all on one long line:</p>
2820
2821 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-19-qr-invoice.png" align="right"><pre>
2822 {
2823  "vh":500.00,
2824  "vm":0,
2825  "vl":0,
2826  "uqr":1,
2827  "tp":1,
2828  "nme":"Din Leverandør",
2829  "cc":"NO",
2830  "cid":"997912345 MVA",
2831  "iref":"12300001",
2832  "idt":"20151022",
2833  "ddt":"20151105",
2834  "due":2500.0000,
2835  "cur":"NOK",
2836  "pt":"BBAN",
2837  "acc":"17202612345",
2838  "bc":"BIENNOK1",
2839  "adr":"0313 OSLO"
2840 }
2841 </pre></p>
2842
2843 </p>The interpretation of the fields can be found in the
2844 <a href="http://usingqr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/UsingQR_specification1.pdf">format
2845 specification</a> (revision 2 from june 2014).  The format seem to
2846 have most of the information needed to handle accounting and payment
2847 of invoices, at least the fields I have needed so far here in
2848 Norway.</p>
2849
2850 <p>Unfortunately, the site and document do not mention anything about
2851 the patent, trademark and copyright status of the format and the
2852 specification.  Because of this, I asked the people behind it back in
2853 November to clarify.  Ann-Christine Savlid (ann-christine.savlid (at)
2854 visma.com) replied that Visma had not applied for patent or trademark
2855 protection for this format, and that there were no copyright based
2856 usage limitations for the format.  I urged her to make sure this was
2857 explicitly written on the web pages and in the specification, but
2858 unfortunately this has not happened yet.  So I guess if there is
2859 submarine patents, hidden trademarks or a will to sue for copyright
2860 infringements, those starting to use the UsingQR format might be at
2861 risk, but if this happen there is some legal defense in the fact that
2862 the people behind the format claimed it was safe to do so.  At least
2863 with patents, there is always
2864 <a href="http://www.paperspecs.com/paper-news/beware-the-qr-code-patent-trap/">a
2865 chance of getting sued...</a></p>
2866
2867 <p>I also asked if they planned to maintain the format in an
2868 independent standard organization to give others more confidence that
2869 they would participate in the standardization process on equal terms
2870 with Visma, but they had no immediate plans for this.  Their plan was
2871 to work with banks to try to get more users of the format, and
2872 evaluate the way forward if the format proved to be popular.  I hope
2873 they conclude that using an open standard organisation like
2874 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> is the correct place to
2875 maintain such specification.</p>
2876
2877 <p><strong>Update 2016-03-20</strong>: Via Twitter I became aware of
2878 <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11319492">some comments
2879 about this blog post</a> that had several useful links and references to
2880 similar systems.  In the Czech republic, the Czech Banking Association
2881 standard #26, with short name SPAYD, uses QR codes with payment
2882 information.  More information is available from the Wikipedia page on
2883 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Payment_Descriptor">Short
2884 Payment Descriptor</a>.  And in Germany, there is a system named
2885 <a href="http://www.bezahlcode.de/">BezahlCode</a>,
2886 (<a href="http://www.bezahlcode.de/wp-content/uploads/BezahlCode_TechDok.pdf">specification
2887 v1.8 2013-12-05 available as PDF</a>), which uses QR codes with
2888 URL-like formatting using "bank:" as the URI schema/protocol to
2889 provide the payment information.  There is also the
2890 <a href="http://www.ferd-net.de/front_content.php?idcat=231">ZUGFeRD</a>
2891 file format that perhaps could be transfered using QR codes, but I am
2892 not sure if it is done already.  Last, in Bolivia there are reports
2893 that tax information since november 2014 need to be printed in QR
2894 format on invoices.  I have not been able to track down a
2895 specification for this format, because of my limited language skill
2896 sets.</p>
2897
2898       </div>
2899       <div class="tags">
2900
2901
2902         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
2903
2904
2905       </div>
2906     </div>
2907     <div class="padding"></div>
2908
2909     <div class="entry">
2910       <div class="title">
2911         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html">Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian</a>
2912       </div>
2913       <div class="date">
2914         15th March 2016
2915       </div>
2916       <div class="body">
2917         <p>Back in September, I blogged about
2918 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
2919 system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery</a>, and
2920 how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced).  I
2921 created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
2922 but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
2923 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
2924 package in Debian</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
2925 a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
2926 fixed instead.  I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
2927 hoped someone would step in and fix it.  But no-one did.</p>
2928
2929 <p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
2930 hands.  The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
2931 battery stats (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github</a>) and part of the team maintaining
2932 battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
2933 able to collect battery status using the <tt>/sys/class/power_supply/</tt>
2934 information provided by the Linux kernel.  If you install the
2935 battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
2936 graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
2937 status of the battery.  The source package build and work just fine in
2938 Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
2939 tested).  The default graph you get for that system look like this:</p>
2940
2941 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-15-battery-stats-graph-example.png" width="70%" align="center"></p>
2942
2943 <p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
2944 battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
2945 about the battery.  The scripts are merged into the upstream
2946 battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
2947 yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way.  Will have to test a
2948 bit more before I make a new release.</p>
2949
2950 <p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
2951 suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
2952 impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
2953 and graphing.</p>
2954
2955 <p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
2956 battery, check out the battery-stats package in
2957 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian</a> and
2958 on
2959 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
2960 I would love some help to improve the system further.</p>
2961
2962       </div>
2963       <div class="tags">
2964
2965
2966         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2967
2968
2969       </div>
2970     </div>
2971     <div class="padding"></div>
2972
2973     <div class="entry">
2974       <div class="title">
2975         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html">Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</a>
2976       </div>
2977       <div class="date">
2978         19th February 2016
2979       </div>
2980       <div class="body">
2981         <p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
2982 details.  And one of the details is the content of the
2983 debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
2984 the code in the package in question, preferably in
2985 <a href="https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
2986 readable DEP5 format</a>.</p>
2987
2988 <p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
2989 and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
2990 package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters.  So getting it right
2991 the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
2992 both you and the ftpmasters some work..  Today, while trying to figure
2993 out what was wrong with
2994 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
2995 zfsonlinux copyright file</a>, I decided to spend some time on
2996 figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
2997 semi-automatically.</p>
2998
2999 <p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
3000 file based on the code in the source package,
3001 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake</a></tt>
3002 and <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme</a></tt>.  I'm
3003 not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
3004 create a sensible draft file.  As far as I can tell, none of them can
3005 be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
3006 polished a bit before the file is OK to upload.  I found the debmake
3007 option in
3008 <a href="http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
3009 blog posts from 2014</a>.
3010
3011 <p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
3012
3013 <p><pre>
3014 debmake -cc > debian/copyright
3015 </pre></p>
3016
3017 <p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
3018 this might not be the best option.</p>
3019
3020 <p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
3021 this approach in
3022 <a href="https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
3023 blog post from 2015</a>.  To generate using cme, use the 'update
3024 dpkg-copyright' option:
3025
3026 <p><pre>
3027 cme update dpkg-copyright
3028 </pre></p>
3029
3030 <p>This will create or update debian/copyright.  The cme tool seem to
3031 handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.</p>
3032
3033 <p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
3034 check if the file is correct.  For this I found two good options,
3035 <tt>debmake -k</tt> and <tt>license-reconcile</tt>.  The former seem
3036 to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
3037 ineffective blocks in the copyright file.  The latter reports missing
3038 copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
3039 names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0).  I suspect it is good to use both and
3040 fix all issues reported by them before uploading.  But I do not know
3041 if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
3042 copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.</p>
3043
3044 <p>The devscripts tool <tt>licensecheck</tt> deserve mentioning.  It
3045 will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
3046 It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
3047 can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.</p>
3048
3049 <p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
3050 debian/copyright file.  Please let me know, or blog about it on
3051 planet.debian.org.</p>
3052
3053 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
3054 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
3055 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
3056
3057 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
3058 on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
3059
3060 <p><pre>
3061 licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
3062   /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
3063 </pre></p>
3064
3065 <p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
3066 version control system to make it easier to discover license and
3067 copyright changes in the upstream source.  I will try to do the same
3068 with my packages in the future.</p>
3069
3070 <p><strong>Update 2016-02-21</strong>: The cme author recommended
3071 against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
3072 command line.</p>
3073
3074       </div>
3075       <div class="tags">
3076
3077
3078         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3079
3080
3081       </div>
3082     </div>
3083     <div class="padding"></div>
3084
3085     <div class="entry">
3086       <div class="title">
3087         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html">Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support</a>
3088       </div>
3089       <div class="date">
3090          4th February 2016
3091       </div>
3092       <div class="body">
3093         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
3094 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
3095 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
3096 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it.  This can
3097 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
3098 about. :)</p>
3099
3100 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
3101 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
3102 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
3103 unstable.  In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
3104 by the kernel during kernel module loading.  To find the package
3105 providing the example file, do like this:</p>
3106
3107 <blockquote><pre>
3108 % apt install appstream
3109 [...]
3110 % apt update
3111 [...]
3112 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
3113   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
3114 firmware-qlogic
3115 %
3116 </pre></blockquote>
3117
3118 <p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
3119 appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
3120 a way appstream can use.</p>
3121
3122 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
3123 given MIME type.  This is very useful when you get a file you do not
3124 know how to handle.  First find the mime type using <tt>file
3125 --mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
3126 it.  Lets say you got an SVG file.  Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
3127 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
3128
3129 <blockquote><pre>
3130 % apt install appstream
3131 [...]
3132 % apt update
3133 [...]
3134 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
3135   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
3136 bkchem
3137 phototonic
3138 inkscape
3139 shutter
3140 tetzle
3141 geeqie
3142 xia
3143 pinta
3144 gthumb
3145 karbon
3146 comix
3147 mirage
3148 viewnior
3149 postr
3150 ristretto
3151 kolourpaint4
3152 eog
3153 eom
3154 gimagereader
3155 midori
3156 %
3157 </pre></blockquote>
3158
3159 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
3160 packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
3161
3162       </div>
3163       <div class="tags">
3164
3165
3166         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3167
3168
3169       </div>
3170     </div>
3171     <div class="padding"></div>
3172
3173     <div class="entry">
3174       <div class="title">
3175         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html">Creepy, visualise geotagged social media information - nice free software</a>
3176       </div>
3177       <div class="date">
3178         24th January 2016
3179       </div>
3180       <div class="body">
3181         <p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
3182 with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
3183 position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
3184 time (like every time a SMS is received or sent).  And if their
3185 computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
3186 mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
3187 also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
3188 during installation).  And when these programs send out information to
3189 central collection points, the location is often included, unless
3190 extra care is taken to not send the location.  The provided
3191 information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
3192 good and bad, depend on your point of view).  What is certain, is that
3193 the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
3194 perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
3195 when they share their whereabouts with private and public
3196 entities.</p>
3197
3198 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
3199
3200 <p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
3201 when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing.  It is
3202 unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
3203 officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
3204 unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information.  But the
3205 public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
3206 tool to do so is called
3207 <a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>.  I
3208 discovered it when I read
3209 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
3210 article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
3211 November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
3212 The python program was in Debian, but
3213 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
3214 Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained.  I
3215 uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
3216 have time to fix it then.  This Christmas I decided to finally try to
3217 get Creepy operational in Debian.  Now a fixed version is available in
3218 Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
3219 are now included
3220 <a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
3221
3222 <p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
3223 Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
3224 complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
3225 given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
3226 these services.  Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
3227 least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
3228 days it is impossible.  This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
3229 configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
3230 information to them about your search interests.  This should be taken
3231 into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
3232 about yourself with the services.</p>
3233
3234 <p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
3235 geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
3236 of Norway.  One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
3237 information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
3238 information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
3239 I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
3240 twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
3241 Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
3242 making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
3243 things.  A similar technique have been
3244 <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
3245 to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
3246 tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
3247 understand the value of the private information they provide to the
3248 public.</p>
3249
3250 <p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
3251 it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
3252 least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
3253 python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
3254
3255 <p>(I have uploaded
3256 <a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
3257 screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
3258 Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
3259
3260       </div>
3261       <div class="tags">
3262
3263
3264         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
3265
3266
3267       </div>
3268     </div>
3269     <div class="padding"></div>
3270
3271     <div class="entry">
3272       <div class="title">
3273         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html">Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe</a>
3274       </div>
3275       <div class="date">
3276         15th January 2016
3277       </div>
3278       <div class="body">
3279         <p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
3280 <a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
3281 that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
3282 believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
3283 security fix from a Debian mirror.  This is a good reason to always
3284 use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
3285 listening do not know which IP address to attack.  In August, Richard
3286 Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
3287 to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
3288 download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
3289 <a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
3290 to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>.  He
3291 was not the first to propose this, as the
3292 <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
3293 package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
3294 to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
3295 aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
3296
3297 <p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
3298 sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
3299 Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
3300 it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
3301 making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
3302
3303 <p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
3304 installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
3305 urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
3306 of the official Debian mirror site.  I recommend installing
3307 <tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
3308 done in /etc/.</p>
3309
3310 <blockquote><pre>
3311 apt install apt-transport-tor
3312 sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
3313 sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
3314 </pre></blockquote>
3315
3316 <p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
3317 the sed commands for these too.  The sed command is assuming your are
3318 using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror.  Adjust the command (or just
3319 edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
3320
3321 <p>This work in Debian Jessie and later.  Note that tools like
3322 <tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
3323 system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs.  For
3324 <tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
3325 which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable.  So if you
3326 need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
3327
3328 <p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
3329 using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
3330 update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
3331 masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine.  Using Tor will
3332 become normal for the machine in question.</p>
3333
3334 <p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
3335 is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
3336 enabled.  It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
3337 system.</p>
3338
3339       </div>
3340       <div class="tags">
3341
3342
3343         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
3344
3345
3346       </div>
3347     </div>
3348     <div class="padding"></div>
3349
3350     <div class="entry">
3351       <div class="title">
3352         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html">OpenALPR, find car license plates in video streams - nice free software</a>
3353       </div>
3354       <div class="date">
3355         23rd December 2015
3356       </div>
3357       <div class="body">
3358         <p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
3359 call the car license plate numbers in those days.  I would write the
3360 numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
3361 to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
3362 exotic or special region codes and numbers.  It was a fun game to pass
3363 time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
3364
3365 <p>A few days I came across
3366 <a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
3367 project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
3368 report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
3369 "car numbers" in a machine readable format.  I've been looking for
3370 such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
3371 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
3372 number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
3373 the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
3374 even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance.  I
3375 discovered the developer
3376 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
3377 Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
3378 help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
3379 archive.</p>
3380
3381 <p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
3382 it into Debian, where it currently
3383 <a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
3384 in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
3385
3386 <p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
3387 for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
3388 surveillance system?  Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
3389 and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
3390 when number plates on my watch list are discovered.  Another use case
3391 was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
3392 to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
3393 car.  When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
3394 capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
3395 open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway.  I
3396 guess for such use case it make sense.  I am sure there are other use
3397 cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
3398
3399 <p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
3400 out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
3401 before running "debuild" to build the source.  Or wait a bit until the
3402 package show up in unstable.</p>
3403
3404       </div>
3405       <div class="tags">
3406
3407
3408         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
3409
3410
3411       </div>
3412     </div>
3413     <div class="padding"></div>
3414
3415     <div class="entry">
3416       <div class="title">
3417         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">Using appstream with isenkram to install hardware related packages in Debian</a>
3418       </div>
3419       <div class="date">
3420         20th December 2015
3421       </div>
3422       <div class="body">
3423         <p>Around three years ago, I created
3424 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
3425 system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
3426 hardware related packages.  A GUI system in the isenkram package will
3427 present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
3428 relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine.  The same
3429 lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
3430 tools in the isenkram-cli package.  In addition to mapping hardware,
3431 it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
3432 install needed firmware packages automatically.  The key for this
3433 system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
3434 words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
3435 with.</p>
3436
3437 <p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
3438 adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
3439 time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
3440 I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
3441 the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
3442 was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
3443 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
3444 appstream system</a> was announced.  I got in touch and suggested to
3445 add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
3446 appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
3447 Debian version of appstream.</p>
3448
3449 <p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
3450 and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
3451 appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages.  The only
3452 package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
3453 pymissile package.  I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
3454 how do add the required
3455 <a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
3456 in pymissile</a>.  I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
3457 this content:</p>
3458
3459 <blockquote><pre>
3460 &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
3461 &lt;component&gt;
3462   &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
3463   &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
3464   &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
3465   &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
3466   &lt;description&gt;
3467     &lt;p&gt;
3468       Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
3469       Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
3470       motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
3471       launcher.
3472     &lt;/p&gt;
3473   &lt;/description&gt;
3474   &lt;provides&gt;
3475     &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
3476   &lt;/provides&gt;
3477 &lt;/component&gt;
3478 </pre></blockquote>
3479
3480 <p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
3481 which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
3482 (modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel.  In this case, it
3483 will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
3484 0202.</p>
3485
3486 <p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
3487 are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
3488 appstream files.  Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
3489 these files.  A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
3490 it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
3491 (in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use).  But
3492 it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
3493 upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
3494
3495 <p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
3496 mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
3497 appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
3498 package under /usr/share/appdata/.  I did this by adding the following
3499 line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
3500
3501 <blockquote><pre>
3502 debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
3503 </pre></blockquote>
3504
3505 <p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
3506 all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
3507 pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
3508 installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
3509 question.</p>
3510
3511 <p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
3512 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
3513
3514 <p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
3515 try running this command on the command line:</p>
3516
3517 <blockquote><pre>
3518 cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
3519 </pre></blockquote>
3520
3521 <p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
3522 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
3523 blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
3524
3525       </div>
3526       <div class="tags">
3527
3528
3529         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
3530
3531
3532       </div>
3533     </div>
3534     <div class="padding"></div>
3535
3536     <div class="entry">
3537       <div class="title">
3538         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html">The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust</a>
3539       </div>
3540       <div class="date">
3541         30th November 2015
3542       </div>
3543       <div class="body">
3544         <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
3545 "<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
3546 GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
3547 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
3548 I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
3549
3550 <blockquote>
3551
3552 <p><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/"><img src="https://sfconservancy.org/img/supporter-badge.png" width="194" height="90" alt="Become a Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter!" align="right" border="0" /></a></p>
3553
3554 <blockquote>
3555 The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
3556
3557 The first step is to choose a
3558 <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
3559 code.<br/>
3560
3561 The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
3562 <b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
3563
3564 and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
3565 work<br/>
3566
3567 is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
3568 </blockquote>
3569
3570 <p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
3571 <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
3572 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
3573 0x57</a></small></p>
3574
3575 <p>As the Debian Website
3576 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
3577 <a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&amp;r2=1.25">to</a>
3578 imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
3579 the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
3580 software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
3581 software products.  Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
3582 to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
3583 such licenses are not enough.  With the ongoing adoption of Free
3584 Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
3585 expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
3586 ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always.  As Karen
3587 and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
3588 Freedom">FaiF</a>
3589 <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
3590 copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
3591 to protect it.  The reality of today's world is that legal
3592 representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming.  With
3593 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
3594 <a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
3595 some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
3596 Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
3597 of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
3598 In March the SFC supported a
3599 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
3600 by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
3601 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
3602 with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
3603 kernel.  Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
3604 conferences
3605 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
3606 or cancelled their talks</a>.  As a result they have decided to rely
3607 less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
3608 individuals who support Free Software and copyleft.  So the SFC has
3609 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
3610 a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
3611 a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
3612 supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
3613 Software.</p>
3614
3615 <p>If you support Free Software,
3616 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
3617 what the SFC do, agree with their
3618 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
3619 principles</a>, are happy about their
3620 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
3621 work on a project that is an SFC
3622 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
3623 just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
3624 <a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
3625 Allan Webber</a>,
3626 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
3627 Smith</a>,
3628 <a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
3629 Bacon</a>, myself and
3630 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
3631 becoming a
3632 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>.  For the
3633 next week your donation will be
3634 <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
3635 by an anonymous donor.  Please also consider asking your employer to
3636 match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC.  Don't forget to
3637 spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
3638 social media accounts.</p>
3639
3640 </blockquote>
3641
3642 <p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
3643 of Software Freedom Conservancy myself.  Perhaps you should be a
3644 supporter too?</p>
3645
3646       </div>
3647       <div class="tags">
3648
3649
3650         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
3651
3652
3653       </div>
3654     </div>
3655     <div class="padding"></div>
3656
3657     <div class="entry">
3658       <div class="title">
3659         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/PGP_key_transition_statement_for_key_EE4E02F9.html">PGP key transition statement for key EE4E02F9</a>
3660       </div>
3661       <div class="date">
3662         17th November 2015
3663       </div>
3664       <div class="body">
3665         <p>I've needed a new OpenPGP key for a while, but have not had time to
3666 set it up properly.  I wanted to generate it offline and have it
3667 available on <a href="http://shop.kernelconcepts.de/#openpgp">a OpenPGP
3668 smart card</a> for daily use, and learning how to do it and finding
3669 time to sit down with an offline machine almost took forever.  But
3670 finally I've been able to complete the process, and have now moved
3671 from my old GPG key to a new GPG key.  See
3672 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-11-17-new-gpg-key-transition.txt">the
3673 full transition statement, signed with both my old and new key</a> for
3674 the details.  This is my new key:</p>
3675
3676 <pre>
3677 pub   3936R/<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/111D6B29EE4E02F9.html">111D6B29EE4E02F9</a> 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-14]
3678       Key fingerprint = 3AC7 B2E3 ACA5 DF87 78F1  D827 111D 6B29 EE4E 02F9
3679 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
3680 uid                  Petter Reinholdtsen &lt;pere@debian.org&gt;
3681 sub   4096R/87BAFB0E 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3682 sub   4096R/F91E6DE9 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3683 sub   4096R/A0439BAB 2015-11-03 [expires: 2019-11-02]
3684 </pre>
3685
3686 <p>The key can be downloaded from the OpenPGP key servers, signed by
3687 my old key.</p>
3688
3689 <p>If you signed my old key
3690 (<a href="http://pgp.cs.uu.nl/stats/DB4CCC4B2A30D729.html">DB4CCC4B2A30D729</a>),
3691 I'd very much appreciate a signature on my new key, details and
3692 instructions in the transition statement. I m happy to reciprocate if
3693 you have a similarly signed transition statement to present.</p>
3694
3695       </div>
3696       <div class="tags">
3697
3698
3699         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
3700
3701
3702       </div>
3703     </div>
3704     <div class="padding"></div>
3705
3706     <div class="entry">
3707       <div class="title">
3708         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Pentagon_deciding_the_Norwegian_negotiating_position_on_Internet_governance_.html">Is Pentagon deciding the Norwegian negotiating position on Internet governance?</a>
3709       </div>
3710       <div class="date">
3711          3rd November 2015
3712       </div>
3713       <div class="body">
3714         <p>In Norway, all government offices are required by law to keep a
3715 list of every document or letter arriving and leaving their offices.
3716 Internal notes should also be documented.  The document list (called a mail
3717 journal - "postjournal" in Norwegian) is public information and thanks
3718 to the Norwegian Freedom of Information Act (Offentleglova) the mail
3719 journal is available for everyone.  Most offices even publish the mail
3720 journal on their web pages, as PDFs or tables in web pages.  The state-level offices even have a shared web based search service (called
3721 <a href="https://www.oep.no/">Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal -
3722 OEP</a>) to make it possible to search the entries in the list.  Not
3723 all journal entries show up on OEP, and the search service is hard to
3724 use, but OEP does make it easier to find at least some interesting
3725 journal entries .</p>
3726
3727 <p>In 2012 I came across a document in the mail journal for the
3728 Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications on OEP that
3729 piqued my interest.  The title of the document was
3730 "<a href="https://www.oep.no/search/resultSingle.html?journalPostId=4192362">Internet
3731 Governance and how it affects national security</a>" (Norwegian:
3732 "Internet Governance og påvirkning på nasjonal sikkerhet").  The
3733 document date was 2012-05-22, and it was said to be sent from the
3734 "Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations".  I asked for a
3735 copy, but my request was rejected with a reference to a legal clause said to authorize them to reject it
3736 (<a href="http://lovdata.no/lov/2006-05-19-16/§20">offentleglova § 20,
3737 letter c</a>) and an explanation that the document was exempt because
3738 of foreign policy interests as it contained information related to the
3739 Norwegian negotiating position, negotiating strategies or similar.  I
3740 was told the information in the document related to the ongoing
3741 negotiation in the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).  The
3742 explanation made sense to me in early January 2013, as a ITU
3743 conference in Dubay discussing Internet Governance
3744 (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union#World_Conference_on_International_Telecommunications_2012_.28WCIT-12.29">World
3745 Conference on International Telecommunications - WCIT-12</a>) had just
3746 ended,
3747 <a href="http://www.digi.no/kommentarer/2012/12/18/tvil-om-usas-rolle-pa-teletoppmote">reportedly
3748 in chaos</a> when USA walked out of the negotiations and 25 countries
3749 including Norway refused to sign the new treaty.  It seemed
3750 reasonable to believe talks were still going on a few weeks later.
3751 Norway was represented at the ITU meeting by two authorities, the
3752 <a href="http://www.nkom.no/">Norwegian Communications Authority</a>
3753 and the <a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dep/sd/">Ministry of
3754 Transport and Communications</a>.  This might be the reason the letter
3755 was sent to the ministry.  As I was unable to find the document in the
3756 mail journal of any Norwegian UN mission, I asked the ministry who had
3757 sent the document to the ministry, and was told that it was the Deputy
3758 Permanent Representative with the Permanent Mission of Norway in
3759 Geneva.</p>
3760
3761 <p>Three years later, I was still curious about the content of that
3762 document, and again asked for a copy, believing the negotiation was
3763 over now.  This time
3764 <a href="https://mimesbronn.no/request/kopi_av_dokumenter_i_sak_2012914">I
3765 asked both the Ministry of Transport and Communications as the
3766 receiver</a> and
3767 <a href="https://mimesbronn.no/request/brev_om_internet_governance_og_p">asked
3768 the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva as the sender</a> for a
3769 copy, to see if they both agreed that it should be withheld from the
3770 public.  The ministry upheld its rejection quoting the same law
3771 reference as before, while the permanent mission rejected it quoting a
3772 different clause
3773 (<a href="http://lovdata.no/lov/2006-05-19-16/§20">offentleglova § 20
3774 letter b</a>), claiming that they were required to keep the
3775 content of the document from the public because it contained
3776 information given to Norway with the expressed or implied expectation
3777 that the information should not be made public.  I asked the permanent
3778 mission for an explanation, and was told that the document contained
3779 an account from a meeting held in the Pentagon for a limited group of NATO
3780 nations where the organiser of the meeting did not intend the content
3781 of the meeting to be publicly known.  They explained that giving me a
3782 copy might cause Norway to not get access to similar information in
3783 the future and thus hurt the future foreign interests of Norway.  They
3784 also explained that the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva was not
3785 the author of the document, they only got a copy of it, and because of
3786 this had not listed it in their mail journal.</p>
3787
3788 <p>Armed with this
3789 knowledge I asked the Ministry to reconsider and asked who was the
3790 author of the document, now realising that it was not same as the
3791 "sender" according to Ministry of Transport and Communications.  The
3792 ministry upheld its rejection but told me the name of the author of
3793 the document.  According to
3794 <a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/unga69_rapport1/id2001204/">a
3795 government report</a> the author was with the Permanent Mission of
3796 Norway in New York a bit more than a year later (2014-09-22), so I
3797 guessed that might be the office responsible for writing and sending
3798 the report initially and
3799 <a href="https://www.mimesbronn.no/request/mote_2012_i_pentagon_om_itu">asked
3800 them for a copy</a> but I was obviously wrong as I was told that the
3801 document was unknown to them and that the author did not work there
3802 when the document was written.  Next, I asked the Permanent Mission of
3803 Norway in Geneva and the Foreign Ministry to reconsider and at least
3804 tell me who sent the document to Deputy Permanent Representative with
3805 the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva.  The Foreign Ministry also
3806 upheld its rejection, but told me that the person sending the document
3807 to Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva was the defence attaché with
3808 the Norwegian Embassy in Washington.  I do not know if this is the
3809 same person as the author of the document.</p>
3810
3811 <p>If I understand the situation correctly, someone capable of
3812 inviting selected NATO nations to a meeting in Pentagon organised a
3813 meeting where someone representing the Norwegian defence attaché in
3814 Washington attended, and the account from this meeting is interpreted
3815 by the Ministry of Transport and Communications to expose Norways
3816 negotiating position, negotiating strategies and similar regarding the
3817 ITU negotiations on Internet Governance.  It is truly amazing what can
3818 be derived from mere meta-data.</p>
3819
3820 <p>I wonder which NATO countries besides Norway attended this meeting?
3821 And what exactly was said and done at the meeting?  Anyone know?</p>
3822
3823       </div>
3824       <div class="tags">
3825
3826
3827         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
3828
3829
3830       </div>
3831     </div>
3832     <div class="padding"></div>
3833
3834     <div class="entry">
3835       <div class="title">
3836         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_book___Fri_kultur__by__lessig__a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_translation_of__Free_Culture__from_2004.html">New book, "Fri kultur" by @lessig, a Norwegian Bokmål translation of "Free Culture" from 2004</a>
3837       </div>
3838       <div class="date">
3839         31st October 2015
3840       </div>
3841       <div class="body">
3842         <p>People keep asking me where to get the various forms of the book I
3843 published last week, the Norwegian Bokmål edition of Lawrence Lessigs
3844 book <a href="http://www.free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a>.  It was
3845 published on paper via lulu.com, and is also available in PDF, ePub
3846 and MOBI format.  I currently sell the paper edition for self cost
3847 from lulu.com, but might extend the distribution to book stores like
3848 Amazon and Barnes & Noble later.  This will double the price and force
3849 me to make a profit from selling the book.  Anyway, here are links to
3850 get the book in different formats:</p>
3851
3852 <ul>
3853
3854   <li><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22406445.html">Buy
3855     paper edition from lulu.com</a></li>
3856
3857   <li><a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf">Download
3858     PDF, size 7.9 MiB</a> (gratis/free)</li>
3859
3860   <li><a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub">Download
3861     ePub, size 11 MiB</a> (gratis/free)</li>
3862
3863   <li><a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.mobi">Download
3864     MOBI, size 3.8 MiB</a> (gratis/free)</li>
3865
3866 </ul>
3867
3868 <p>Note that the MOBI version have problems with the table of content,
3869 at least with the viewers I have been able to test.  And the ePub file
3870 have several problems according to
3871 <a href="https://github.com/IDPF/epubcheck">epubcheck</a>, but seem
3872 to display fine in the viewers I have tested.  All the files needed to
3873 create the book in various forms are available from
3874 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">the
3875 github project page</a>.</p>
3876
3877 <p>The project got press coverage from the Norwegian IT news site
3878 digi.no.  Check out the article
3879 "<a href="http://www.digi.no/juss_og_samfunn/2015/10/29/vil-apne-politikernes-oyne-for-creative-commons">Vil
3880 åpne politikernes øyne for Creative Commons</a>".</li>
3881
3882 <p>I've <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">blogged
3883 about the project</a> as it moved along.  The blogs document the translation
3884 progress and insights I had along the way.</p>
3885
3886       </div>
3887       <div class="tags">
3888
3889
3890         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
3891
3892
3893       </div>
3894     </div>
3895     <div class="padding"></div>
3896
3897     <div class="entry">
3898       <div class="title">
3899         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Free_Culture__by__lessig___The_background_story_for_Creative_Commons___new_edition_available.html">"Free Culture" by @lessig - The background story for Creative Commons - new edition available</a>
3900       </div>
3901       <div class="date">
3902         23rd October 2015
3903       </div>
3904       <div class="body">
3905         <p><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22402863.html">Click
3906 here to buy the book</a>.</p>
3907
3908 <p>In 2004, as the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons
3909 movement</a> gained momentum, its creator Lawrence Lessig wrote the
3910 book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book)">Free
3911 Culture</a> to explain the problems with increasing copyright
3912 regulation and suggest some solutions.  I read the book back then and
3913 was very moved by it.  Reading the book inspired me and changed the
3914 way I looked on copyright law, and I would love it if more people
3915 would read it too.</p>
3916
3917 <p>Because of this, I decided in the summer of 2012 to translate it to
3918 Norwegian Bokmål and publish it for those of my friends and family
3919 that prefer to read books in Norwegian.  I translated the book using
3920 docbook and a gettext PO file, and a byproduct of this process is a
3921 new edition of the English original.  I've been in touch with the
3922 author during by work, and he said it was fine with him if I also
3923 published an English version.  So I decided to do so.  Today, I made
3924 this edition
3925 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22402863.html">available
3926 for sale on Lulu.com</a>, for those interested in a paper book.  This
3927 is the cover:
3928
3929 <p align="center"><a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22402863.html"><img align="center" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-10-23-free-culture-english-published-cover.png"/></a></p>
3930
3931 <p>The Norwegian Bokmål version will be available for purchase in a
3932 few days.  I also plan to publish a French version in a few weeks or
3933 months, depending on the amount of people with knowledge of French to
3934 join the translation project.  So far there is only one active
3935 person, but the French book is almost completely translated but
3936 need some proof reading.</p>
3937
3938 <p>The book is also available in PDF, ePub and MOBI formats from
3939 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">my
3940 github project page</a>.  Note the ePub and MOBI versions have some
3941 formatting problems I believe is due to bugs in the docbook tool
3942 dbtoepub (Debian BTS issues
3943 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=795842">#795842</a>
3944 and
3945 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=796871">#796871</a>),
3946 but I have not taken the time to investigate.  I recommend the PDF and
3947 ePub version for now, as they seem to show up fine in the viewers I
3948 have available.</p>
3949
3950 <p>After the translation to Norwegian Bokmål was complete, I was able
3951 to secure some sponsoring from
3952 <a href="http://www.nuugfoundation.no/">the NUUG Foundation</a> to
3953 print the book.  This is the reason their logo is located on the back
3954 cover. I am very grateful for their contribution, and will use it to
3955 give a copy of the Norwegian edition to members of the Norwegian
3956 Parliament and other decision makers here in Norway.</p>
3957
3958       </div>
3959       <div class="tags">
3960
3961
3962         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
3963
3964
3965       </div>
3966     </div>
3967     <div class="padding"></div>
3968
3969     <div class="entry">
3970       <div class="title">
3971         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lawrence_Lessig_interviewed_Edward_Snowden_a_year_ago.html">Lawrence Lessig interviewed Edward Snowden a year ago</a>
3972       </div>
3973       <div class="date">
3974         19th October 2015
3975       </div>
3976       <div class="body">
3977         <p>Last year, <a href="https://lessig2016.us/">US president candidate
3978 in the Democratic Party</a> Lawrence interviewed Edward Snowden.  The
3979 one hour interview was
3980 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Sr96TFQQE">published by
3981 Harvard Law School 2014-10-23 on Youtube</a>, and the meeting took
3982 place 2014-10-20.</p>
3983
3984 <p>The questions are very good, and there is lots of useful
3985 information to be learned and very interesting issues to think about
3986 being raised.  Please check it out.</p>
3987
3988 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o_Sr96TFQQE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
3989
3990 <p>I find it especially interesting to hear again that Snowden did try
3991 to bring up his reservations through the official channels without any
3992 luck.  It is in sharp contrast to the answers made 2013-11-06 by the
3993 Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg to the Norwegian Parliament,
3994 <a href="https://tale.holderdeord.no/speeches/s131106/68">claiming
3995 Snowden is no Whistle-Blower</a> because he should have taken up his
3996 concerns internally and using official channels.  It make me sad
3997 that this is the political leadership we have here in Norway.</p>
3998
3999       </div>
4000       <div class="tags">
4001
4002
4003         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
4004
4005
4006       </div>
4007     </div>
4008     <div class="padding"></div>
4009
4010     <div class="entry">
4011       <div class="title">
4012         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Story_of_Aaron_Swartz___Let_us_all_weep_.html">The Story of Aaron Swartz - Let us all weep!</a>
4013       </div>
4014       <div class="date">
4015          8th October 2015
4016       </div>
4017       <div class="body">
4018         <p>The movie "<a href="http://www.takepart.com/internets-own-boy">The
4019 Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz</a>" is both inspiring
4020 and depressing at the same time.  The work of Aaron Swartz has
4021 inspired me in my work, and I am grateful of all the improvements he
4022 was able to initiate or complete.  I wish I am able to do as much good
4023 in my life as he did in his.  Every minute of this 1:45 long movie is
4024 inspiring in documenting how much impact a single person can have on
4025 improving the society and this world.  And it is depressing in
4026 documenting how the law enforcement of USA (and other countries) is
4027 corrupted to a point where they can push a bright kid to his death for
4028 downloading too many scientific articles.  Aaron is dead.  Let us all
4029 weep.</p>
4030
4031 <p>The movie is also available on
4032 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXr-2hwTk58">Youtube</a>.  I
4033 wish there were Norwegian subtitles available, so I could show it to
4034 my parents.</p>
4035
4036       </div>
4037       <div class="tags">
4038
4039
4040         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
4041
4042
4043       </div>
4044     </div>
4045     <div class="padding"></div>
4046
4047     <div class="entry">
4048       <div class="title">
4049         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/French_Docbook_PDF_EPUB_MOBI_edition_of_the_Free_Culture_book.html">French Docbook/PDF/EPUB/MOBI edition of the Free Culture book</a>
4050       </div>
4051       <div class="date">
4052          1st October 2015
4053       </div>
4054       <div class="body">
4055         <p>As I wrap up the Norwegian version of
4056 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Free
4057 Culture</a> book by Lawrence Lessig (still waiting for my final proof
4058 reading copy to arrive in the mail), my great
4059 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a> helper and
4060 developer of the dblatex docbook processor, Benoît Guillon, decided a
4061 to try to create a French version of the book.  He started with the
4062 French translation available from the
4063 <a href="http://www.wikilivres.ca/wiki/Culture_libre">Wikilivres wiki
4064 pages</a>, and wrote a program to convert it into a PO file, allowing
4065 the translation to be integrated into the po4a based framework I use
4066 to create the Norwegian translation from the English edition.  We meet
4067 on the <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23dblatex">#dblatex IRC
4068 channel</a> to discuss the work.  If you want to help create a French
4069 edition, check out
4070 <a href="https://github.com/marsgui/free-culture-lessig">his git
4071 repository</a> and join us on IRC.  If the French edition look good,
4072 we might publish it as a paper book on lulu.com.  A French version of
4073 the drawings and the cover need to be provided for this to happen.</p>
4074
4075       </div>
4076       <div class="tags">
4077
4078
4079         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
4080
4081
4082       </div>
4083     </div>
4084     <div class="padding"></div>
4085
4086     <div class="entry">
4087       <div class="title">
4088         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">The life and death of a laptop battery</a>
4089       </div>
4090       <div class="date">
4091         24th September 2015
4092       </div>
4093       <div class="body">
4094         <p>When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK.
4095 But this do not last.  The last few laptops gave me a feeling that
4096 within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be,
4097 and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected
4098 all the time.  Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop
4099 about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have
4100 more hard facts when the battery started to fail.</p>
4101
4102 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-24-laptop-battery-graph.png"/>
4103
4104 <p>First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the
4105 battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled
4106 by someone else.  I found
4107 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">battery-stats</a>,
4108 which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely
4109 broken.  I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to
4110 write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback
4111 from him.  Via
4112 <a href="http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html">a
4113 blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air</a> I also
4114 discovered
4115 <a href="https://github.com/jradavenport/batlog.git">batlog</a>, not
4116 available in Debian.</p>
4117
4118 <p>I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting
4119 battery stats ever since. Now my
4120 /var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000
4121 measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now,
4122 when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity.  My
4123 collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:</p>
4124
4125 <pre>
4126 #!/bin/sh
4127 # Inspired by
4128 # http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
4129 # See also
4130 # http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
4131 logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
4132
4133 files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
4134     energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
4135
4136 if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
4137     (
4138         printf "timestamp,"
4139         for f in $files; do
4140             printf "%s," $f
4141         done
4142         echo
4143     ) > "$logfile"
4144 fi
4145
4146 log_battery() {
4147     # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
4148     # when several log processes run in parallel.
4149     msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
4150         for f in $files; do \
4151             printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
4152         done)
4153     echo "$msg"
4154 }
4155
4156 cd /sys/class/power_supply
4157
4158 for bat in BAT*; do
4159     (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
4160 done
4161 </pre>
4162
4163 <p>The script is called when the power management system detect a
4164 change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into
4165 and out of hibernation and suspend.  In addition, it collect a value
4166 every 10 minutes.  This make it possible for me know when the battery
4167 is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time.
4168 The code for the Debian package
4169 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-status">is now
4170 available on github</a>.</p>
4171
4172 <p>The collected log file look like this:</p>
4173
4174 <pre>
4175 timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
4176 1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
4177 [...]
4178 1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
4179 1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
4180 </pre>
4181
4182 <p>I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development
4183 over time.  This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop
4184 battery.</p>
4185
4186 <p>But why is this happening?  Why are my laptop batteries always
4187 dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and
4188 satellites keep working year after year.  If we are to believe
4189 <a href="http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries">Battery
4190 University</a>, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a
4191 chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100%
4192 all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time.
4193 I've been told that the Tesla electric cars
4194 <a href="http://my.teslamotors.com/de_CH/forum/forums/battery-charge-limit">limit
4195 the charge of their batteries to 80%</a>, with the option to charge to
4196 100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car
4197 like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another
4198 story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on
4199 Linux too.</p>
4200
4201 <p>Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to
4202 stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in
4203 preparation for a longer trip?  I found
4204 <a href="http://askubuntu.com/questions/34452/how-can-i-limit-battery-charging-to-80-capacity">one
4205 recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to
4206 80%</a>, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to
4207 load).</p>
4208
4209 <p>I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100%
4210 at the start.  I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some
4211 times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery
4212 back to design capacity.  And I wonder if the discharge and charge
4213 speed change over time, or if this stay the same.  I did not yet try
4214 to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery
4215 level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from
4216 those.</p>
4217
4218 <p>Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages
4219 acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable)
4220 packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use
4221 initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start
4222 and stop.  I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast
4223 and need to be replaced.  The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad
4224 specific.</p>
4225
4226       </div>
4227       <div class="tags">
4228
4229
4230         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4231
4232
4233       </div>
4234     </div>
4235     <div class="padding"></div>
4236
4237     <div class="entry">
4238       <div class="title">
4239         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Book_cover_for_the_Free_Culture_book_finally_done.html">Book cover for the Free Culture book finally done</a>
4240       </div>
4241       <div class="date">
4242          3rd September 2015
4243       </div>
4244       <div class="body">
4245         <p>Creating a good looking book cover proved harder than I expected.
4246 I wanted to create a cover looking similar to the original cover of
4247 the
4248 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Free
4249 Culture</a> book we are translating to Norwegian, and I wanted it in
4250 vector format for high resolution printing.  But my inkscape knowledge
4251 were not nearly good enough to pull that off.
4252
4253 <p>But thanks to the great inkscape community, I was able to wrap up
4254 the cover yesterday evening.  I asked on the
4255 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23inkscape">#inkscape IRC channel</a>
4256 on Freenode for help and clues, and Marc Jeanmougin (Mc-) volunteered
4257 to try to recreate it based on the PDF of the cover from the HTML
4258 version.  Not only did he create a
4259 <a href="https://marc.jeanmougin.fr/share/copy1.svg ">SVG document with
4260 the original and his vector version side by side</a>, he even provided
4261 an <a href="https://marc.jeanmougin.fr/share/out-1.ogv">instruction
4262 video</a> explaining how he did it</a>.  But the instruction video is
4263 not easy to follow for an untrained inkscape user. The video is a
4264 recording on how he did it, and he is obviously very experienced as
4265 the menu selections are very quick and he mentioned on IRC that he did
4266 use some keyboard shortcuts that can't be seen on the video, but it
4267 give a good idea about the inkscape operations to use to create the
4268 stripes with the embossed copyright sign in the center.</p>
4269
4270 <p>I took his SVG file, copied the vector image and re-sized it to fit
4271 on the cover I was drawing.  I am happy with the end result, and the
4272 current english version look like this:</p>
4273
4274 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-09-03-free-culture-cover.png" width="70%" align="center"/>
4275
4276 <p>I am not quite sure about the text on the back, but guess it will
4277 do.  I picked three quotes from the official site for the book, and
4278 hope it will work to trigger the interest of potential readers.  The
4279 Norwegian cover will look the same, but with the texts and bar code
4280 replaced with the Norwegian version.</p>
4281
4282 <p>The book is very close to being ready for publication, and I expect
4283 to upload the final draft to Lulu in the next few days and order a
4284 final proof reading copy to verify that everything look like it should
4285 before allowing everyone to order their own copy of Free Culture, in
4286 English or Norwegian Bokmål.  I'm waiting to give the the productive
4287 proof readers a chance to complete their work.</p>
4288
4289       </div>
4290       <div class="tags">
4291
4292
4293         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
4294
4295
4296       </div>
4297     </div>
4298     <div class="padding"></div>
4299
4300     <div class="entry">
4301       <div class="title">
4302         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/In_my_hand__a_pocket_book_edition_of_the_Norwegian_Free_Culture_book_.html">In my hand, a pocket book edition of the Norwegian Free Culture book!</a>
4303       </div>
4304       <div class="date">
4305         19th August 2015
4306       </div>
4307       <div class="body">
4308         <p>Today, finally, my first printed draft edition of the Norwegian
4309 translation of Free Culture I have been working on for the last few
4310 years arrived in the mail.  I had to fake a cover to get the interior
4311 printed, and the exterior of the book look awful, but that is
4312 irrelevant at this point.  I asked for a printed pocket book version
4313 to get an idea about the font sizes and paper format as well as how
4314 good the figures and images look in print, but also to test what the
4315 pocket book version would look like.  After receiving the 500 page
4316 pocket book, it became obvious to me that that pocket book size is too
4317 small for this book.  I believe the book is too thick, and several
4318 tables and figures do not look good in the size they get with that
4319 small page sizes.  I believe I will go with the 5.5x8.5 inch size
4320 instead.  A surprise discovery from the paper version was how bad the
4321 URLs look in print.  They are very hard to read in the colophon page.
4322 The URLs are red in the PDF, but light gray on paper.  I need to
4323 change the color of links somehow to look better.  But there is a
4324 printed book in my hand, and it feels great. :)</p>
4325
4326 <p>Now I only need to fix the cover, wrap up the postscript with the
4327 store behind the book, and collect the last corrections from the proof
4328 readers before the book is ready for proper printing.  Cover artists
4329 willing to work for free and create a Creative Commons licensed vector
4330 file looking similar to the original is most welcome, as my skills as
4331 a graphics designer are mostly missing.</p>
4332
4333       </div>
4334       <div class="tags">
4335
4336
4337         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
4338
4339
4340       </div>
4341     </div>
4342     <div class="padding"></div>
4343
4344     <div class="entry">
4345       <div class="title">
4346         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_paper_version_of_the_Norwegian_Free_Culture_book_heading_my_way.html">First paper version of the Norwegian Free Culture book heading my way</a>
4347       </div>
4348       <div class="date">
4349          9th August 2015
4350       </div>
4351       <div class="body">
4352         <p>Typesetting a book is harder than I hoped.  As the translation is
4353 mostly done, and a volunteer proof reader was going to check the text
4354 on paper, it was time this summer to focus on formatting my translated
4355 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> based version of the
4356 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> book by Lawrence
4357 Lessig.  I've been trying to get both docboox-xsl+fop and dblatex to
4358 give me a good looking PDF, but in the end I went with dblatex, because
4359 its Debian maintainer and upstream developer were responsive and very
4360 helpful in solving my formatting challenges.</p>
4361
4362 <p>Last night, I finally managed to create a PDF that no longer made
4363 <a href="http://www.lulu.com/">Lulu.com</a> complain after uploading,
4364 and I ordered a text version of the book on paper.  It is lacking a
4365 proper book cover and is not tagged with the correct ISBN number, but
4366 should give me an idea what the finished book will look like.</p>
4367
4368 <p>Instead of using Lulu, I did consider printing the book using
4369 <a href="http://www.createspace.com/">CreateSpace</a>, but ended up
4370 using Lulu because it had smaller book size options (CreateSpace seem
4371 to lack pocket book with extended distribution).  I looked for a
4372 similar service in Norway, but have not seen anything so far.  Please
4373 let me know if I am missing out on something here.</p>
4374
4375 <p>But I still struggle to decide the book size.  Should I go for
4376 pocket book (4.25x6.875 inches / 10.8x17.5 cm) with 556 pages, Digest
4377 (5.5x8.5 inches / 14x21.6 cm) with 323 pages or US Trade (6x8 inches /
4378 15.3x22.9 cm) with 280 pages?  Fewer pager give a cheaper book, and a
4379 smaller book is easier to carry around.  The test book I ordered was
4380 pocket book sized, to give me an idea how well that fit in my hand,
4381 but I suspect I will end up using a digest sized book in the end to
4382 bring the prize down further.</p>
4383
4384 <p>My biggest challenge at the moment is making nice cover art.  My
4385 inkscape skills are not yet up to the task of replicating the original
4386 cover in SVG format.  I also need to figure out what to write about
4387 the book on the back (will most likely use the same text as the
4388 description on web based book stores).  I would love help with this,
4389 if you are willing to license the art source and final version using
4390 the same CC license as the book.  My artistic skills are not really up
4391 to the task.</p>
4392
4393 <p>I plan to publish the book in both English and Norwegian and on
4394 paper, in PDF form as well as EPUB and MOBI format.  The current
4395 status can as usual be found on
4396 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>
4397 in the archive/ directory.  So far I have spent all time on making the
4398 PDF version look good.  Someone should probably do the same with the
4399 dbtoepub generated e-book.  Help is definitely needed here, as I
4400 expect to run out of steem before I find time to improve the epub
4401 formatting.</p>
4402
4403 <p>Please let me know via github if you find typos in the book or
4404 discover translations that should be improved.  The final proof
4405 reading is being done right now, and I expect to publish the finished
4406 result in a few months.</p>
4407
4408       </div>
4409       <div class="tags">
4410
4411
4412         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
4413
4414
4415       </div>
4416     </div>
4417     <div class="padding"></div>
4418
4419     <div class="entry">
4420       <div class="title">
4421         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Typesetting_DocBook_footnotes_as_endnotes_with_dblatex.html">Typesetting DocBook footnotes as endnotes with dblatex</a>
4422       </div>
4423       <div class="date">
4424         16th July 2015
4425       </div>
4426       <div class="body">
4427         <p>I'm still working on the Norwegian version of the
4428 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture book by Lawrence
4429 Lessig</a>, and is now working on the final typesetting and layout.
4430 One of the features I want to get the structure similar to the
4431 original book is to typeset the footnotes as endnotes in the notes
4432 chapter.  Based on the
4433 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/685063">feedback from the Debian
4434 maintainer and the dblatex developer</a>, I came up with this recipe I
4435 would like to share with you.  The proposal was to create a new LaTeX
4436 class file and add the LaTeX code there, but this is not always
4437 practical, when I want to be able to replace the class using a make
4438 file variable.  So my proposal misuses the latex.begindocument XSL
4439 parameter value, to get a small fragment into the correct location in
4440 the generated LaTeX File.</p>
4441
4442 <p>First, decide where in the DocBook document to place the endnotes,
4443 and add this text there:</p>
4444
4445 <pre>
4446 &lt;?latex \theendnotes ?&gt;
4447 </pre>
4448
4449 <p>Next, create a xsl stylesheet file dblatex-endnotes.xsl to add the
4450 code needed to add the endnote instructions in the preamble of the
4451 generated LaTeX document, with content like this:</p>
4452
4453 <pre>
4454 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
4455 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
4456   &lt;xsl:param name="latex.begindocument"&gt;
4457     &lt;xsl:text&gt;
4458 \usepackage{endnotes}
4459 \let\footnote=\endnote
4460 \def\enoteheading{\mbox{}\par\vskip-\baselineskip }
4461 \begin{document}
4462     &lt;/xsl:text&gt;
4463   &lt;/xsl:param&gt;
4464 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
4465 </pre>
4466
4467 <p>Finally, load this xsl file when running dblatex, for example like
4468 this:</p>
4469
4470 <pre>
4471 dblatex --xsl-user=dblatex-endnotes.xsl freeculture.nb.xml
4472 </pre>
4473
4474 <p>The end result can be seen on github, where
4475 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">my
4476 book project</a> is located.</p>
4477
4478       </div>
4479       <div class="tags">
4480
4481
4482         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
4483
4484
4485       </div>
4486     </div>
4487     <div class="padding"></div>
4488
4489     <div class="entry">
4490       <div class="title">
4491         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_on__Internet_Broadcast_AVC_Video__licensing_and_non_private_use.html">MPEG LA on "Internet Broadcast AVC Video" licensing and non-private use</a>
4492       </div>
4493       <div class="date">
4494          7th July 2015
4495       </div>
4496       <div class="body">
4497         <p>After asking the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK)
4498 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_gj_r_at_NRK_kan_distribuere_H_264_video_uten_patentavtale_med_MPEG_LA_.html">why
4499 they can broadcast and stream H.264 video without an agreement with
4500 the MPEG LA</a>, I was wiser, but still confused.  So I asked MPEG LA
4501 if their understanding matched that of NRK.  As far as I can tell, it
4502 does not.</p>
4503
4504 <p>I started by asking for more information about the various
4505 licensing classes and what exactly is covered by the "Internet
4506 Broadcast AVC Video" class that NRK pointed me at to explain why NRK
4507 did not need a license for streaming H.264 video:
4508
4509 <p><blockquote>
4510
4511 <p>According to
4512 <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/226/n-10-02-02.pdf">a
4513 MPEG LA press release dated 2010-02-02</a>, there is no charge when
4514 using MPEG AVC/H.264 according to the terms of "Internet Broadcast AVC
4515 Video".  I am trying to understand exactly what the terms of "Internet
4516 Broadcast AVC Video" is, and wondered if you could help me.  What
4517 exactly is covered by these terms, and what is not?</p>
4518
4519 <p>The only source of more information I have been able to find is a
4520 PDF named
4521 <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcweb.pdf">AVC
4522 Patent Portfolio License Briefing</a>, which states this about the
4523 fees:</p>
4524
4525 <ul>
4526  <li>Where End User pays for AVC Video
4527   <ul>
4528    <li>Subscription (not limited by title) – 100,000 or fewer
4529      subscribers/yr = no royalty; &gt; 100,000 to 250,000 subscribers/yr =
4530      $25,000; &gt;250,000 to 500,000 subscribers/yr = $50,000; &gt;500,000 to
4531      1M subscribers/yr = $75,000; &gt;1M subscribers/yr = $100,000</li>
4532
4533    <li>Title-by-Title - 12 minutes or less = no royalty; &gt;12 minutes in
4534      length = lower of (a) 2% or (b) $0.02 per title</li>
4535   </ul></li>
4536
4537  <li>Where remuneration is from other sources
4538   <ul>
4539    <li>Free Television - (a) one-time $2,500 per transmission encoder or
4540      (b) annual fee starting at $2,500 for &gt; 100,000 HH rising to
4541      maximum $10,000 for &gt;1,000,000 HH</li>
4542
4543    <li>Internet Broadcast AVC Video (not title-by-title, not subscription)
4544      – no royalty for life of the AVC Patent Portfolio License</li>
4545   </ul></li>
4546 </ul>
4547
4548 <p>Am I correct in assuming that the four categories listed is the
4549 categories used when selecting licensing terms, and that "Internet
4550 Broadcast AVC Video" is the category for things that do not fall into
4551 one of the other three categories?  Can you point me to a good source
4552 explaining what is ment by "title-by-title" and "Free Television" in
4553 the license terms for AVC/H.264?</p>
4554
4555 <p>Will a web service providing H.264 encoded video content in a
4556 "video on demand" fashing similar to Youtube and Vimeo, where no
4557 subscription is required and no payment is required from end users to
4558 get access to the videos, fall under the terms of the "Internet
4559 Broadcast AVC Video", ie no royalty for life of the AVC Patent
4560 Portfolio license?  Does it matter if some users are subscribed to get
4561 access to personalized services?</p>
4562
4563 <p>Note, this request and all answers will be published on the
4564 Internet.</p>
4565 </blockquote></p>
4566
4567 <p>The answer came quickly from Benjamin J. Myers, Licensing Associate
4568 with the MPEG LA:</p>
4569
4570 <p><blockquote>
4571 <p>Thank you for your message and for your interest in MPEG LA.  We
4572 appreciate hearing from you and I will be happy to assist you.</p>
4573
4574 <p>As you are aware, MPEG LA offers our AVC Patent Portfolio License
4575 which provides coverage under patents that are essential for use of
4576 the AVC/H.264 Standard (MPEG-4 Part 10).  Specifically, coverage is
4577 provided for end products and video content that make use of AVC/H.264
4578 technology.  Accordingly, the party offering such end products and
4579 video to End Users concludes the AVC License and is responsible for
4580 paying the applicable royalties.</p>
4581
4582 <p>Regarding Internet Broadcast AVC Video, the AVC License generally
4583 defines such content to be video that is distributed to End Users over
4584 the Internet free-of-charge.  Therefore, if a party offers a service
4585 which allows users to upload AVC/H.264 video to its website, and such
4586 AVC Video is delivered to End Users for free, then such video would
4587 receive coverage under the sublicense for Internet Broadcast AVC
4588 Video, which is not subject to any royalties for the life of the AVC
4589 License.  This would also apply in the scenario where a user creates a
4590 free online account in order to receive a customized offering of free
4591 AVC Video content.  In other words, as long as the End User is given
4592 access to or views AVC Video content at no cost to the End User, then
4593 no royalties would be payable under our AVC License.</p>
4594
4595 <p>On the other hand, if End Users pay for access to AVC Video for a
4596 specific period of time (e.g., one month, one year, etc.), then such
4597 video would constitute Subscription AVC Video.  In cases where AVC
4598 Video is delivered to End Users on a pay-per-view basis, then such
4599 content would constitute Title-by-Title AVC Video.  If a party offers
4600 Subscription or Title-by-Title AVC Video to End Users, then they would
4601 be responsible for paying the applicable royalties you noted below.</p>
4602
4603 <p>Finally, in the case where AVC Video is distributed for free
4604 through an "over-the-air, satellite and/or cable transmission", then
4605 such content would constitute Free Television AVC Video and would be
4606 subject to the applicable royalties.</p>
4607
4608 <p>For your reference, I have attached
4609 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-07-07-mpegla.pdf">a
4610 .pdf copy of the AVC License</a>. You will find the relevant
4611 sublicense information regarding AVC Video in Sections 2.2 through
4612 2.5, and the corresponding royalties in Section 3.1.2 through 3.1.4.
4613 You will also find the definitions of Title-by-Title AVC Video,
4614 Subscription AVC Video, Free Television AVC Video, and Internet
4615 Broadcast AVC Video in Section 1 of the License.  Please note that the
4616 electronic copy is provided for informational purposes only and cannot
4617 be used for execution.</p>
4618
4619 <p>I hope the above information is helpful.  If you have additional
4620 questions or need further assistance with the AVC License, please feel
4621 free to contact me directly.</p>
4622 </blockquote></p>
4623
4624 <p>Having a fresh copy of the license text was useful, and knowing
4625 that the definition of Title-by-Title required payment per title made
4626 me aware that my earlier understanding of that phrase had been wrong.
4627 But I still had a few questions:</p>
4628
4629 <p><blockquote>
4630 <p>I have a small followup question.  Would it be possible for me to get
4631 a license with MPEG LA even if there are no royalties to be paid?  The
4632 reason I ask, is that some video related products have a copyright
4633 clause limiting their use without a license with MPEG LA.  The clauses
4634 typically look similar to this:
4635
4636 <p><blockquote>
4637   This product is licensed under the AVC patent portfolio license for
4638   the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer to (a) encode
4639   video in compliance with the AVC standard ("AVC video") and/or (b)
4640   decode AVC video that was encoded by a consumer engaged in a
4641   personal and non-commercial activity and/or AVC video that was
4642   obtained from a video provider licensed to provide AVC video. No
4643   license is granted or shall be implied for any other use. additional
4644   information may be obtained from MPEG LA L.L.C.
4645 </blockquote></p>
4646
4647 <p>It is unclear to me if this clause mean that I need to enter into
4648 an agreement with MPEG LA to use the product in question, even if
4649 there are no royalties to be paid to MPEG LA.  I suspect it will
4650 differ depending on the jurisdiction, and mine is Norway.  What is
4651 MPEG LAs view on this?</p>
4652 </blockquote></p>
4653
4654 <p>According to the answer, MPEG LA believe those using such tools for
4655 non-personal or commercial use need a license with them:</p>
4656
4657 <p><blockquote>
4658
4659 <p>With regard to the Notice to Customers, I would like to begin by
4660 clarifying that the Notice from Section 7.1 of the AVC License
4661 reads:</p>
4662
4663 <p>THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR
4664 THE PERSONAL USE OF A CONSUMER OR OTHER USES IN WHICH IT DOES NOT
4665 RECEIVE REMUNERATION TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC
4666 STANDARD ("AVC VIDEO") AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED
4667 BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM
4668 A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED
4669 OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE
4670 OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM</p>
4671
4672 <p>The Notice to Customers is intended to inform End Users of the
4673 personal usage rights (for example, to watch video content) included
4674 with the product they purchased, and to encourage any party using the
4675 product for commercial purposes to contact MPEG LA in order to become
4676 licensed for such use (for example, when they use an AVC Product to
4677 deliver Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free Television or Internet
4678 Broadcast AVC Video to End Users, or to re-Sell a third party's AVC
4679 Product as their own branded AVC Product).</p>
4680
4681 <p>Therefore, if a party is to be licensed for its use of an AVC
4682 Product to Sell AVC Video on a Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free
4683 Television or Internet Broadcast basis, that party would need to
4684 conclude the AVC License, even in the case where no royalties were
4685 payable under the License.  On the other hand, if that party (either a
4686 Consumer or business customer) simply uses an AVC Product for their
4687 own internal purposes and not for the commercial purposes referenced
4688 above, then such use would be included in the royalty paid for the AVC
4689 Products by the licensed supplier.</p>
4690
4691 <p>Finally, I note that our AVC License provides worldwide coverage in
4692 countries that have AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, including
4693 Norway.</p>
4694
4695 <p>I hope this clarification is helpful.  If I may be of any further
4696 assistance, just let me know.</p>
4697 </blockquote></p>
4698
4699 <p>The mentioning of Norwegian patents made me a bit confused, so I
4700 asked for more information:</p>
4701
4702 <p><blockquote>
4703
4704 <p>But one minor question at the end.  If I understand you correctly,
4705 you state in the quote above that there are patents in the AVC Patent
4706 Portfolio that are valid in Norway.  This make me believe I read the
4707 list available from &lt;URL:
4708 <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx">http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx</a>
4709 &gt; incorrectly, as I believed the "NO" prefix in front of patents
4710 were Norwegian patents, and the only one I could find under Mitsubishi
4711 Electric Corporation expired in 2012.  Which patents are you referring
4712 to that are relevant for Norway?</p>
4713
4714 </blockquote></p>
4715
4716 <p>Again, the quick answer explained how to read the list of patents
4717 in that list:</p>
4718
4719 <p><blockquote>
4720
4721 <p>Your understanding is correct that the last AVC Patent Portfolio
4722 Patent in Norway expired on 21 October 2012.  Therefore, where AVC
4723 Video is both made and Sold in Norway after that date, then no
4724 royalties would be payable for such AVC Video under the AVC License.
4725 With that said, our AVC License provides historic coverage for AVC
4726 Products and AVC Video that may have been manufactured or Sold before
4727 the last Norwegian AVC patent expired.  I would also like to clarify
4728 that coverage is provided for the country of manufacture and the
4729 country of Sale that has active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents.</p>
4730
4731 <p>Therefore, if a party offers AVC Products or AVC Video for Sale in
4732 a country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents (for example,
4733 Sweden, Denmark, Finland, etc.), then that party would still need
4734 coverage under the AVC License even if such products or video are
4735 initially made in a country without active AVC Patent Portfolio
4736 Patents (for example, Norway).  Similarly, a party would need to
4737 conclude the AVC License if they make AVC Products or AVC Video in a
4738 country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, but eventually Sell
4739 such AVC Products or AVC Video in a country without active AVC Patent
4740 Portfolio Patents.</p>
4741 </blockquote></p>
4742
4743 <p>As far as I understand it, MPEG LA believe anyone using Adobe
4744 Premiere and other video related software with a H.264 distribution
4745 license need a license agreement with MPEG LA to use such tools for
4746 anything non-private or commercial, while it is OK to set up a
4747 Youtube-like service as long as no-one pays to get access to the
4748 content.  I still have no clear idea how this applies to Norway, where
4749 none of the patents MPEG LA is licensing are valid.  Will the
4750 copyright terms take precedence or can those terms be ignored because
4751 the patents are not valid in Norway?</p>
4752
4753       </div>
4754       <div class="tags">
4755
4756
4757         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</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>.
4758
4759
4760       </div>
4761     </div>
4762     <div class="padding"></div>
4763
4764     <div class="entry">
4765       <div class="title">
4766         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html">New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</a>
4767       </div>
4768       <div class="date">
4769          5th July 2015
4770       </div>
4771       <div class="body">
4772         <p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
4773 need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback.  I wish to
4774 thank every one of these.  Several pointed me to the possibility of
4775 fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
4776 do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
4777 machine.  But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
4778 with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
4779 for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement.  If I did
4780 not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
4781 using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
4782 might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
4783
4784 <p>One tip I got was to use the
4785 <a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
4786 compare laptop models.  It seem to have more models available than
4787 prisjakt.no.  Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
4788 keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
4789 very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
4790 keyboards I tested.  Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
4791
4792 <p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
4793 newest Thinkpad X model.  The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
4794 (which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
4795 Debian Sid/Unstable according to
4796 <a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>.  The reports I
4797 got on the keyboard quality are not consistent.  Some say the keyboard
4798 is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
4799 Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
4800 keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
4801 keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
4802 replace it.  I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
4803 activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230.  I'm
4804 also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
4805 noisy.  In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
4806 Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
4807
4808 <p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
4809 <a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
4810 <a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
4811 The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
4812
4813 <p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback.  It help a lot
4814 as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
4815
4816 <p>Update 2015-07-06: I was recommended to check out the
4817 <a href="">lapstore.de</a> web shop for used laptops.  They got several
4818 different
4819 <a href="http://www.lapstore.de/f.php/shop/lapstore/f/411/lang/x/kw/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X_Serie/">old
4820 thinkpad X models</a>, and provide one year warranty.</p>
4821
4822       </div>
4823       <div class="tags">
4824
4825
4826         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4827
4828
4829       </div>
4830     </div>
4831     <div class="padding"></div>
4832
4833     <div class="entry">
4834       <div class="title">
4835         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html">Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years</a>
4836       </div>
4837       <div class="date">
4838          3rd July 2015
4839       </div>
4840       <div class="body">
4841         <p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
4842 replacement soon.  The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
4843 started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
4844 cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
4845 flickering.</p>
4846
4847 <p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
4848 still as
4849 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
4850 described them in 2013</a>.  The last time I bought a laptop, I had
4851 good help from
4852 <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
4853 where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
4854 wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually.  Three button mouse
4855 and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
4856 laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
4857 G2) lack three mouse buttons).  It is also unclear to me how good the
4858 keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are.  I hope Lenovo have not messed up
4859 the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
4860 deteriorated since X41.</p>
4861
4862 <p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
4863 seem sensible to me?  Are there better services around to search the
4864 set of available laptops for features?  Please send me an email if you
4865 have suggestions.</p>
4866
4867 <p>Update 2015-07-23: I got a suggestion to check out the FSF
4868 <a href="http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom">list
4869 of endorsed hardware</a>, which is useful background information.</p>
4870
4871       </div>
4872       <div class="tags">
4873
4874
4875         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4876
4877
4878       </div>
4879     </div>
4880     <div class="padding"></div>
4881
4882     <div class="entry">
4883       <div class="title">
4884         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MakerCon_Nordic_videos_now_available_on_Frikanalen.html">MakerCon Nordic videos now available on Frikanalen</a>
4885       </div>
4886       <div class="date">
4887          2nd July 2015
4888       </div>
4889       <div class="body">
4890         <p>Last oktober I was involved on behalf of
4891 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> with recording the talks at
4892 <a href="http://www.makercon.no/">MakerCon Nordic</a>, a conference for
4893 the Maker movement.  Since then it has been the plan to publish the
4894 recordings on <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a>, which
4895 finally happened the last few days.  A few talks are missing because
4896 the speakers asked the organizers to not publish them, but most of the
4897 talks are available.  The talks are being broadcasted on RiksTV
4898 channel 50 and using multicast on Uninett, as well as being available
4899 from the Frikanalen web site.  The unedited recordings are
4900 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/MakerConNordic/">available on
4901 Youtube too</a>.</p>
4902
4903 <p>This is the list of talks available at the moment.  Visit the
4904 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/?q=makercon">Frikanalen video
4905 pages</a> to view them.</p>
4906
4907 <ul>
4908
4909   <li>Evolutionary algorithms as a design tool - from art
4910       to robotics (Kyrre Glette)</li>
4911
4912   <li>Make and break (Hans Gerhard Meier)</li>
4913
4914   <li>Making a one year school course for young makers
4915       (Olav Helland)</li>
4916
4917   <li>Innovation Inspiration - IPR Databases as a Source of
4918       Inspiration (Hege Langlo)</li>
4919
4920   <li>Making a toy for makers (Erik Torstensson)</li>
4921
4922   <li>How to make 3D printer electronics (Elias Bakken)</li>
4923
4924   <li>Hovering Clouds: Looking at online tool offerings for Product
4925       Design and 3D Printing (William Kempton)</li>
4926
4927   <li>Travelling maker stories (Øyvind Nydal Dahl)</li>
4928
4929   <li>Making the first Maker Faire in Sweden (Nils Olander)</li>
4930
4931   <li>Breaking the mold: Printing 1000’s of parts (Espen Sivertsen)</li>
4932
4933   <li>Ultimaker — and open source 3D printing (Erik de Bruijn)</li>
4934
4935   <li>Autodesk’s 3D Printing Platform: Sparking innovation (Hilde
4936       Sevens)</li>
4937
4938   <li>How Making is Changing the World – and How You Can Too!
4939       (Jennifer Turliuk)</li>
4940
4941   <li>Open-Source Adventuring: OpenROV, OpenExplorer and the Future of
4942       Connected Exploration (David Lang)</li>
4943
4944   <li>Making in Norway (Haakon Karlsen Jr., Graham Hayward and Jens
4945       Dyvik)</li>
4946
4947   <li>The Impact of the Maker Movement (Mike Senese)</li>
4948
4949 </ul>
4950
4951 <p>Part of the reason this took so long was that the scripts NUUG had
4952 to prepare a recording for publication were five years old and no
4953 longer worked with the current video processing tools (command line
4954 argument changes).  In addition, we needed better audio normalization,
4955 which sent me on a detour to
4956 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html">package
4957 bs1770gain for Debian</a>.  Now this is in place and it became a lot
4958 easier to publish NUUG videos on Frikanalen.</p>
4959
4960       </div>
4961       <div class="tags">
4962
4963
4964         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
4965
4966
4967       </div>
4968     </div>
4969     <div class="padding"></div>
4970
4971     <div class="entry">
4972       <div class="title">
4973         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Graphing_the_Norwegian_company_ownership_structure.html">Graphing the Norwegian company ownership structure</a>
4974       </div>
4975       <div class="date">
4976         15th June 2015
4977       </div>
4978       <div class="body">
4979         <p>It is a bit work to figure out the ownership structure of companies
4980 in Norway.  The information is publicly available, but one need to
4981 recursively look up ownership for all owners to figure out the complete
4982 ownership graph of a given set of companies.  To save me the work in
4983 the future, I wrote a script to do this automatically, outputting the
4984 ownership structure using the Graphviz/dotty format.  The data source
4985 is web scraping from <a href="http://www.proff.no/">Proff</a>, because
4986 I failed to find a useful source directly from the official keepers of
4987 the ownership data, <a href="http://www.brreg.no/">Brønnøysundsregistrene</a>.</p>
4988
4989 <p>To get an ownership graph for a set of companies, fetch
4990 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/brreg-norway-ownership-graph">the code from git</a> and run it using the organisation number.  I'm
4991 using the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet as an example here, as its
4992 ownership structure is very simple:</p>
4993
4994 <pre>
4995 % time ./bin/eierskap-dotty 958033540 > dagbladet.dot
4996
4997 real    0m2.841s
4998 user    0m0.184s
4999 sys     0m0.036s
5000 %
5001 </pre>
5002
5003 <p>The script accept several organisation numbers on the command line,
5004 allowing a cluster of companies to be graphed in the same image.  The
5005 resulting dot file for the example above look like this.  The edges
5006 are labeled with the ownership percentage, and the nodes uses the
5007 organisation number as their name and the name as the label:</p>
5008
5009 <pre>
5010 digraph ownership {
5011 rankdir = LR;
5012 "Aller Holding A/s" -> "910119877" [label="100%"]
5013 "910119877" -> "998689015" [label="100%"]
5014 "998689015" -> "958033540" [label="99%"]
5015 "974530600" -> "958033540" [label="1%"]
5016 "958033540" [label="AS DAGBLADET"]
5017 "998689015" [label="Berner Media Holding AS"]
5018 "974530600" [label="Dagbladets Stiftelse"]
5019 "910119877" [label="Aller Media AS"]
5020 }
5021 </pre>
5022
5023 <p>To view the ownership graph, run "<tt>dotty dagbladet.dot</tt>" or
5024 convert it to a PNG using "<tt>dot -T png dagbladet.dot >
5025 dagbladet.png</tt>".  The result can be seen below:</p>
5026
5027 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-15-ownership-graphs-norway-dagbladet.png" width="80%">
5028
5029 <p>Note that I suspect the "Aller Holding A/S" entry to be incorrect
5030 data in the official ownership register, as that name is not
5031 registered in the official company register for Norway.  The ownership
5032 register is sensitive to typos and there seem to be no strict checking
5033 of the ownership links.</p>
5034
5035 <p>Let me know if you improve the script or find better data sources.
5036 The code is licensed according to GPL 2 or newer.</p>
5037
5038 <p>Update 2015-06-15: Since the initial post I've been told that
5039 "<a href="http://www.proff.dk/firma/carl-allers-etablissement-aktieselskab/københavn-v/hovedkontorer/13624518-3/">Aller
5040 Holding A/S</a>" is a Danish company, which explain why it did not
5041 have a Norwegian organisation number.  I've also been told that there
5042 is a <a href="http://www.brreg.no/automatiske/webservices/">web
5043 services API available</a> from Brønnøysundsregistrene, for those
5044 willing to accept the terms or pay the price.</p>
5045
5046       </div>
5047       <div class="tags">
5048
5049
5050         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>.
5051
5052
5053       </div>
5054     </div>
5055     <div class="padding"></div>
5056
5057     <div class="entry">
5058       <div class="title">
5059         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html">Measuring and adjusting the loudness of a TV channel using bs1770gain</a>
5060       </div>
5061       <div class="date">
5062         11th June 2015
5063       </div>
5064       <div class="body">
5065         <p>Television loudness is the source of frustration for viewers
5066 everywhere.  Some channels are very load, others are less loud, and
5067 ads tend to shout very high to get the attention of the viewers, and
5068 the viewers do not like this.  This fact is well known to the TV
5069 channels.  See for example the BBC white paper
5070 "<a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdf-files/WHP202.pdf">Terminology
5071 for loudness and level dBTP, LU, and all that</a>" from 2011 for a
5072 summary of the problem domain.  To better address the need for even
5073 loadness, the TV channels got together several years ago to agree on a
5074 new way to measure loudness in digital files as one step in
5075 standardizing loudness.  From this came the ITU-R standard BS.1770,
5076 "<a href="http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-BS.1770/en">Algorithms to
5077 measure audio programme loudness and true-peak audio level</a>".</p>
5078
5079 <p>The ITU-R BS.1770 specification describe an algorithm to measure
5080 loadness in LUFS (Loudness Units, referenced to Full Scale). But
5081 having a way to measure is not enough.  To get the same loudness
5082 across TV channels, one also need to decide which value to standardize
5083 on.  For European TV channels, this was done in the EBU Recommondaton
5084 R128, "<a href="https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/r/r128.pdf">Loudness
5085 normalisation and permitted maximum level of audio signals</a>", which
5086 specifies a recommended level of -23 LUFS.  In Norway, I have been
5087 told that NRK, TV2, MTG and SBS have decided among themselves to
5088 follow the R128 recommondation for playout from 2016-03-01.</p>
5089
5090 <p>There are free software available to measure and adjust the loudness
5091 level using the LUFS.  In Debian, I am aware of a library named
5092 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libebur128">libebur128</a>
5093 able to measure the loudness and since yesterday morning a new binary
5094 named <a href="http://bs1770gain.sourceforge.net">bs1770gain</a>
5095 capable of both measuring and adjusting was uploaded and is waiting
5096 for NEW processing.  I plan to maintain the latter in Debian under the
5097 <a href="https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=pkg-multimedia-maintainers%40lists.alioth.debian.org">Debian
5098 multimedia</a> umbrella.</p>
5099
5100 <p>The free software based TV channel I am involved in,
5101 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a>, plan to follow the
5102 R128 recommondation ourself as soon as we can adjust the software to
5103 do so, and the bs1770gain tool seem like a good fit for that part of
5104 the puzzle to measure loudness on new video uploaded to Frikanalen.
5105 Personally, I plan to use bs1770gain to adjust the loudness of videos
5106 I upload to Frikanalen on behalf of <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
5107 NUUG member organisation</a>.  The program seem to be able to measure
5108 the LUFS value of any media file handled by ffmpeg, but I've only
5109 successfully adjusted the LUFS value of WAV files.  I suspect it
5110 should be able to adjust it for all the formats handled by ffmpeg.</p>
5111
5112       </div>
5113       <div class="tags">
5114
5115
5116         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
5117
5118
5119       </div>
5120     </div>
5121     <div class="padding"></div>
5122
5123     <div class="entry">
5124       <div class="title">
5125         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_citizens_now_required_by_law_to_give_their_fingerprint_to_the_police.html">Norwegian citizens now required by law to give their fingerprint to the police</a>
5126       </div>
5127       <div class="date">
5128         10th May 2015
5129       </div>
5130       <div class="body">
5131         <p>5 days ago, the Norwegian Parliament decided, unanimously, that all
5132 citizens of Norway, no matter if they are suspected of something
5133 criminal or not, are
5134 <a href="https://www.holderdeord.no/votes/1430838871e">required to
5135 give fingerprints to the police</a> (vote details from Holder de
5136 ord).  The law make it sound like it will be optional, but in a few
5137 years there will be no option any more.  The ID will be required to
5138 vote, to get a bank account, a bank card, to change address on the
5139 post office, to receive an electronic ID or to get a drivers license
5140 and many other tasks required to function in Norway.  The banks plan
5141 to stop providing their own ID on the bank cards when this new
5142 national ID is introduced, and the national road authorities plan to
5143 change the drivers license to no longer be usable as identity cards.
5144 In effect, to function as a citizen in Norway a national ID card will
5145 be required, and to get it one need to provide the fingerprints to
5146 the police.</p>
5147
5148 <p>In addition to handing the fingerprint to the police (which
5149 promised to not make a copy of the fingerprint image at that point in
5150 time, but say nothing about doing it later), a picture of the
5151 fingerprint will be stored on the RFID chip, along with a picture of
5152 the face and other information about the person.  Some of the
5153 information will be encrypted, but the encryption will be the same
5154 system as currently used in the passports.  The codes to decrypt will
5155 be available to a lot of government offices and their suppliers around
5156 the globe, but for those that do not know anyone in those circles it
5157 is good to know that
5158 <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2006/nov/17/news.homeaffairs">the
5159 encryption is already broken</a>.  And they
5160 <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/article/2215057/wireless/bad-guys-could-read-rfid-passports-at-217-feet--maybe-a-lot-more.html">can
5161 be read from 70 meters away</a>.  This can be mitigated a bit by
5162 keeping it in a Faraday cage (metal box or metal wire container), but
5163 one will be required to take it out of there often enough to expose
5164 ones private and personal information to a lot of people that have no
5165 business getting access to that information.</p>
5166
5167 <p>The new Norwegian national IDs are a vehicle for identity theft,
5168 and I feel sorry for us all having politicians accepting such invasion
5169 of privacy without any objections.  So are the Norwegian passports,
5170 but it has been possible to function in Norway without those so far.
5171 That option is going away with the passing of the new law.  In this, I
5172 envy the Germans, because for them it is optional how much biometric
5173 information is stored in their national ID.</p>
5174
5175 <p>And if forced collection of fingerprints was not bad enough, the
5176 information collected in the national ID card register can be handed
5177 over to foreign intelligence services and police authorities, "when
5178 extradition is not considered disproportionate".</p>
5179
5180 <p>Update 2015-05-12: For those unable to believe that the Parliament
5181 really could make such decision, I wrote
5182 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Blir_det_virkelig_krav_om_fingeravtrykk_i_nasjonale_ID_kort_.html">a
5183 summary of the sources I have</a> for concluding the way I do
5184 (Norwegian Only, as the sources are all in Norwegian).</p>
5185
5186       </div>
5187       <div class="tags">
5188
5189
5190         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
5191
5192
5193       </div>
5194     </div>
5195     <div class="padding"></div>
5196
5197     <div class="entry">
5198       <div class="title">
5199         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_would_it_cost_to_store_all_phone_calls_in_Norway_.html">What would it cost to store all phone calls in Norway?</a>
5200       </div>
5201       <div class="date">
5202          1st May 2015
5203       </div>
5204       <div class="body">
5205         <p>Many years ago, a friend of mine calculated how much it would cost
5206 to store the sound of all phone calls in Norway, and came up with the
5207 cost of around 20 million NOK (2.4 mill EUR) for all the calls in a
5208 year.  I got curious and wondered what the same calculation would look
5209 like today.  To do so one need an idea of how much data storage is
5210 needed for each minute of sound, how many minutes all the calls in
5211 Norway sums up to, and the cost of data storage.</p>
5212
5213 <p>The 2005 numbers are from
5214 <a href="http://www.digi.no/analyser/2005/10/04/vi-prater-stadig-mindre-i-roret">digi.no</a>,
5215 the 2012 numbers are from
5216 <a href="http://www.nkom.no/aktuelt/nyheter/fortsatt-vekst-i-det-norske-ekommarkedet">a
5217 NKOM report</a>, and I got the 2013 numbers after asking NKOM via
5218 email.  I was told the numbers for 2014 will be presented May 20th,
5219 and decided not to wait for those, as I doubt they will be very
5220 different from the numbers from 2013.</p>
5221
5222 <p>The amount of data storage per minute sound depend on the wanted
5223 quality, and for phone calls it is generally believed that 8 Kbit/s is
5224 enough.  See for example a
5225 <a href="http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/voice/voice-quality/7934-bwidth-consume.html#topic1">summary
5226 on voice quality from Cisco</a> for some alternatives.  8 Kbit/s is 60
5227 Kbytes/min, and this can be multiplied with the number of call minutes
5228 to get the storage requirements.</p>
5229
5230 <p>Storage prices varies a lot, depending on speed, backup strategies,
5231 availability requirements etc.  But a simple way to calculate can be
5232 to use the price of a TiB-disk (around 1000 NOK / 120 EUR) and double
5233 it to take space, power and redundancy into account.  It could be much
5234 higher with high speed and good redundancy requirements.</p>
5235
5236 <p>But back to the question, What would it cost to store all phone
5237 calls in Norway?  Not much.  Here is a small table showing the
5238 estimated cost, which is within the budget constraint of most medium
5239 and large organisations:</p>
5240
5241 <table border="1">
5242 <tr><th>Year</th><th>Call minutes</th><th>Size</th><th>Price in NOK / EUR</th></tr>
5243 <tr><td>2005</td><td align="right">24 000 000 000</td><td align="right">1.3 PiB</td><td align="right">3 mill / 358 000</td></tr>
5244 <tr><td>2012</td><td align="right">18 000 000 000</td><td align="right">1.0 PiB</td><td align="right">2.2 mill / 262 000</td></tr>
5245 <tr><td>2013</td><td align="right">17 000 000 000</td><td align="right">950 TiB</td><td align="right">2.1 mill / 250 000</td></tr>
5246 </table>
5247
5248 <p>This is the cost of buying the storage.  Maintenance need to be
5249 taken into account too, but calculating that is left as an exercise
5250 for the reader.  But it is obvious to me from those numbers that
5251 recording the sound of all phone calls in Norway is not going to be
5252 stopped because it is too expensive.  I wonder if someone already is
5253 collecting the data?</p>
5254
5255       </div>
5256       <div class="tags">
5257
5258
5259         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
5260
5261
5262       </div>
5263     </div>
5264     <div class="padding"></div>
5265
5266     <div class="entry">
5267       <div class="title">
5268         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_beta_release.html">First Jessie based Debian Edu beta release</a>
5269       </div>
5270       <div class="date">
5271         26th April 2015
5272       </div>
5273       <div class="body">
5274         <p>I am happy to report that the Debian Edu team sent out
5275 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2015/04/msg00000.html">this
5276 announcement today</a>:</p>
5277
5278 <pre>
5279 the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is pleased to announce the first
5280 *beta* release of Debian Edu "Jessie" 8.0+edu0~b1, which for the first
5281 time is composed entirely of packages from the current Debian stable
5282 release, Debian 8 "Jessie".
5283
5284 (As most reading this will know, Debian "Jessie" hasn't actually been
5285 released by now. The release is still in progress but should finish
5286 later today ;)
5287
5288 We expect to make a final release of Debian Edu "Jessie" in the coming
5289 weeks, timed with the first point release of Debian Jessie. Upgrades
5290 from this beta release of Debian Edu Jessie to the final release will
5291 be possible and encouraged!
5292
5293 Please report feedback to debian-edu@lists.debian.org and/or submit
5294 bugs: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs
5295
5296 Debian Edu - sometimes also known as "Skolelinux" - is a complete
5297 operating system for schools, universities and other
5298 organisations. Through its pre- prepared installation profiles
5299 administrators can install servers, workstations and laptops which
5300 will work in harmony on the school network.  With Debian Edu, the
5301 teachers themselves or their technical support staff can roll out a
5302 complete multi-user, multi-machine study environment within hours or
5303 days.
5304
5305 Debian Edu is already in use at several hundred schools all over the
5306 world, particularly in Germany, Spain and Norway. Installations come
5307 with hundreds of applications pre-installed, plus the whole Debian
5308 archive of thousands of compatible packages within easy reach.
5309
5310 For those who want to give Debian Edu Jessie a try, download and
5311 installation instructions are available, including detailed
5312 instructions in the manual explaining the first steps, such as setting
5313 up a network or adding users.  Please note that the password for the
5314 user your prompted for during installation must have a length of at
5315 least 5 characters!
5316
5317 == Where to download ==
5318
5319 A multi-architecture CD / usbstick image (649 MiB) for network booting
5320 can be downloaded at the following locations:
5321
5322     http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-CD.iso
5323     rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-CD.iso .
5324
5325 The SHA1SUM of this image is: 54a524d16246cddd8d2cfd6ea52f2dd78c47ee0a
5326
5327 Alternatively an extended DVD / usbstick image (4.9 GiB) is also
5328 available, with more software included (saving additional download
5329 time):
5330
5331     http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-USB.iso
5332     rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-USB.iso
5333
5334 The SHA1SUM of this image is: fb1f1504a490c077a48653898f9d6a461cb3c636
5335
5336 Sources are available from the Debian archive, see
5337 http://ftp.debian.org/debian-cd/8.0.0/source/ for some download
5338 options.
5339
5340 == Debian Edu Jessie manual in seven languages ==
5341
5342 Please see https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/ for
5343 the English version of the Debian Edu jessie manual.
5344
5345 This manual has been fully translated to German, French, Italian,
5346 Danish, Dutch and Norwegian Bokmål. A partly translated version exists
5347 for Spanish.  See http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/ for
5348 online version of the translated manual.
5349
5350 More information about Debian 8 "Jessie" itself is provided in the
5351 release notes and the installation manual:
5352 - http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes
5353 - http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual
5354
5355
5356 == Errata / known problems ==
5357
5358     It takes up to 15 minutes for a changed hostname to be updated via
5359     DHCP (#780461).
5360
5361     The hostname script fails to update LTSP server hostname (#783087).
5362
5363 Workaround: run update-hostname-from-ip on the client to update the
5364 hostname immediately.
5365
5366 Check https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie for a possibly
5367 more current and complete list.
5368
5369 == Some more details about Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~b1 Codename Jessie released 2015-04-25 ==
5370
5371 === Software updates ===
5372
5373 Everything which is new in Debian 8 Jessie, e.g.:
5374
5375  * Linux kernel 3.16.7-ctk9; for the i386 architecture, support for
5376    i486 processors has been dropped; oldest supported ones: i586 (like
5377    Intel Pentium and AMD K5).
5378
5379  * Desktop environments KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.11.13, GNOME 3.14,
5380    Xfce 4.12, LXDE 0.5.6
5381    * new optional desktop environment: MATE 1.8
5382    * KDE Plasma Workspaces is installed by default; to choose one of
5383      the others see the manual.
5384  * the browsers Iceweasel 31 ESR and Chromium 41
5385  * LibreOffice 4.3.3
5386  * GOsa 2.7.4
5387  * LTSP 5.5.4
5388  * CUPS print system 1.7.5
5389  * new boot framework: systemd
5390  * Educational toolbox GCompris 14.12
5391  * Music creator Rosegarden 14.02
5392  * Image editor Gimp 2.8.14
5393  * Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.13.1
5394  * golearn 0.9
5395  * tuxpaint 0.9.22
5396  * New version of debian-installer from Debian Jessie.
5397  * Debian Jessie includes about 43000 packages available for installation.
5398  * More information about Debian 8 Jessie is provided in its release
5399    notes and the installation manual, see the link above.
5400
5401 === Installation changes ===
5402
5403     Installations done via PXE now also install firmware automatically
5404     for the hardware present.
5405
5406 === Fixed bugs ===
5407
5408 A number of bugs have been fixed in this release; the most noticeable
5409 from a user perspective:
5410
5411  * Inserting incorrect DNS information in Gosa will no longer break
5412    DNS completely, but instead stop DNS updates until the incorrect
5413    information is corrected (710362)
5414
5415  * shutdown-at-night now shuts the system down if gdm3 is used (775608).
5416
5417 === Sugar desktop removed ===
5418
5419 As the Sugar desktop was removed from Debian Jessie, it is also not
5420 available in Debian Edu jessie.
5421
5422
5423 == About Debian Edu / Skolelinux ==
5424
5425 Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based on
5426 Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
5427 configured school network. Directly after installation a school server
5428 running all services needed for a school network is set up just
5429 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
5430 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
5431 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
5432 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
5433 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
5434 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
5435 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
5436 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
5437 can choose between KDE, GNOME, LXDE, Xfce and MATE desktop
5438 environment.
5439
5440 == About Debian ==
5441
5442 The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
5443 free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
5444 the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
5445 volunteers from all over the world work together to create and
5446 maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a
5447 huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal
5448 operating system.
5449
5450 == Thanks ==
5451
5452 Thanks to everyone making Debian and Debian Edu / Skolelinux happen!
5453 You rock.
5454 </pre>
5455
5456       </div>
5457       <div class="tags">
5458
5459
5460         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>.
5461
5462
5463       </div>
5464     </div>
5465     <div class="padding"></div>
5466
5467     <div class="entry">
5468       <div class="title">
5469         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Shirish_Agarwal.html">Debian Edu interview: Shirish Agarwal</a>
5470       </div>
5471       <div class="date">
5472         15th April 2015
5473       </div>
5474       <div class="body">
5475         <p>It was a surprise to me to learn that project to create a complete
5476 computer system for schools I've involved in,
5477 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, was
5478 being used in India.  But apparently it is, and I managed to get an
5479 interview with one of the friends of the project there, Shirish
5480 Agarwal.</p>
5481
5482 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5483
5484 <p>My name is Shirish Agarwal. Based out of the educational and
5485 historical city of Pune, from the western state of Maharashtra, India.
5486 My bread comes from giving training, giving policy tips,
5487 installations on free software to mom and pop shops in different
5488 fields from Desktop publishing to retail shops as well as work with
5489 few software start-ups as well.</p>
5490
5491 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
5492 project?</strong></p>
5493
5494 <p>It started innocently enough. I have been using Debian for a few
5495 years and in one local minidebconf / debutsav I was asked if there was
5496 anything for schools or education. I had worked / played with free
5497 educational softwares such as Gcompris and Stellarium for my many
5498 nieces and nephews so researched and found Debian Edu or Skolelinux as
5499 it was known then.  Since then I have started using the various
5500 education meta-packages provided by the project.</p>
5501
5502 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5503 Edu?</strong></p>
5504
5505 <p>It's closest I have seen where a package full of educational
5506 software are packed, which are free and open (both literally and
5507 figuratively).  Even if I take the simplest software which is
5508 gcompris, the number of activities therein are amazing. Another one of
5509 the softwares that I have liked for a long time is stellarium. Even
5510 pysycache is cool except for couple of issues I encountered
5511 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/781841">#781841</a> and
5512 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/781842">#781842</a>.</p>
5513
5514 <p>I prefer software installed on the system over web based solutions,
5515 as a web site can disappear any time but the software on disk has the
5516 possibility of a larger life span.  Of course with both it's more a
5517 question if it has enough users who make it fun or sustainable or both
5518 for the developer per-se.</p>
5519
5520 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5521 Edu?</strong></p>
5522
5523 <p>I do see that the Debian Edu team seems to be short-handed and I
5524 think more efforts should be made to make it popular and ask and take
5525 help from people and the larger community wherever possible.</p>
5526
5527 <p>I don't see any disadvantage to use Skolelinux apart from the fact
5528 that most apps. are generic which is good or bad how you see it.
5529 However, saying that I do acknowledge the fact that the canvas is
5530 pretty big and there are lot of interesting ideas that could be done
5531 but for reasons not known not done or if done I don't know about them.
5532 Let me share some of the ideas (these are more upstream based but
5533 still) I have had for a long time :</p>
5534
5535 <p>1. Classical maths question of two trains in opposing directions
5536 each running @x kmph/mph at y distance, when they will meet and how
5537 far would each travel and similar questions like these.
5538
5539 <p>The computer is a fantastic system where questions like these can
5540 be drawn, animated and the methodology and answers teased out in
5541 interactive manner. While sites such as the
5542 <a href="http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.two.trains.html">Ask
5543 Dr. Math FAQ on The Two Trains problem</a> (as an example or point of
5544 inspiration) can be used there is lot more that can be done.  I dunno
5545 if there is a free software which does something like this.  The idea
5546 being a blend of objects + animation + interaction which does
5547 this. The whole interaction could be gamified with points or sounds or
5548 colourful celebration whenever the user gets even part of the question
5549 or/and methodology right. That would help reinforce good behaviour.
5550 This understanding could be used to share/showcase everything from how
5551 the first wheel came to be, to evolution to how astronomy started,
5552 psychics and everything in-between.</p>
5553
5554 <p>One specific idea in the train part was having the Linux mascot on
5555 one train and the BSD or GNU mascot on the other train and they
5556 meeting somewhere in-between. Characters from blender movies could
5557 also be used.</p>
5558
5559 <p>2. Loads of crossword-puzzles with reference to subjects: We have
5560 enormous data sets in Wikipedia and Wikitionary.  I don't think it
5561 should be a big job to design crossword puzzles. Using categories and
5562 sub-categories it should be doable to have Q&A single word answers
5563 from the existing data-sets. What would make it easy or hard could be
5564 the length of the word + existence of many or few vowels depending on
5565 the user's input.</p>
5566
5567 <p>3. Jigsaw puzzles - We already have a great software called
5568 palapeli with number of slicers making it pretty interesting. What
5569 needs to be done is to download large number of public domain and
5570 copyleft images, tease and use IPTC tags to categorise them into
5571 nature, history etc.  and let it loose. This could turn to be really
5572 huge collection of images. One source could be taken from
5573 commons.wikimedia.org, others could be huge collection of royalty-free
5574 stock photos. Potential is immense.</p>
5575
5576 <p>Apart from this, free software suffers in two directions, we lag
5577 both in development (of using new features per-se) and maintenance a
5578 lot.  This is more so in educational software as these applications
5579 need to be timely and the opportunity cost of missing deadlines is
5580 immense. If we are able to solve issues of funding for development and
5581 maintenance of such software I don't see any big difficulties. I know
5582 of few start-ups in and around India who would love to develop and
5583 maintain such software if funding issues could be solved.</p>
5584
5585 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
5586
5587 <p>That would be huge list. Some of the softwares are obviously apt,
5588 aptitude, debdelta, leafpad, the shell of course (zsh nowadays),
5589 quassel for IRC. In games I use shisen-sho while card-games are evenly
5590 between kpat and Aiselriot.  In desktops it's a tie between
5591 gnome-flashback and mate.</p>
5592
5593 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
5594 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
5595
5596 <p>I think it should first start with using specific FOSS apps. in
5597 whatever environment they are. If it's MS-Windows or Mac so be it.
5598 Once they are habitual with the apps. and there is buy-in from the
5599 school management then it could be installed anywhere. Most of the
5600 people now understand the concept of a repository because of the
5601 various online stores so it isn't hard to convince on that front.</p>
5602
5603 <p>What is harder is having enough people with technical skills and
5604 passion to service them. If you get buy-in from one or two teachers
5605 then ideas like above could also be asked to be done as a project as
5606 well.</p>
5607
5608 <p>I think where we fall short more than anything is in marketing. For
5609 instance, Debian has this whole range of fonts in its archive but
5610 there isn't even a page where all those different fonts in the La
5611 Ipsum format could be tried out for newcomers.</p>
5612
5613 <p>One of the issues faced constantly in installations is with updates
5614 and upgrades.  People have this myth that each update and upgrade
5615 means the user interface will / has to change. I have seen this
5616 innumerable times.  That perhaps is one of the reasons which browsers
5617 like Iceweasel / Firefox change user interfaces so much, not because
5618 it might be needed or be functional but because people believe that
5619 changed user interfaces are better. This, can easily be pointed with
5620 the user interfaces changed with almost every MS-Windows and Mac OS
5621 releases.</p>
5622
5623 <p>The problems with Debian Edu for deployment are many. The biggest
5624 is the huge gap between what is taught in schools and what Debian Edu
5625 is aimed at.
5626
5627 <p>Me and my friends did teach on week-ends in a government school for
5628 around 2 years, and
5629 <a href="https://flossexperiences.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/sharings/">gathered
5630 some experience</a> there.  Some of the things we learnt/discovered
5631 there was :</p>
5632
5633 <ol>
5634
5635   <li>Most of the teachers are very territorial about their subjects
5636    and they do not want you to teach anything out of the
5637    portion/syllabus given.</li>
5638
5639   <li>They want any activity on the system in accordance to whatever
5640    is in the syllabus.</li>
5641
5642   <li>There are huge barriers both with the English language and at
5643    times with objects or whatever. An example, let's say in gcompris
5644    you have objects falling down and you have to name them and let's
5645    say the falling object is a hat or a fedora hat, this would not be
5646    as recognizable as say a
5647    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puneri_Pagadi">Puneri
5648    Pagdi</a> so there is need to inject local objects, words wherever
5649    possible. Especially for word-games there are so many hindi words
5650    which have become part of english vocabulary (for instance in
5651    parley), those could be made into a hinglish collection or
5652    something but that is something for upstream to do.</li>
5653
5654 </ol>
5655
5656       </div>
5657       <div class="tags">
5658
5659
5660         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>.
5661
5662
5663       </div>
5664     </div>
5665     <div class="padding"></div>
5666
5667     <div class="entry">
5668       <div class="title">
5669         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_m_going_to_the_Open_Source_Developers__Conference_Nordic_2015_.html">I'm going to the Open Source Developers' Conference Nordic 2015!</a>
5670       </div>
5671       <div class="date">
5672          7th April 2015
5673       </div>
5674       <div class="body">
5675         <p>I am happy to let you all know that I'm going to the <a
5676 href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/">Open Source Developers'
5677 Conference Nordic 2015</a>!</p>
5678
5679 <p>It take place Friday 8th to Sunday 10th of May in Oslo next to
5680 where I work, and I finally got around to submitting
5681 <a href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/talk/6192">a talk proposal for
5682 it</a> (dead link for most people until the talk is accepted).  As
5683 part of my involvement with the
5684 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group member
5685 association</a> I have been slightly involved in the planning of this
5686 conference for a while now, with a focus on organising a Civic Hacking
5687 Hackathon with our friends
5688 over at <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> and
5689 <a href="http://www.holderdeord.no/">Holder de ord</a>.  This part is
5690 named the 'My Society' track in the program.  There is still space for
5691 more talks and participants.  I hope to see you there.</p>
5692
5693 <p>Check out <a href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/talks">the talks
5694 submitted and accepted so far</a>.</p>
5695
5696       </div>
5697       <div class="tags">
5698
5699
5700         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn</a>.
5701
5702
5703       </div>
5704     </div>
5705     <div class="padding"></div>
5706
5707     <div class="entry">
5708       <div class="title">
5709         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Proof_reading_the_Norwegian_translation_of_Free_Culture_by_Lessig.html">Proof reading the Norwegian translation of Free Culture by Lessig</a>
5710       </div>
5711       <div class="date">
5712          4th April 2015
5713       </div>
5714       <div class="body">
5715         <p>During eastern I had some time to continue working on the Norwegian
5716 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
5717 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
5718 At the moment I am proof reading the finished text, looking for typos,
5719 inconsistent wordings and sentences that do not flow as they should.
5720 I'm more than two thirds done with the text, and welcome others to
5721 check the text up to chapter 13.  The current status is available on the
5722 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>
5723 project pages.  You can also check out the
5724 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>,
5725 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
5726 and HTML version available in the
5727 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/tree/master/archive">archive
5728 directory</a>.</p>
5729
5730 <p>Please report typos, bugs and improvements to the github project if
5731 you find any.</p>
5732
5733       </div>
5734       <div class="tags">
5735
5736
5737         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
5738
5739
5740       </div>
5741     </div>
5742     <div class="padding"></div>
5743
5744     <div class="entry">
5745       <div class="title">
5746         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen__Norwegian_TV_channel_for_technical_topics.html">Frikanalen, Norwegian TV channel for technical topics</a>
5747       </div>
5748       <div class="date">
5749          9th March 2015
5750       </div>
5751       <div class="body">
5752         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a>,
5753 where I am a member, and where people interested in free software,
5754 open standards and UNIX like operating systems like Linux and the BSDs
5755 come together, record our monthly technical presentations on video.
5756 The purpose is to document the talks and spread them to a wider
5757 audience.  For this, the the Norwegian nationwide open channel
5758 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> is a useful venue.
5759 Since a few days ago, when I figured out the
5760 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/api/">REST API</a> to program the
5761 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/guide/">channel time schedule</a>,
5762 the channel has been filled with NUUG talks, related recordings and
5763 some Creative Commons licensed TED talks (from archive.org).  I fill
5764 all "leftover bits" on the channel with content from NUUG, which at
5765 the moment is almost 17 of 24 hours every day.</p>
5766
5767 <p>The list of NUUG videos
5768 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/organization/82">uploaded so far</a>
5769 include things like a
5770 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/625090">one hour talk by John
5771 Perry Barlow when he visited Oslo</a>, a presentation of
5772 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/624275">Haiku, the BeOS
5773 re-implementation</a>, the
5774 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/624493">history of FiksGataMi,
5775 the Norwegian version of FixMyStreet</a>, the good old
5776 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/video/623566">Warriors of the net
5777 video</A> and many others.</p>
5778
5779 <p>We have a large backlog of NUUG talks not yet uploaded to
5780 Frikanalen, and plan to upload every useful bit to the channel to
5781 spread the word there.  I also hope to find useful recordings from the
5782 Chaos Computer Club and Debian conferences and spread them on the
5783 channel as well.  But this require locating the videos and their meta
5784 information (title, description, license, etc), and preparing the
5785 recordings for broadcast, and I have not yet had the spare time to
5786 focus on this.  Perhaps you want to help.  Please join us on IRC,
5787 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
5788 if you want to help make this happen.</p>
5789
5790 <p>But as I said, already the channel is already almost exclusively
5791 filled with technical topics, and if you want to learn something new
5792 today, check out the <a href="http://www.frikanalen.tv/se">Ogg Theora
5793 web stream</a> or use one of the other ways to get access to the
5794 channel.  Unfortunately the Ogg Theora recoding for distribution still
5795 do not properly sync the video and sound.  It is generated by recoding
5796 a internal MPEG transport stream with MPEG4 coded video (ie H.264) to
5797 Ogg Theora / Vorbis, and we have not been able to find a way that
5798 produces acceptable quality.  Help needed, please get in touch if you
5799 know how to fix it using free software.</p>
5800
5801       </div>
5802       <div class="tags">
5803
5804
5805         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
5806
5807
5808       </div>
5809     </div>
5810     <div class="padding"></div>
5811
5812     <div class="entry">
5813       <div class="title">
5814         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Citizenfour_documentary_on_the_Snowden_confirmations_to_Norway.html">The Citizenfour documentary on the Snowden confirmations to Norway</a>
5815       </div>
5816       <div class="date">
5817         28th February 2015
5818       </div>
5819       <div class="body">
5820         <p>Today I was happy to learn that the documentary
5821 <a href="https://citizenfourfilm.com/">Citizenfour</a> by
5822 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Poitras">Laura Poitras</a>
5823 finally will show up in Norway.  According to the magazine
5824 <a href="http://montages.no/">Montages</a>, a deal has finally been
5825 made for
5826 <a href="http://montages.no/nyheter/snowden-dokumentaren-citizenfour-far-norsk-kinodistribusjon/">Cinema
5827 distribution in Norway</a> and the movie will have its premiere soon.
5828 This is great news.  As part of my involvement with
5829 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the Norwegian Unix User Group</a>, me and
5830 a friend have
5831 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Dokumentar_om_Snowdenbekreftelsene_til_Norge_.shtml">tried
5832 to get the movie to Norway</a> ourselves, but obviously
5833 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Dokumentar_om_Snowdenbekreftelsene_endelig_til_Norge_.shtml">we
5834 were too late</a> and Tor Fosse beat us to it.  I am happy he did, as
5835 the movie will make its way to the public and we do not have to make
5836 it happen ourselves.
5837 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiGwAvd5mvM">The trailer</a>
5838 can be seen on youtube, if you are curious what kind of film this
5839 is.</p>
5840
5841 <p>The whistle blower Edward Snowden really deserve political asylum
5842 here in Norway, but I am afraid he would not be safe.</p>
5843
5844       </div>
5845       <div class="tags">
5846
5847
5848         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
5849
5850
5851       </div>
5852     </div>
5853     <div class="padding"></div>
5854
5855     <div class="entry">
5856       <div class="title">
5857         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Norwegian_open_channel_Frikanalen___24x7_on_the_Internet.html">The Norwegian open channel Frikanalen - 24x7 on the Internet</a>
5858       </div>
5859       <div class="date">
5860         25th February 2015
5861       </div>
5862       <div class="body">
5863         <p>The Norwegian nationwide open channel
5864 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> is still going
5865 strong.  It allow everyone to send the video they want on national
5866 television.  It is a TV station administrated completely using a web
5867 browser, running only <ahref="https://github.com/Frikanalen">Free
5868 Software</a>, providing <ahref="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/api">a REST
5869 api</a> for administrators and members, and with distribution on the
5870 national DVB-T distribution network RiksTV.  But only between 12:00
5871 and 17:30 Norwegian time.  This has finally changed, after many years
5872 with limited distribution.  A few weeks ago, we set up a Ogg Theora
5873 stream via icecast to allow everyone with Internet access to check out
5874 the channel the rest of the day.  This is presented on
5875 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.tv/se">the Frikanalen web site now</a>.  And
5876 since a few days ago, the channel is also available
5877 via <a href="https://www.uninett.no/iptv-tilgang">multicast on
5878 UNINETT</a>, available for those using IPTV TVs and set-top boxes in
5879 the Norwegian National Research and Education network.</p>
5880
5881 <p>If you want to see what is on the channel, point your media player
5882 to one of these sources.  The first should work with most players and
5883 browsers, while as far as I know, the multicast UDP stream only work
5884 with VLC.</p>
5885
5886 <ul>
5887   <li><a href="http://video.nuug.no/frikanalen.ogv">http://video.nuug.no/frikanalen.ogv</a></li>
5888   <li>udp://@224.17.43.129:1234</li>
5889 </ul>
5890
5891 <p>The Ogg Theora / icecast stream is not working well, as the video
5892 and audio is slightly out of sync.  We have not been able to figure
5893 out how to fix it.  It is generated by recoding a internal MPEG
5894 transport stream with MPEG4 coded video (ie H.264) to Ogg Theora /
5895 Vorbis, and the result is less then stellar.  If you have ideas how to
5896 fix it, please let us know on frikanalen (at) nuug.no.  We currently
5897 use this with ffmpeg2theora 0.29:</p>
5898
5899 <blockquote><pre>
5900 ./ffmpeg2theora.linux &lt;OBE_gemini_URL.ts&gt; -F 25 -x 720 -y 405 \
5901  --deinterlace --inputfps 25 -c 1 -H 48000 --keyint 8 --buf-delay 100 \
5902  --nosync -V 700 -o - | oggfwd video.nuug.no 8000 &lt;pw&gt; /frikanalen.ogv
5903 </pre></blockquote>
5904
5905 <p>If you get the multicast UDP stream working, please let me know, as
5906 I am curious how far the multicast stream reach.  It do not make it to
5907 my home network, nor any other commercially available network in
5908 Norway that I am aware of.</p>
5909
5910       </div>
5911       <div class="tags">
5912
5913
5914         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
5915
5916
5917       </div>
5918     </div>
5919     <div class="padding"></div>
5920
5921     <div class="entry">
5922       <div class="title">
5923         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Nude_body_scanner_now_present_on_Norwegian_airport.html">Nude body scanner now present on Norwegian airport</a>
5924       </div>
5925       <div class="date">
5926         10th February 2015
5927       </div>
5928       <div class="body">
5929         <p>Aftenposten, one of the largest newspapers in Norway, today report
5930 that
5931 <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/reise/Slik-skannes-kroppen-din-i-fremtidens-sikkerhetskontroll-490666_1.snd">three
5932 of the nude body scanners now is put to use at Gardermoen</a>, the
5933 main airport in Norway.  This way the travelers can have their body
5934 photographed without cloths when visiting Norway.  Of course this
5935 horrible news is presented with a positive spin, stating that "now
5936 travelers can move past the security check point faster and more
5937 efficiently", but fail to mention that the machines in question take
5938 pictures of their nude bodies and store them internally in the
5939 computer, while only presenting sketch figure of the body to the
5940 public.  The article is written in a way that leave the impression
5941 that the new machines do not take these nude pictures and only create
5942 the sketch figures.  In reality the same nude pictures are still
5943 taken, but not presented to everyone.  They are still available for
5944 the owners of the system and the people doing maintenance of the
5945 scanners, as long as they are taken and stored.</p>
5946
5947 <p>Wikipedia have a more on
5948 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_body_scanner">Full body
5949 scanners</a>, including example images and a summary of the
5950 controversy about these scanners.</p>
5951
5952 <p>Personally I will decline to use these machines, as I believe strip
5953 searches of my body is a very intrusive attack on my privacy, and not
5954 something everyone should have to accept to travel.</p>
5955
5956       </div>
5957       <div class="tags">
5958
5959
5960         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
5961
5962
5963       </div>
5964     </div>
5965     <div class="padding"></div>
5966
5967     <div class="entry">
5968       <div class="title">
5969         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Nagios_module_to_check_if_the_Frikanalen_video_stream_is_working.html">Nagios module to check if the Frikanalen video stream is working</a>
5970       </div>
5971       <div class="date">
5972          8th February 2015
5973       </div>
5974       <div class="body">
5975         <p>When running a TV station with both broadcast and web stream
5976 distribution, it is useful to know that the stream is working.  As I
5977 am involved in the Norwegian open channel
5978 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> as part of my
5979 activity in the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member
5980 organisation</a>, I wrote a script to use mplayer to connect to a
5981 video stream, pick two images 35 seconds apart and compare them.  If
5982 the images are missing or identical, something is probably wrong with
5983 the stream and an alarm should be triggered.  The script is written as
5984 a Nagios plugin, allowing us to use Nagios to run the check regularly
5985 and sound the alarm when something is wrong.  It is able to detect
5986 both a hanging and a broken video stream.</p>
5987
5988 <p>I just uploaded the code for the script into the
5989 <a href="https://github.com/Frikanalen/frikanalen/blob/master/nagios-plugin/check_video_stream_images">Frikanalen
5990 git repository</a> on github.  If you run a TV station with web
5991 streaming, perhaps you can find it useful too.</p>
5992
5993 <p>Last year, the Frikanalen public TV station transformed into using
5994 only Linux based free software to administrate, schedule and
5995 distribute the TV content.  The
5996 <a href="https://github.com/Frikanalen">source code for the entire TV
5997 station</a> is available from the Github project page.  Everyone can
5998 use it to send their content on national TV, and we provide both a web
5999 GUI and <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/api/">a web API</a> to
6000 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/login/?next=/members/video/">add</a>
6001 and <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/members/plan/">schedule
6002 content</a>.  And thanks to last weeks developer gathering and
6003 following activity, we now have the schedule
6004 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/xmltv/2015/01/01">available as
6005 XMLTV</a> too.  Still a lot of work left to do, especially with the
6006 process to add videos and with the scheduling, so your contribution is
6007 most welcome.  Perhaps you want to set up your own TV station?</p>
6008
6009 <p>Update 2015-02-25: Got a tip from Uninett about their
6010 <a href="https://scm.uninett.no/maalepaaler/qstream/">qstream
6011 monitoring system</a>, which gather connection time, jitter, packet
6012 loss and burst bandwidth usage.  It look useful to check if UDP
6013 streams are working as they should.</p>
6014
6015       </div>
6016       <div class="tags">
6017
6018
6019         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
6020
6021
6022       </div>
6023     </div>
6024     <div class="padding"></div>
6025
6026     <div class="entry">
6027       <div class="title">
6028         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Norwegian_Bokm_l_subtitles_for_the_FSF_video_User_Liberation.html">Norwegian Bokmål subtitles for the FSF video User Liberation</a>
6029       </div>
6030       <div class="date">
6031         12th January 2015
6032       </div>
6033       <div class="body">
6034         <p>A few days ago, the <a href="https://www.fsf.org/">Free Software
6035 Foundation</a> announced a new video
6036 <a href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/user-liberation-watch-and-share-our-new-video">explaining
6037 Free software</a> in simple terms.  The video named User Liberation is
6038 3 minutes long, and I recommend showing it to everyone you know as a
6039 way to explain what Free Software is all about.  Unfortunately several
6040 of the people I know do not understand English and Spanish, so it did
6041 not make sense to show it to them.</p>
6042
6043 <p>But today I was told that
6044 <a href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/user-liberation-watch-and-share-our-new-video">English
6045 subtitles were available</a> and set out to provide Norwegian Bokmål
6046 subtitles based on these.  The result has been sent to FSF and made
6047 available in
6048 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/fsf-video-user-liberation-subtitles">a
6049 git repository</a> provided by Github.  Please let me know if you find
6050 errors or have improvements to the subtitles.</p>
6051
6052 <p>Update 2015-02-03: Since I publised this post, FSF created a
6053 Libreplanet
6054 <a href="http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:FSF/User_Liberation_Video_Translation">project
6055 to track subtitles</A> for the video.</p>
6056
6057       </div>
6058       <div class="tags">
6059
6060
6061         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
6062
6063
6064       </div>
6065     </div>
6066     <div class="padding"></div>
6067
6068     <div class="entry">
6069       <div class="title">
6070         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Updated_version_of_the_Norwegian_web_service_FiksGataMi.html">Updated version of the Norwegian web service FiksGataMi</a>
6071       </div>
6072       <div class="date">
6073         30th December 2014
6074       </div>
6075       <div class="body">
6076         <p>I am very happy that we in the
6077 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User group (NUUG)</a>,
6078 spearheaded by Marius Halden from NUUG and Matthew Somerville from
6079 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>, finally managed to
6080 upgrade the code base for the Norwegian version of
6081 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org/">FixMyStreet</a>.  This
6082 was the first major update since 2011. The refurbished
6083 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is already live, and
6084 seem to hold up the pressure.  The
6085 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Pressemelding__FiksGataMi_i_oppdatert_og_mobilvennlig_klesdrakt.shtml">press
6086 release and announcement</a> went out this morning.</p>
6087
6088 <p>FixMyStreet is a web platform for allowing the citizens to easily
6089 report problems with public infrastructure to the responsible
6090 authorities.  Think of it as a shared mail client with map support,
6091 allowing everyone to see what already was reported and comment on the
6092 reports in public.</p>
6093
6094       </div>
6095       <div class="tags">
6096
6097
6098         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
6099
6100
6101       </div>
6102     </div>
6103     <div class="padding"></div>
6104
6105     <div class="entry">
6106       <div class="title">
6107         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Of_course_USA_loses_in_cyber_war___NSA_and_friends_made_sure_it_would_happen.html">Of course USA loses in cyber war - NSA and friends made sure it would happen</a>
6108       </div>
6109       <div class="date">
6110         19th December 2014
6111       </div>
6112       <div class="body">
6113         <p>So, Sony caved in
6114 (<a href="https://twitter.com/RobLowe/status/545338568512917504">according
6115 to Rob Lowe</a>) and demonstrated that America lost its first cyberwar
6116 (<a href="https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/545339074975109122">according
6117 to Newt Gingrich</a>).  It should not surprise anyone, after the
6118 whistle blower Edward Snowden documented that the government of USA
6119 and their allies for many years have done their best to make sure the
6120 technology used by its citizens is filled with security holes allowing
6121 the secret services to spy on its own population.  No one in their
6122 right minds could believe that the ability to snoop on the people all
6123 over the globe could only be used by the personnel authorized to do so
6124 by the president of the United States of America.  If the capabilities
6125 are there, they will be used by friend and foe alike, and now they are
6126 being used to bring Sony on its knees.</p>
6127
6128 <p>I doubt it will a lesson learned, and expect USA to lose its next
6129 cyber war too, given how eager the western intelligence communities
6130 (and probably the non-western too, but it is less in the news) seem to
6131 be to continue its current dragnet surveillance practice.</p>
6132
6133 <p>There is a reason why China and others are trying to move away from
6134 Windows to Linux and other alternatives, and it is not to avoid
6135 sending its hard earned dollars to Cayman Islands (or whatever
6136 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_haven">tax haven</a>
6137 Microsoft is using these days to collect the majority of its
6138 income. :)</p>
6139
6140       </div>
6141       <div class="tags">
6142
6143
6144         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
6145
6146
6147       </div>
6148     </div>
6149     <div class="padding"></div>
6150
6151     <div class="entry">
6152       <div class="title">
6153         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html">How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</a>
6154       </div>
6155       <div class="date">
6156         22nd November 2014
6157       </div>
6158       <div class="body">
6159         <p>By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
6160 sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
6161 sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
6162 courtesy of
6163 <a href="http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html">Erich
6164 Schubert</a> and
6165 <a href="http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/">Simon
6166 McVittie</a>.
6167
6168 <p>If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
6169 keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
6170 <tt>/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit</tt> with this content before
6171 you upgrade:</p>
6172
6173 <p><blockquote><pre>
6174 Package: systemd-sysv
6175 Pin: release o=Debian
6176 Pin-Priority: -1
6177 </pre></blockquote><p>
6178
6179 <p>This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
6180 installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
6181 solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
6182 systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
6183 upgraded system keep using sysvinit.</p>
6184
6185 <p>If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
6186 get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
6187 debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
6188 installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
6189 using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
6190 preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:
6191
6192 <p><blockquote><pre>
6193 preseed/late_command="in-target apt-get install --purge -y sysvinit-core"
6194 </pre></blockquote><p>
6195
6196 <p>Next, the line to use in a preseed file:</p>
6197
6198 <p><blockquote><pre>
6199 d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
6200 </pre></blockquote><p>
6201
6202 <p>One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
6203 the sysvinit-core package.</p>
6204
6205 <p>I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
6206 sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
6207 on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
6208 devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
6209 boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
6210 Jessie is released.</p>
6211
6212 <p>Update 2014-11-26: Inspired by
6213 <ahref="https://www.mirbsd.org/permalinks/wlog-10-tg_e20141125-tg.htm#e20141125-tg_wlog-10-tg">a
6214 blog post by Torsten Glaser</a>, added --purge to the preseed
6215 line.</p>
6216
6217       </div>
6218       <div class="tags">
6219
6220
6221         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6222
6223
6224       </div>
6225     </div>
6226     <div class="padding"></div>
6227
6228     <div class="entry">
6229       <div class="title">
6230         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html">A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</a>
6231       </div>
6232       <div class="date">
6233         10th November 2014
6234       </div>
6235       <div class="body">
6236         <p>The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
6237 without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
6238 democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.</p>
6239
6240 <p>A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
6241 surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
6242 the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
6243 is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
6244 a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
6245 between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
6246 to the people peeking on the wire.  I
6247 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html">proposed
6248 this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October</a> and got a
6249 lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
6250 that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
6251 documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
6252 <a href="https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP">the
6253 Mailpile</a> and <a href="http://dee.su/cables">the Cables</a> systems
6254 propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.</p>
6255
6256 <p>To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
6257 providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
6258 looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
6259 the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
6260 go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
6261 Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
6262 emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
6263 in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
6264 set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
6265 set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
6266 were fairly easy, and
6267 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp">the
6268 source code for the Debian package</a> is available from github.  I
6269 plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
6270 useful approach.</p>
6271
6272 <p>If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
6273 mail system installed (or run <tt>apt-get purge exim4-config</tt> to
6274 get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
6275 above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
6276 <tt>/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service</tt> and follow
6277 the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
6278 exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
6279 this:</p>
6280
6281 <p><blockquote><pre>
6282 torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
6283   --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
6284 </pre></blockquote></p>
6285
6286 <p>This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
6287 address with your own address to test your server. :)</p>
6288
6289 <p>The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
6290 easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
6291 Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
6292 should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
6293 architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
6294 to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
6295 exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
6296 no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
6297 exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
6298 socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
6299 system.</p>
6300
6301 <p>Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
6302 <tt>fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion</tt> mail address, deliverable over
6303 SMTorP. :)</p>
6304
6305       </div>
6306       <div class="tags">
6307
6308
6309         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
6310
6311
6312       </div>
6313     </div>
6314     <div class="padding"></div>
6315
6316     <div class="entry">
6317       <div class="title">
6318         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_released__alpha0_.html">First Jessie based Debian Edu released (alpha0)</a>
6319       </div>
6320       <div class="date">
6321         27th October 2014
6322       </div>
6323       <div class="body">
6324         <p>I am happy to report that I on behalf of the Debian Edu team just
6325 sent out
6326 <a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2014/10/msg00000.html">this
6327 announcement</a>:</p>
6328
6329 <pre>
6330 The Debian Edu Team is pleased to announce the release of Debian Edu
6331 Jessie 8.0+edu0~alpha0
6332
6333 Debian Edu is a complete operating system for schools. Through its
6334 various installation profiles you can install servers, workstations
6335 and laptops which will work together on the school network. With
6336 Debian Edu, the teachers themselves or their technical support can
6337 roll out a complete multi-user multi-machine study environment within
6338 hours or a few days. Debian Edu comes with hundreds of applications
6339 pre-installed, but you can always add more packages from Debian.
6340
6341 For those who want to give Debian Edu Jessie a try, download and
6342 installation instructions are available, including detailed
6343 instructions in the manual[1] explaining the first steps, such as
6344 setting up a network or adding users. Please note that the password
6345 for the user your prompted for during installation must have a length
6346 of at least 5 characters!
6347
6348  [1] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie</a> &gt;
6349
6350 Would you like to give your school's computer a longer life? Are you
6351 tired of sneaker administration, running from computer to computer
6352 reinstalling the operating system? Would you like to administrate all
6353 the computers in your school using only a couple of hours every week?
6354 Check out Debian Edu Jessie!
6355
6356 Skolelinux is used by at least two hundred schools all over the world,
6357 mostly in Germany and Norway.
6358
6359 About Debian Edu and Skolelinux
6360 ===============================
6361
6362 Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux[2], is a Linux distribution based
6363 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
6364 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
6365 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
6366 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
6367 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
6368 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
6369 machines can be installed via the network.  The provided school server
6370 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
6371 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
6372 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
6373 packages[3] and more are available from the Debian archive, and
6374 schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE, Xfce and MATE desktop
6375 environment.
6376
6377  [2] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">http://www.skolelinux.org/</a> &gt;
6378  [3] &lt;URL: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html</a> &gt;
6379
6380 Full release notes and manual
6381 =============================
6382
6383 Below the download URLs there is a list of some of the new features
6384 and bugfixes of Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie. The full
6385 list is part of the manual. (See the feature list in the manual[4] for
6386 the English version.) For some languages manual translations are
6387 available, see the manual translation overview[5].
6388
6389  [4] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features</a> &gt;
6390  [5] &lt;URL: <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/</a> &gt;
6391
6392 Where to get it
6393 ---------------
6394
6395 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release (624 MiB) you can use
6396
6397  * <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>
6398  * <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>
6399  * rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso .
6400
6401 The SHA1SUM of this image is: 361188818e036ce67280a572f757de82ebfeb095
6402
6403 New features for Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie released 2014-10-27
6404 ===============================================================================
6405
6406
6407 Installation changes
6408 --------------------
6409
6410  * PXE installation now installs firmware automatically for the hardware present.
6411
6412 Software updates
6413 ----------------
6414
6415 Everything which is new in Debian Jessie 8.0, eg:
6416
6417  * Linux kernel 3.16.x
6418  * Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.11.12, GNOME 3.14, Xfce 4.10,
6419    LXDE 0.5.6 and MATE 1.8 (KDE "Plasma" is installed by default; to
6420    choose one of the others see manual.)
6421  * the browsers Iceweasel 31 ESR and Chromium 38
6422  * !LibreOffice 4.3.3
6423  * GOsa 2.7.4
6424  * LTSP 5.5.4
6425  * CUPS print system 1.7.5
6426  * new boot framework: systemd
6427  * Educational toolbox GCompris 14.07
6428  * Music creator Rosegarden 14.02
6429  * Image editor Gimp 2.8.14
6430  * Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.13.0
6431  * golearn 0.9
6432  * tuxpaint 0.9.22
6433  * New version of debian-installer from Debian Jessie.
6434  * Debian Jessie includes about 42000 packages available for
6435    installation.
6436  * More information about Debian Jessie 8.0 is provided in the release
6437    notes[6] and the installation manual[7].
6438
6439  [6] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes</a> &gt;
6440  [7] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual</a> &gt;
6441
6442 Fixed bugs
6443 ----------
6444
6445  * Inserting incorrect DNS information in Gosa will no longer break
6446    DNS completely, but instead stop DNS updates until the incorrect
6447    information is corrected (Debian bug #710362)
6448  * and many others.
6449
6450 Documentation and translation updates
6451 -------------------------------------
6452
6453  * The Debian Edu Jessie Manual is fully translated to German, French,
6454    Italian, Danish and Dutch. Partly translated versions exist for
6455    Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.
6456
6457 Other changes
6458 -------------
6459
6460  * Due to new Squid settings, powering off or rebooting the main
6461    server takes more time.
6462  * To manage printers localhost:631 has to be used, currently www:631
6463    doesn't work.
6464
6465 Regressions / known problems
6466 ----------------------------
6467
6468  * Installing LTSP chroot fails with a bug related to eatmydata about
6469    exim4-config failing to run its postinst (see Debian bug #765694
6470    and Debian bug #762103).
6471  * Munin collection is not properly configured on clients (Debian bug
6472    #764594).  The fix is available in a newer version of munin-node.
6473  * PXE setup for Main Server and Thin Client Server setup does not
6474    work when installing on a machine without direct Internet access.
6475    Will be fixed when Debian bug #766960 is fixed in Jessie.
6476
6477 See the status page[8] for the complete list.
6478
6479  [8] &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie</a> &gt;
6480
6481 How to report bugs
6482 ------------------
6483
6484 &lt;URL: <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a> &gt;
6485
6486 About Debian
6487 ============
6488
6489 The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
6490 free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
6491 the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
6492 volunteers from all over the world work together to create and
6493 maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a
6494 huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal
6495 operating system.
6496
6497 Contact Information
6498 For further information, please visit the Debian web pages[9] or send
6499 mail to press@debian.org.
6500
6501  [9] &lt;URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a> &gt;
6502 </pre>
6503
6504       </div>
6505       <div class="tags">
6506
6507
6508         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>.
6509
6510
6511       </div>
6512     </div>
6513     <div class="padding"></div>
6514
6515     <div class="entry">
6516       <div class="title">
6517         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_spent_last_weekend_recording_MakerCon_Nordic.html">I spent last weekend recording MakerCon Nordic</a>
6518       </div>
6519       <div class="date">
6520         23rd October 2014
6521       </div>
6522       <div class="body">
6523         <p>I spent last weekend at <a href="http://www.makercon.no/">Makercon
6524 Nordic</a>, a great conference and workshop for makers in Norway and
6525 the surrounding countries.  I had volunteered on behalf of the
6526 Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG) to video record the talks, and we
6527 had a great and exhausting time recording the entire day, two days in
6528 a row.  There were only two of us, Hans-Petter and me, and we used the
6529 regular video equipment for NUUG, with a
6530 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">dvswitch</a>, a
6531 camera and a VGA to DV convert box, and mixed video and slides
6532 live.</p>
6533
6534 <p>Hans-Petter did the post-processing, consisting of uploading the
6535 around 180 GiB of raw video to Youtube, and the result is
6536 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/MakerConNordic/">now becoming
6537 public</a> on the MakerConNordic account.  The videos have the license
6538 NUUG always use on our recordings, which is
6539 <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/no/">Creative
6540 Commons Navngivelse-Del på samme vilkår 3.0 Norge</a>.  Many great
6541 talks available.  Check it out! :)</p>
6542
6543       </div>
6544       <div class="tags">
6545
6546
6547         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
6548
6549
6550       </div>
6551     </div>
6552     <div class="padding"></div>
6553
6554     <div class="entry">
6555       <div class="title">
6556         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html">listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</a>
6557       </div>
6558       <div class="date">
6559         22nd October 2014
6560       </div>
6561       <div class="body">
6562         <p>If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
6563 alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
6564 operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
6565 and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
6566 and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
6567 every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
6568 job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
6569 <a href="http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin">the
6570 listadmin program</a>.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
6571 to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
6572 lists I recently took over:</p>
6573
6574 <p><blockquote><pre>
6575 % time listadmin xiph
6576 fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
6577 fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
6578
6579 real    0m1.709s
6580 user    0m0.232s
6581 sys     0m0.012s
6582 %
6583 </pre></blockquote></p>
6584
6585 <p>In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
6586 there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
6587 currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
6588 minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
6589 ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
6590 less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
6591 program.</p>
6592
6593 <p>If you install
6594 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin">the listadmin
6595 package</a> from Debian and create a file <tt>~/.listadmin.ini</tt>
6596 with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:</p>
6597
6598 <p><blockquote><pre>
6599 username username@example.org
6600 spamlevel 23
6601 default discard
6602 discard_if_reason "Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list."
6603
6604 password secret
6605 adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
6606 mailman-list@lists.example.com
6607
6608 password hidden
6609 other-list@otherserver.example.org
6610 </pre></blockquote></p>
6611
6612 <p>There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
6613 learn the details.</p>
6614
6615 <p>If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
6616 the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
6617 generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
6618 variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:</p>
6619
6620 <p><blockquote><pre>
6621 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
6622 </pre></blockquote></p>
6623
6624 <p>If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
6625 can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
6626 initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
6627 lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
6628 quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
6629 email.</p>
6630
6631 <p>Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
6632 mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
6633 process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
6634 time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
6635 software.</p>
6636
6637 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
6638 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
6639 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
6640
6641 <p>Update 2014-10-27: Added missing 'username' statement in
6642 configuration example.  Also, I've been told that the
6643 PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
6644 sure why.</p>
6645
6646       </div>
6647       <div class="tags">
6648
6649
6650         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
6651
6652
6653       </div>
6654     </div>
6655     <div class="padding"></div>
6656
6657     <div class="entry">
6658       <div class="title">
6659         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html">Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</a>
6660       </div>
6661       <div class="date">
6662         17th October 2014
6663       </div>
6664       <div class="body">
6665         <p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
6666 problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
6667 And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
6668 Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
6669 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
6670 package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
6671 to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
6672
6673 <p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
6674 firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
6675 the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
6676 programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
6677 of this story.)</p>
6678
6679 <p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
6680 values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
6681 into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
6682 in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
6683 preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
6684 isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
6685 for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
6686 will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
6687 packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
6688 isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
6689
6690 <p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
6691 most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
6692 the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
6693 hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
6694
6695 <p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
6696 firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
6697
6698 <p><blockquote><pre>
6699 base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
6700 apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
6701 </pre></blockquote></p>
6702
6703 <p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
6704 both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
6705 do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
6706 firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
6707 want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
6708 and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
6709 default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
6710 implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
6711
6712 <p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
6713 this recipe work for you. :)</p>
6714
6715 <p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
6716 foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
6717 files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
6718 isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
6719 is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
6720
6721 <p><blockquote><pre>
6722 Task: isenkram-packages
6723 Section: hardware
6724 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
6725  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
6726  proposed.
6727 Test-new-install: show show
6728 Relevance: 8
6729 Packages: for-current-hardware
6730
6731 Task: isenkram-firmware
6732 Section: hardware
6733 Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
6734  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
6735  packages are proposed.
6736 Test-new-install: mark show
6737 Relevance: 8
6738 Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
6739 </pre></blockquote></p>
6740
6741 <p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
6742 should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
6743 /usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
6744 list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
6745 look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
6746
6747 <p><blockquote><pre>
6748 #!/bin/sh
6749 #
6750 PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
6751 export PATH
6752 isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
6753 </pre></blockquote></p>
6754
6755 <p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
6756 tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
6757
6758 <p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
6759 installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
6760 --new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
6761 install.</p>
6762
6763 <p><a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
6764 pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
6765 install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.</p>
6766
6767       </div>
6768       <div class="tags">
6769
6770
6771         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
6772
6773
6774       </div>
6775     </div>
6776     <div class="padding"></div>
6777
6778     <div class="entry">
6779       <div class="title">
6780         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html">Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</a>
6781       </div>
6782       <div class="date">
6783          4th October 2014
6784       </div>
6785       <div class="body">
6786         <p>Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
6787 bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
6788 with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
6789 on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:</p>
6790
6791 <p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg"></p>
6792
6793 <p>If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
6794 about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
6795 <a href="http://revealingerrors.com/">errors can reveal</a>.</p>
6796
6797       </div>
6798       <div class="tags">
6799
6800
6801         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6802
6803
6804       </div>
6805     </div>
6806     <div class="padding"></div>
6807
6808     <div class="entry">
6809       <div class="title">
6810         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html">New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</a>
6811       </div>
6812       <div class="date">
6813          4th October 2014
6814       </div>
6815       <div class="body">
6816         <p>The <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd project</a>
6817 got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
6818 developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
6819 This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
6820 Dibb.</p>
6821
6822 <p>I just wrapped up
6823 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/">a
6824 new lsdvd release</a>, available in git or from
6825 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/">the
6826 download page</a>.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
6827 0.17.</p>
6828
6829 <ul>
6830
6831  <li>Ignore 'phantom' audio, subtitle tracks</li>
6832  <li>Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
6833    non-existant, to work around additional copy protection</li>
6834  <li>Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles</li>
6835  <li>Fix pallete display of first entry</li>
6836  <li>Fix include orders</li>
6837  <li>Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway</li>
6838  <li>Fix the chapter count</li>
6839  <li>Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
6840    the palette size is the same.</li>
6841  <li>Fix array printing.</li>
6842  <li>Correct subsecond calculations.</li>
6843  <li>Add sector information to the output format.</li>
6844  <li>Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
6845    with more GCC compiler warnings.</li>
6846
6847 </ul>
6848
6849 <p>This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
6850 Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
6851 project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)</p>
6852
6853       </div>
6854       <div class="tags">
6855
6856
6857         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
6858
6859
6860       </div>
6861     </div>
6862     <div class="padding"></div>
6863
6864     <div class="entry">
6865       <div class="title">
6866         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html">How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</a>
6867       </div>
6868       <div class="date">
6869         26th September 2014
6870       </div>
6871       <div class="body">
6872         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6873 project</a> provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
6874 powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
6875 web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
6876 boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
6877 Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
6878 to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
6879 the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
6880 freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
6881 future.  The
6882 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">current
6883 status</a> can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
6884 work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
6885 but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
6886 recipe on how to get the installation limping along.</p>
6887
6888 <p>First, download the test ISO via
6889 <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">ftp</a>,
6890 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso">http</a>
6891 or rsync (use
6892 ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
6893 The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
6894 12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
6895 install with some tweaking.</p>
6896
6897 <p>When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
6898 (use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run</p>
6899
6900 <p><blockquote><pre>
6901 nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
6902 </pre></blockquote></p>
6903
6904 <p>and add 'exit 0' as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
6905 optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
6906 and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
6907 due to a known bug in eatmydata.</p>
6908
6909 <p>When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
6910 this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
6911 test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
6912 your need.</p>
6913
6914 <p>If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
6915 root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
6916 education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
6917 or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
6918 metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
6919 graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
6920 once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
6921 days.</p>
6922
6923 <p>I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
6924 tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
6925 update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
6926 issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
6927 on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
6928 eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
6929 require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
6930 provided in bug <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">#702711</a>.
6931 The rest have proper fixes in unstable.</p>
6932
6933 <p>I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
6934 quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
6935 installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.</p>
6936
6937       </div>
6938       <div class="tags">
6939
6940
6941         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
6942
6943
6944       </div>
6945     </div>
6946     <div class="padding"></div>
6947
6948     <div class="entry">
6949       <div class="title">
6950         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html">Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</a>
6951       </div>
6952       <div class="date">
6953         25th September 2014
6954       </div>
6955       <div class="body">
6956         <p>I use the <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/">lsdvd tool</a>
6957 to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
6958 tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
6959 etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
6960 any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
6961 its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
6962 sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
6963 project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
6964 get <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd">an updated version
6965 into Debian</a>.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
6966 the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
6967 he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
6968 over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.</p>
6969
6970 <p>I've been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
6971 maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
6972 project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
6973 collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
6974 I've added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
6975 repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
6976 a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
6977 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/">the git source</a> and join
6978 <a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/">the project mailing
6979 list</a>. :)</p>
6980
6981       </div>
6982       <div class="tags">
6983
6984
6985         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
6986
6987
6988       </div>
6989     </div>
6990     <div class="padding"></div>
6991
6992     <div class="entry">
6993       <div class="title">
6994         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">Speeding up the Debian installer using eatmydata and dpkg-divert</a>
6995       </div>
6996       <div class="date">
6997         16th September 2014
6998       </div>
6999       <div class="body">
7000         <p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> installer could be
7001 a lot quicker.  When we install more than 2000 packages in
7002 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> using
7003 tasksel in the installer, unpacking the binary packages take forever.
7004 A part of the slow I/O issue was discussed in
7005 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/613428">bug #613428</a> about too
7006 much file system sync-ing done by dpkg, which is the package
7007 responsible for unpacking the binary packages.  Other parts (like code
7008 executed by postinst scripts) might also sync to disk during
7009 installation.  All this sync-ing to disk do not really make sense to
7010 me.  If the machine crash half-way through, I start over, I do not try
7011 to salvage the half installed system.  So the failure sync-ing is
7012 supposed to protect against, hardware or system crash, is not really
7013 relevant while the installer is running.</p>
7014
7015 <p>A few days ago, I thought of a way to get rid of all the file
7016 system sync()-ing in a fairly non-intrusive way, without the need to
7017 change the code in several packages.  The idea is not new, but I have
7018 not heard anyone propose the approach using dpkg-divert before.  It
7019 depend on the small and clever package
7020 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/eatmydata">eatmydata</a>, which
7021 uses LD_PRELOAD to replace the system functions for syncing data to
7022 disk with functions doing nothing, thus allowing programs to live
7023 dangerous while speeding up disk I/O significantly.  Instead of
7024 modifying the implementation of dpkg, apt and tasksel (which are the
7025 packages responsible for selecting, fetching and installing packages),
7026 it occurred to me that we could just divert the programs away, replace
7027 them with a simple shell wrapper calling
7028 "eatmydata&nbsp;$program&nbsp;$@", to get the same effect.
7029 Two days ago I decided to test the idea, and wrapped up a simple
7030 implementation for the Debian Edu udeb.</p>
7031
7032 <p>The effect was stunning.  In my first test it reduced the running
7033 time of the pkgsel step (installing tasks) from 64 to less than 44
7034 minutes (20 minutes shaved off the installation) on an old Dell
7035 Latitude D505 machine.  I am not quite sure what the optimised time
7036 would have been, as I messed up the testing a bit, causing the debconf
7037 priority to get low enough for two questions to pop up during
7038 installation.  As soon as I saw the questions I moved the installation
7039 along, but do not know how long the question were holding up the
7040 installation.  I did some more measurements using Debian Edu Jessie,
7041 and got these results.  The time measured is the time stamp in
7042 /var/log/syslog between the "pkgsel: starting tasksel" and the
7043 "pkgsel: finishing up" lines, if you want to do the same measurement
7044 yourself.  In Debian Edu, the tasksel dialog do not show up, and the
7045 timing thus do not depend on how quickly the user handle the tasksel
7046 dialog.</p>
7047
7048 <p><table>
7049
7050 <tr>
7051 <th>Machine/setup</th>
7052 <th>Original tasksel</th>
7053 <th>Optimised tasksel</th>
7054 <th>Reduction</th>
7055 </tr>
7056
7057 <tr>
7058 <td>Latitude D505 Main+LTSP LXDE</td>
7059 <td>64 min (07:46-08:50)</td>
7060 <td><44 min (11:27-12:11)</td>
7061 <td>>20 min 18%</td>
7062 </tr>
7063
7064 <tr>
7065 <td>Latitude D505 Roaming LXDE</td>
7066 <td>57 min (08:48-09:45)</td>
7067 <td>34 min (07:43-08:17)</td>
7068 <td>23 min 40%</td>
7069 </tr>
7070
7071 <tr>
7072 <td>Latitude D505 Minimal</td>
7073 <td>22 min (10:37-10:59)</td>
7074 <td>11 min (11:16-11:27)</td>
7075 <td>11 min 50%</td>
7076 </tr>
7077
7078 <tr>
7079 <td>Thinkpad X200 Minimal</td>
7080 <td>6 min (08:19-08:25)</td>
7081 <td>4 min (08:04-08:08)</td>
7082 <td>2 min 33%</td>
7083 </tr>
7084
7085 <tr>
7086 <td>Thinkpad X200 Roaming KDE</td>
7087 <td>19 min (09:21-09:40)</td>
7088 <td>15 min (10:25-10:40)</td>
7089 <td>4 min 21%</td>
7090 </tr>
7091
7092 </table></p>
7093
7094 <p>The test is done using a netinst ISO on a USB stick, so some of the
7095 time is spent downloading packages.  The connection to the Internet
7096 was 100Mbit/s during testing, so downloading should not be a
7097 significant factor in the measurement.  Download typically took a few
7098 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount of packages being
7099 installed.</p>
7100
7101 <p>The speedup is implemented by using two hooks in
7102 <a href="https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/">Debian
7103 Installer</a>, the pre-pkgsel.d hook to set up the diverts, and the
7104 finish-install.d hook to remove the divert at the end of the
7105 installation.  I picked the pre-pkgsel.d hook instead of the
7106 post-base-installer.d hook because I test using an ISO without the
7107 eatmydata package included, and the post-base-installer.d hook in
7108 Debian Edu can only operate on packages included in the ISO.  The
7109 negative effect of this is that I am unable to activate this
7110 optimization for the kernel installation step in d-i.  If the code is
7111 moved to the post-base-installer.d hook, the speedup would be larger
7112 for the entire installation.</p>
7113
7114 <p>I've implemented this in the
7115 <a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-install">debian-edu-install</a>
7116 git repository, and plan to provide the optimization as part of the
7117 Debian Edu installation.  If you want to test this yourself, you can
7118 create two files in the installer (or in an udeb).  One shell script
7119 need do go into /usr/lib/pre-pkgsel.d/, with content like this:</p>
7120
7121 <p><blockquote><pre>
7122 #!/bin/sh
7123 set -e
7124 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
7125 info() {
7126     logger -t my-pkgsel "info: $*"
7127 }
7128 error() {
7129     logger -t my-pkgsel "error: $*"
7130 }
7131 override_install() {
7132     apt-install eatmydata || true
7133     if [ -x /target/usr/bin/eatmydata ] ; then
7134         for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
7135             file=/usr/bin/$bin
7136             # Test that the file exist and have not been diverted already.
7137             if [ -f /target$file ] ; then
7138                 info "diverting $file using eatmydata"
7139                 printf "#!/bin/sh\neatmydata $bin.distrib \"\$@\"\n" \
7140                     > /target$file.edu
7141                 chmod 755 /target$file.edu
7142                 in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
7143                     --rename --quiet --add $file
7144                 ln -sf ./$bin.edu /target$file
7145             else
7146                 error "unable to divert $file, as it is missing."
7147             fi
7148         done
7149     else
7150         error "unable to find /usr/bin/eatmydata after installing the eatmydata pacage"
7151     fi
7152 }
7153
7154 override_install
7155 </pre></blockquote></p>
7156
7157 <p>To clean up, another shell script should go into
7158 /usr/lib/finish-install.d/ with code like this:
7159
7160 <p><blockquote><pre>
7161 #! /bin/sh -e
7162 . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
7163 error() {
7164     logger -t my-finish-install "error: $@"
7165 }
7166 remove_install_override() {
7167     for bin in dpkg apt-get aptitude tasksel ; do
7168         file=/usr/bin/$bin
7169         if [ -x /target$file.edu ] ; then
7170             rm /target$file
7171             in-target dpkg-divert --package debian-edu-config \
7172                 --rename --quiet --remove $file
7173             rm /target$file.edu
7174         else
7175             error "Missing divert for $file."
7176         fi
7177     done
7178     sync # Flush file buffers before continuing
7179 }
7180
7181 remove_install_override
7182 </pre></blockquote></p>
7183
7184 <p>In Debian Edu, I placed both code fragments in a separate script
7185 edu-eatmydata-install and call it from the pre-pkgsel.d and
7186 finish-install.d scripts.</p>
7187
7188 <p>By now you might ask if this change should get into the normal
7189 Debian installer too?  I suspect it should, but am not sure the
7190 current debian-installer coordinators find it useful enough.  It also
7191 depend on the side effects of the change.  I'm not aware of any, but I
7192 guess we will see if the change is safe after some more testing.
7193 Perhaps there is some package in Debian depending on sync() and
7194 fsync() having effect?  Perhaps it should go into its own udeb, to
7195 allow those of us wanting to enable it to do so without affecting
7196 everyone.</p>
7197
7198 <p>Update 2014-09-24: Since a few days ago, enabling this optimization
7199 will break installation of all programs using gnutls because of
7200 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/702711">bug #702711</a>.  An updated
7201 eatmydata package in Debian will solve it.</p>
7202
7203 <p>Update 2014-10-17: The bug mentioned above is fixed in testing and
7204 the optimization work again.  And I have discovered that the
7205 dpkg-divert trick is not really needed and implemented a slightly
7206 simpler approach as part of the debian-edu-install package.  See
7207 tools/edu-eatmydata-install in the source package.</p>
7208
7209 <p>Update 2014-11-11: Unfortunately, a new
7210 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/765738">bug #765738</a> in eatmydata only
7211 triggering on i386 made it into testing, and broke this installation
7212 optimization again.  If <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/768893">unblock
7213 request 768893</a> is accepted, it should be working again.</p>
7214
7215       </div>
7216       <div class="tags">
7217
7218
7219         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
7220
7221
7222       </div>
7223     </div>
7224     <div class="padding"></div>
7225
7226     <div class="entry">
7227       <div class="title">
7228         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_bye_subkeys_pgp_net__welcome_pool_sks_keyservers_net.html">Good bye subkeys.pgp.net, welcome pool.sks-keyservers.net</a>
7229       </div>
7230       <div class="date">
7231         10th September 2014
7232       </div>
7233       <div class="body">
7234         <p>Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk with the
7235 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> about
7236 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20140909-sks-keyservers/">the
7237 OpenPGP keyserver pool sks-keyservers.net</a>, and was very happy to
7238 learn that there is a large set of publicly available key servers to
7239 use when looking for peoples public key.  So far I have used
7240 subkeys.pgp.net, and some times wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net when the former
7241 were misbehaving, but those days are ended.  The servers I have used
7242 up until yesterday have been slow and some times unavailable.  I hope
7243 those problems are gone now.</p>
7244
7245 <p>Behind the round robin DNS entry of the
7246 <a href="https://sks-keyservers.net/">sks-keyservers.net</a> service
7247 there is a pool of more than 100 keyservers which are checked every
7248 day to ensure they are well connected and up to date.  It must be
7249 better than what I have used so far. :)</p>
7250
7251 <p>Yesterdays speaker told me that the service is the default
7252 keyserver provided by the default configuration in GnuPG, but this do
7253 not seem to be used in Debian.  Perhaps it should?</p>
7254
7255 <p>Anyway, I've updated my ~/.gnupg/options file to now include this
7256 line:</p>
7257
7258 <p><blockquote><pre>
7259 keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net
7260 </pre></blockquote></p>
7261
7262 <p>With GnuPG version 2 one can also locate the keyserver using SRV
7263 entries in DNS.  Just for fun, I did just that at work, so now every
7264 user of GnuPG at the University of Oslo should find a OpenGPG
7265 keyserver automatically should their need it:</p>
7266
7267 <p><blockquote><pre>
7268 % host -t srv _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no
7269 _pgpkey-http._tcp.uio.no has SRV record 0 100 11371 pool.sks-keyservers.net.
7270 %
7271 </pre></blockquote></p>
7272
7273 <p>Now if only
7274 <a href="http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-shaw-openpgp-hkp/">the
7275 HKP lookup protocol</a> supported finding signature paths, I would be
7276 very happy.  It can look up a given key or search for a user ID, but I
7277 normally do not want that, but to find a trust path from my key to
7278 another key.  Given a user ID or key ID, I would like to find (and
7279 download) the keys representing a signature path from my key to the
7280 key in question, to be able to get a trust path between the two keys.
7281 This is as far as I can tell not possible today.  Perhaps something
7282 for a future version of the protocol?</p>
7283
7284       </div>
7285       <div class="tags">
7286
7287
7288         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
7289
7290
7291       </div>
7292     </div>
7293     <div class="padding"></div>
7294
7295     <div class="entry">
7296       <div class="title">
7297         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Do_you_need_an_agreement_with_MPEG_LA_to_publish_and_broadcast_H_264_video_in_Norway_.html">Do you need an agreement with MPEG-LA to publish and broadcast H.264 video in Norway?</a>
7298       </div>
7299       <div class="date">
7300         25th August 2014
7301       </div>
7302       <div class="body">
7303         <p>Two years later, I am still not sure if it is legal here in Norway
7304 to use or publish a video in H.264 or MPEG4 format edited by the
7305 commercially licensed video editors, without limiting the use to
7306 create "personal" or "non-commercial" videos or get a license
7307 agreement with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com">MPEG LA</a>.  If one
7308 want to publish and broadcast video in a non-personal or commercial
7309 setting, it might be that those tools can not be used, or that video
7310 format can not be used, without breaking their copyright license.  I
7311 am not sure.
7312 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Trenger_en_avtale_med_MPEG_LA_for___publisere_og_kringkaste_H_264_video_.html">Back
7313 then</a>, I found that the copyright license terms for Adobe Premiere
7314 and Apple Final Cut Pro both specified that one could not use the
7315 program to produce anything else without a patent license from MPEG
7316 LA.  The issue is not limited to those two products, though.  Other
7317 much used products like those from Avid and Sorenson Media have terms
7318 of use are similar to those from Adobe and Apple.  The complicating
7319 factor making me unsure if those terms have effect in Norway or not is
7320 that the patents in question are not valid in Norway, but copyright
7321 licenses are.</p>
7322
7323 <p>These are the terms for Avid Artist Suite, according to their
7324 <a href="http://www.avid.com/US/about-avid/legal-notices/legal-enduserlicense2">published
7325 end user</a>
7326 <a href="http://www.avid.com/static/resources/common/documents/corporate/LICENSE.pdf">license
7327 text</a> (converted to lower case text for easier reading):</p>
7328
7329 <p><blockquote>
7330 <p>18.2. MPEG-4. MPEG-4 technology may be included with the
7331 software. MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice: </p>
7332
7333 <p>This product is licensed under the MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio
7334 license for the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer for (i)
7335 encoding video in compliance with the MPEG-4 visual standard (“MPEG-4
7336 video”) and/or (ii) decoding MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a
7337 consumer engaged in a personal and non-commercial activity and/or was
7338 obtained from a video provider licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4
7339 video.  No license is granted or shall be implied for any other
7340 use. Additional information including that relating to promotional,
7341 internal and commercial uses and licensing may be obtained from MPEG
7342 LA, LLC.  See http://www.mpegla.com. This product is licensed under
7343 the MPEG-4 systems patent portfolio license for encoding in compliance
7344 with the MPEG-4 systems standard, except that an additional license
7345 and payment of royalties are necessary for encoding in connection with
7346 (i) data stored or replicated in physical media which is paid for on a
7347 title by title basis and/or (ii) data which is paid for on a title by
7348 title basis and is transmitted to an end user for permanent storage
7349 and/or use, such additional license may be obtained from MPEG LA,
7350 LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for additional details.</p>
7351
7352 <p>18.3. H.264/AVC. H.264/AVC technology may be included with the
7353 software.  MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice:</p>
7354
7355 <p>This product is licensed under the AVC patent portfolio license for
7356 the personal use of a consumer or other uses in which it does not
7357 receive remuneration to (i) encode video in compliance with the AVC
7358 standard (“AVC video”) and/or (ii) decode AVC video that was encoded
7359 by a consumer engaged in a personal activity and/or was obtained from
7360 a video provider licensed to provide AVC video. No license is granted
7361 or shall be implied for any other use. Additional information may be
7362 obtained from MPEG LA, L.L.C. See http://www.mpegla.com.</p>
7363 </blockquote></p>
7364
7365 <p>Note the requirement that the videos created can only be used for
7366 personal or non-commercial purposes.</p>
7367
7368 <p>The Sorenson Media software have
7369 <a href="http://www.sorensonmedia.com/terms/">similar terms</a>:</p>
7370
7371 <p><blockquote>
7372
7373 <p>With respect to a license from Sorenson pertaining to MPEG-4 Video
7374 Decoders and/or Encoders: Any such product is licensed under the
7375 MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio license for the personal and
7376 non-commercial use of a consumer for (i) encoding video in compliance
7377 with the MPEG-4 visual standard (“MPEG-4 video”) and/or (ii) decoding
7378 MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a consumer engaged in a personal and
7379 non-commercial activity and/or was obtained from a video provider
7380 licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4 video. No license is granted or
7381 shall be implied for any other use. Additional information including
7382 that relating to promotional, internal and commercial uses and
7383 licensing may be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See
7384 http://www.mpegla.com.</p>
7385
7386 <p>With respect to a license from Sorenson pertaining to MPEG-4
7387 Consumer Recorded Data Encoder, MPEG-4 Systems Internet Data Encoder,
7388 MPEG-4 Mobile Data Encoder, and/or MPEG-4 Unique Use Encoder: Any such
7389 product is licensed under the MPEG-4 systems patent portfolio license
7390 for encoding in compliance with the MPEG-4 systems standard, except
7391 that an additional license and payment of royalties are necessary for
7392 encoding in connection with (i) data stored or replicated in physical
7393 media which is paid for on a title by title basis and/or (ii) data
7394 which is paid for on a title by title basis and is transmitted to an
7395 end user for permanent storage and/or use. Such additional license may
7396 be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for
7397 additional details.</p>
7398
7399 </blockquote></p>
7400
7401 <p>Some free software like
7402 <a href="https://handbrake.fr/">Handbrake</A> and
7403 <a href="http://ffmpeg.org/">FFMPEG</a> uses GPL/LGPL licenses and do
7404 not have any such terms included, so for those, there is no
7405 requirement to limit the use to personal and non-commercial.</p>
7406
7407       </div>
7408       <div class="tags">
7409
7410
7411         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</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>.
7412
7413
7414       </div>
7415     </div>
7416     <div class="padding"></div>
7417
7418     <div class="entry">
7419       <div class="title">
7420         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Bernd_Zeitzen.html">Debian Edu interview: Bernd Zeitzen</a>
7421       </div>
7422       <div class="date">
7423         31st July 2014
7424       </div>
7425       <div class="body">
7426         <p>The complete and free “out of the box” software solution for
7427 schools, <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
7428 Skolelinux</a>, is used quite a lot in Germany, and one of the people
7429 involved is Bernd Zeitzen, who show up on the project mailing lists
7430 from time to time with interesting questions and tips on how to adjust
7431 the setup.  I managed to interview him this summer.</p>
7432
7433 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7434
7435 <p>My name is Bernd Zeitzen and I'm married with Hedda, a self
7436 employed physiotherapist.  My former profession is tool maker, but I
7437 haven't worked for 30 years in this job.  30 years ago I started to
7438 support my wife and become her officeworker and a few years later the
7439 administrator for a small computer network, today based on Ubuntu
7440 Server (Samba, OpenVPN). For her daily work she has to use Windows
7441 Desktops because the software she needs to organize her business only
7442 works with Windows . :-(</p>
7443
7444 <p>In 1988 we started with one PC and DOS, then I learned to use
7445 Windows 98, 2000, XP, …, 8, Ubuntu, MacOSX.  Today we are running a
7446 Linux server with 6 Windows clients and 10 persons (teacher of
7447 children with special needs, speech therapist, occupational therapist,
7448 psychologist and officeworkers) using our Samba shares via OpenVPN to
7449 work with the documentations of our patients.</p>
7450
7451 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
7452 project?</strong></p>
7453
7454 <p>Two years ago a friend of mine asked me, if I want to get a job in
7455 his school (<a href="http://www.gymnasium-harsewinkel.de/">Gymnasium
7456 Harsewinkel</a>).  They started with Skolelinux / Debian Edu and they
7457 were looking for people to give support to the teachers using the
7458 software and the network and teaching the pupils increasing their
7459 computer skills in optional lessons.  I'm spending 4-6 hours a week
7460 with this job.</p>
7461
7462 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
7463 Edu?</strong></p>
7464
7465 <p>The independence.</p>
7466
7467 <p>First: Every person is allowed to use, share and develop the
7468 software. Even if you are poor, you are allowed to use the software
7469 included in Skolelinux/Debian Edu and all the other Free Software.</p>
7470
7471 <p>Second: The software runs on old machines and this gives us the
7472 possibility to recycle computers, weeded out from offices.  The
7473 servers and desktops are running for more than two years and they are
7474 working reliable. </p>
7475
7476 <p>We have two servers (one tjener and one terminal server), 45
7477 workstations in three classrooms and seven laptops as a mobile
7478 solution for all classrooms.  These machines are all booting from the
7479 terminal server.  In the moment we are installing 30 laptops as mobile
7480 workstations.  Then the pupils have the possibility to work with these
7481 machines in their classrooms.  Internet access is realized by a WLAN
7482 router, connected to the schools network. This is all done without a
7483 dedicated system administrator or a computer science teacher.</p>
7484
7485 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
7486 Edu?</strong></p>
7487
7488 <p>Teachers and pupils are Windows users.  &lt;Irony on&gt; And Linux
7489 isn't cool. It's software for freaks using the command line. &lt;Irony
7490 off&gt; They don't realize the stability of the system. </p>
7491
7492 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7493
7494 <p>Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, Ubuntu Server 12.04 (Samba,
7495 Apache, MySQL, Joomla!, … and Skolelinux / Debian Edu)</p>
7496
7497 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7498 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7499
7500 <p>In Germany we have the situation: every school is free to decide
7501 which software they want to use. This decision is influenced by
7502 teachers who learned to use Windows and MS Office. They buy a PC with
7503 Windows preinstalled and an additional testing version of MS
7504 Office. They don't know about the possibility to use Free Software
7505 instead.  Another problem are the publisher of school books.  They
7506 develop their software, added to the school books, for Windows.</p>
7507
7508       </div>
7509       <div class="tags">
7510
7511
7512         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>.
7513
7514
7515       </div>
7516     </div>
7517     <div class="padding"></div>
7518
7519     <div class="entry">
7520       <div class="title">
7521         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/98_6_percent_done_with_the_Norwegian_draft_translation_of_Free_Culture.html">98.6 percent done with the Norwegian draft translation of Free Culture</a>
7522       </div>
7523       <div class="date">
7524         23rd July 2014
7525       </div>
7526       <div class="body">
7527         <p>This summer I finally had time to continue working on the Norwegian
7528 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
7529 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
7530 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with todays copyright
7531 law.  Yesterday, I finally completed translated the book text.  There
7532 are still some foot/end notes left to translate, the colophon page
7533 need to be rewritten, and a few words and phrases still need to be
7534 translated, but the Norwegian text is ready for the first proof
7535 reading. :) More spell checking is needed, and several illustrations
7536 need to be cleaned up.  The work stopped up because I had to give
7537 priority to other projects the last year, and the progress graph of
7538 the translation show this very well:</p>
7539
7540 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
7541
7542 <p>If you want to read the result, check out the
7543 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>
7544 project pages and the
7545 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>,
7546 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
7547 and HTML version available in the
7548 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/tree/master/archive">archive
7549 directory</a>.</p>
7550
7551 <p>Please report typos, bugs and improvements to the github project if
7552 you find any.</p>
7553
7554       </div>
7555       <div class="tags">
7556
7557
7558         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
7559
7560
7561       </div>
7562     </div>
7563     <div class="padding"></div>
7564
7565     <div class="entry">
7566       <div class="title">
7567         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/From_English_wiki_to_translated_PDF_and_epub_via_Docbook.html">From English wiki to translated PDF and epub via Docbook</a>
7568       </div>
7569       <div class="date">
7570         17th June 2014
7571       </div>
7572       <div class="body">
7573         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
7574 project</a> provide an instruction manual for teachers, system
7575 administrators and other users that contain useful tips for setting up
7576 and maintaining a Debian Edu installation.  This text is about how the
7577 text processing of this manual is handled in the project.</p>
7578
7579 <p>One goal of the project is to provide information in the native
7580 language of its users, and for this we need to handle translations.
7581 But we also want to make sure each language contain the same
7582 information, so for this we need a good way to keep the translations
7583 in sync.  And we want it to be easy for our users to improve the
7584 documentation, avoiding the need to learn special formats or tools to
7585 contribute, and the obvious way to do this is to make it possible to
7586 edit the documentation using a web browser.  We also want it to be
7587 easy for translators to keep the translation up to date, and give them
7588 help in figuring out what need to be translated. Here is the list of
7589 tools and the process we have found trying to reach all these
7590 goals.</p>
7591
7592 <p>We maintain the authoritative source of our manual in the
7593 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">Debian
7594 wiki</a>, as several wiki pages written in English.  It consist of one
7595 front page with references to the different chapters, several pages
7596 for each chapter, and finally one "collection page" gluing all the
7597 chapters together into one large web page (aka
7598 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/AllInOne">the
7599 AllInOne page</a>).  The AllInOne page is the one used for further
7600 processing and translations.  Thanks to the fact that the
7601 <a href="http://moinmo.in/">MoinMoin</a> installation on
7602 wiki.debian.org support exporting pages in
7603 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">the Docbook format</a>, we can fetch
7604 the list of pages to export using the raw version of the AllInOne
7605 page, loop over each of them to generate a Docbook XML version of the
7606 manual.  This process also download images and transform image
7607 references to use the locally downloaded images.  The generated
7608 Docbook XML files are slightly broken, so some post-processing is done
7609 using the <tt>documentation/scripts/get_manual</tt> program, and the
7610 result is a nice Docbook XML file (debian-edu-wheezy-manual.xml) and
7611 a handfull of images.  The XML file can now be used to generate PDF, HTML
7612 and epub versions of the English manual.  This is the basic step of
7613 our process, making PDF (using dblatex), HTML (using xsltproc) and
7614 epub (using dbtoepub) version from Docbook XML, and the resulting files
7615 are placed in the debian-edu-doc-en binary package.</p>
7616
7617 <p>But English documentation is not enough for us.  We want translated
7618 documentation too, and we want to make it easy for translators to
7619 track the English original.  For this we use the
7620 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/poxml.html">poxml</a> package,
7621 which allow us to transform the English Docbook XML file into a
7622 translation file (a .pot file), usable with the normal gettext based
7623 translation tools used by those translating free software.  The pot
7624 file is used to create and maintain translation files (several .po
7625 files), which the translations update with the native language
7626 translations of all titles, paragraphs and blocks of text in the
7627 original.  The next step is combining the original English Docbook XML
7628 and the translation file (say debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.po), to
7629 create a translated Docbook XML file (in this case
7630 debian-edu-wheezy-manual.nb.xml).  This translated (or partly
7631 translated, if the translation is not complete) Docbook XML file can
7632 then be used like the original to create a PDF, HTML and epub version
7633 of the documentation.</p>
7634
7635 <p>The translators use different tools to edit the .po files.  We
7636 recommend using
7637 <a href="http://www.kde.org/applications/development/lokalize/">lokalize</a>,
7638 while some use emacs and vi, others can use web based editors like
7639 <a href="http://pootle.translatehouse.org/">Poodle</a> or
7640 <a href="https://www.transifex.com/">Transifex</a>.  All we care about
7641 is where the .po file end up, in our git repository.  Updated
7642 translations can either be committed directly to git, or submitted as
7643 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-edu-doc">bug reports
7644 against the debian-edu-doc package</a>.</p>
7645
7646 <p>One challenge is images, which both might need to be translated (if
7647 they show translated user applications), and are needed in different
7648 formats when creating PDF and HTML versions (epub is a HTML version in
7649 this regard).  For this we transform the original PNG images to the
7650 needed density and format during build, and have a way to provide
7651 translated images by storing translated versions in
7652 images/$LANGUAGECODE/.  I am a bit unsure about the details here.  The
7653 package maintainers know more.</p>
7654
7655 <p>If you wonder what the result look like, we provide
7656 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">the content
7657 of the documentation packages on the web</a>.  See for example the
7658 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/it/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.pdf">Italian
7659 PDF version</a> or the
7660 <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/de/debian-edu-wheezy-manual.html">German
7661 HTML version</a>.  We do not yet build the epub version by default,
7662 but perhaps it will be done in the future.</p>
7663
7664 <p>To learn more, check out
7665 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/debian-edu-doc.html">the
7666 debian-edu-doc package</a>,
7667 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/">the
7668 manual on the wiki</a> and
7669 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/Translations">the
7670 translation instructions</a> in the manual.</p>
7671
7672       </div>
7673       <div class="tags">
7674
7675
7676         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7677
7678
7679       </div>
7680     </div>
7681     <div class="padding"></div>
7682
7683     <div class="entry">
7684       <div class="title">
7685         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_car_computer_solution_.html">Free software car computer solution?</a>
7686       </div>
7687       <div class="date">
7688         29th May 2014
7689       </div>
7690       <div class="body">
7691         <p>Dear lazyweb.  I'm planning to set up a small Raspberry Pi computer
7692 in my car, connected to
7693 <a href="http://www.dx.com/p/400a-4-0-tft-lcd-digital-monitor-for-vehicle-parking-reverse-camera-1440x272-12v-dc-57776">a
7694 small screen</a> next to the rear mirror.  I plan to hook it up with a
7695 GPS and a USB wifi card too.  The idea is to get my own
7696 "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carputer">Carputer</a>".  But I
7697 wonder if someone already created a good free software solution for
7698 such car computer.</p>
7699
7700 <p>This is my current wish list for such system:</p>
7701
7702 <ul>
7703
7704  <li>Work on Raspberry Pi.</li>
7705
7706  <li>Show current speed limit based on location, and warn if going too
7707    fast (for example using color codes yellow and red on the screen,
7708    or make a sound).  This could be done either using either data from
7709    <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">Openstreetmap</a> or OCR
7710    info gathered from a dashboard camera.</li>
7711
7712  <li>Track automatic toll road passes and their cost, show total spent
7713    and make it possible to calculate toll costs for planned
7714    route.</li>
7715
7716  <li>Collect GPX tracks for use with OpenStreetMap.</li>
7717
7718  <li>Automatically detect and use any wireless connection to connect
7719    to home server.  Try IP over DNS
7720    (<a href="http://dev.kryo.se/iodine/">iodine</a>) or ICMP
7721    (<a href="http://code.gerade.org/hans/">Hans</a>) if direct
7722    connection do not work.</li>
7723
7724  <li>Set up mesh network to talk to other cars with the same system,
7725    or some standard car mesh protocol.</li>
7726
7727  <li>Warn when approaching speed cameras and speed camera ranges
7728    (speed calculated between two cameras).</li>
7729
7730  <li>Suport dashboard/front facing camera to discover speed limits and
7731    run OCR to track registration number of passing cars.</li>
7732
7733 </ul>
7734
7735 <p>If you know of any free software car computer system supporting
7736 some or all of these features, please let me know.</p>
7737
7738       </div>
7739       <div class="tags">
7740
7741
7742         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
7743
7744
7745       </div>
7746     </div>
7747     <div class="padding"></div>
7748
7749     <div class="entry">
7750       <div class="title">
7751         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_the_Coverity_issues_in_Gnash_fixed_in_the_next_release.html">Half the Coverity issues in Gnash fixed in the next release</a>
7752       </div>
7753       <div class="date">
7754         29th April 2014
7755       </div>
7756       <div class="body">
7757         <p>I've been following <a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">the Gnash
7758 project</a> for quite a while now.  It is a free software
7759 implementation of Adobe Flash, both a standalone player and a browser
7760 plugin.  Gnash implement support for the AVM1 format (and not the
7761 newer AVM2 format - see
7762 <a href="http://lightspark.github.io/">Lightspark</a> for that one),
7763 allowing several flash based sites to work.  Thanks to the friendly
7764 developers at Youtube, it also work with Youtube videos, because the
7765 Javascript code at Youtube detect Gnash and serve a AVM1 player to
7766 those users. :) Would be great if someone found time to implement AVM2
7767 support, but it has not happened yet.  If you install both Lightspark
7768 and Gnash, Lightspark will invoke Gnash if it find a AVM1 flash file,
7769 so you can get both handled as free software.  Unfortunately,
7770 Lightspark so far only implement a small subset of AVM2, and many
7771 sites do not work yet.</p>
7772
7773 <p>A few months ago, I started looking at
7774 <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/">Coverity</a>, the static source
7775 checker used to find heaps and heaps of bugs in free software (thanks
7776 to the donation of a scanning service to free software projects by the
7777 company developing this non-free code checker), and Gnash was one of
7778 the projects I decided to check out.  Coverity is able to find lock
7779 errors, memory errors, dead code and more.  A few days ago they even
7780 extended it to also be able to find the heartbleed bug in OpenSSL.
7781 There are heaps of checks being done on the instrumented code, and the
7782 amount of bogus warnings is quite low compared to the other static
7783 code checkers I have tested over the years.</p>
7784
7785 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I've been working with the other Gnash
7786 developers squashing bugs discovered by Coverity.  I was quite happy
7787 today when I checked the current status and saw that of the 777 issues
7788 detected so far, 374 are marked as fixed.  This make me confident that
7789 the next Gnash release will be more stable and more dependable than
7790 the previous one.  Most of the reported issues were and are in the
7791 test suite, but it also found a few in the rest of the code.</p>
7792
7793 <p>If you want to help out, you find us on
7794 <a href="https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnash-dev">the
7795 gnash-dev mailing list</a> and on
7796 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#gnash">the #gnash channel on
7797 irc.freenode.net IRC server</a>.</p>
7798
7799       </div>
7800       <div class="tags">
7801
7802
7803         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/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
7804
7805
7806       </div>
7807     </div>
7808     <div class="padding"></div>
7809
7810     <div class="entry">
7811       <div class="title">
7812         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Install_hardware_dependent_packages_using_tasksel__Isenkram_0_7_.html">Install hardware dependent packages using tasksel (Isenkram 0.7)</a>
7813       </div>
7814       <div class="date">
7815         23rd April 2014
7816       </div>
7817       <div class="body">
7818         <p>It would be nice if it was easier in Debian to get all the hardware
7819 related packages relevant for the computer installed automatically.
7820 So I implemented one, using
7821 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">my Isenkram
7822 package</a>.  To use it, install the tasksel and isenkram packages and
7823 run tasksel as user root.  You should be presented with a new option,
7824 "Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)".  When you
7825 select it, tasksel will install the packages isenkram claim is fit for
7826 the current hardware, hot pluggable or not.<p>
7827
7828 <p>The implementation is in two files, one is the tasksel menu entry
7829 description, and the other is the script used to extract the list of
7830 packages to install.  The first part is in
7831 <tt>/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc</tt> and look like
7832 this:</p>
7833
7834 <p><blockquote><pre>
7835 Task: isenkram
7836 Section: hardware
7837 Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
7838  Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
7839  proposed.
7840 Test-new-install: mark show
7841 Relevance: 8
7842 Packages: for-current-hardware
7843 </pre></blockquote></p>
7844
7845 <p>The second part is in
7846 <tt>/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/for-current-hardware</tt> and look like
7847 this:</p>
7848
7849 <p><blockquote><pre>
7850 #!/bin/sh
7851 #
7852 (
7853     isenkram-lookup
7854     isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
7855 ) | sort -u
7856 </pre></blockquote></p>
7857
7858 <p>All in all, a very short and simple implementation making it
7859 trivial to install the hardware dependent package we all may want to
7860 have installed on our machines.  I've not been able to find a way to
7861 get tasksel to tell you exactly which packages it plan to install
7862 before doing the installation.  So if you are curious or careful,
7863 check the output from the isenkram-* command line tools first.</p>
7864
7865 <p>The information about which packages are handling which hardware is
7866 fetched either from the isenkram package itself in
7867 /usr/share/isenkram/, from git.debian.org or from the APT package
7868 database (using the Modaliases header).  The APT package database
7869 parsing have caused a nasty resource leak in the isenkram daemon (bugs
7870 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/719837">#719837</a> and
7871 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/730704">#730704</a>).  The cause is in
7872 the python-apt code (bug
7873 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/745487">#745487</a>), but using a
7874 workaround I was able to get rid of the file descriptor leak and
7875 reduce the memory leak from ~30 MiB per hardware detection down to
7876 around 2 MiB per hardware detection.  It should make the desktop
7877 daemon a lot more useful.  The fix is in version 0.7 uploaded to
7878 unstable today.</p>
7879
7880 <p>I believe the current way of mapping hardware to packages in
7881 Isenkram is is a good draft, but in the future I expect isenkram to
7882 use the AppStream data source for this.  A proposal for getting proper
7883 AppStream support into Debian is floating around as
7884 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a>, and
7885 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2014/Projects#SummerOfCode2014.2FProjects.2FAppStreamDEP11Implementation.AppStream.2FDEP-11_for_the_Debian_Archive">GSoC
7886 project</a> will take place this summer to improve the situation.  I
7887 look forward to seeing the result, and welcome patches for isenkram to
7888 start using the information when it is ready.</p>
7889
7890 <p>If you want your package to map to some specific hardware, either
7891 add a "Xb-Modaliases" header to your control file like I did in
7892 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">the pymissile
7893 package</a> or submit a bug report with the details to the isenkram
7894 package.  See also
7895 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">all my
7896 blog posts tagged isenkram</a> for details on the notation.  I expect
7897 the information will be migrated to AppStream eventually, but for the
7898 moment I got no better place to store it.</p>
7899
7900       </div>
7901       <div class="tags">
7902
7903
7904         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
7905
7906
7907       </div>
7908     </div>
7909     <div class="padding"></div>
7910
7911     <div class="entry">
7912       <div class="title">
7913         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/FreedomBox_milestone___all_packages_now_in_Debian_Sid.html">FreedomBox milestone - all packages now in Debian Sid</a>
7914       </div>
7915       <div class="date">
7916         15th April 2014
7917       </div>
7918       <div class="body">
7919         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
7920 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware to make
7921 it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication
7922 at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family
7923 encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It is still going strong, and
7924 today a major mile stone was reached.</p>
7925
7926 <p>Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to
7927 created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable.  It was
7928 the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images
7929 during build and on the first boot.  Now all one need to get going is
7930 the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from
7931 Debian.  And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can
7932 build everything directly from Debian. :)</p>
7933
7934 <p>Some key packages used by Freedombox are
7935 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>,
7936 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/plinth">plinth</a>,
7937 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pagekite">pagekite</a>,
7938 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/tor">tor</a>,
7939 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>,
7940 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/owncloud">owncloud</a> and
7941 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/dnsmasq">dnsmasq</a>.  There
7942 are plans to integrate more packages into the setup.  User
7943 documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki.  Please
7944 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Jessie">check out
7945 the manual</a> and help us improve it.</p>
7946
7947 <p>To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox
7948 setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to
7949 become root:</p>
7950
7951 <p><pre>
7952 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
7953   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
7954   u-boot-tools
7955 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
7956   freedom-maker
7957 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
7958 </pre></p>
7959
7960 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
7961 devices.  See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more
7962 details on the build.  If you do not want all three images, trim the
7963 make line.  Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really
7964 virtualbox specific.  It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu,
7965 vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment.  You might need
7966 the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it
7967 include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.</p>
7968
7969 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
7970 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
7971 the preseed values:</p>
7972
7973 <p><pre>
7974 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
7975 </pre></p>
7976
7977 <p>I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if
7978 it still work.</p>
7979
7980 <p>If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using
7981 systemd as the boot system.  It will become the default for Linux in
7982 Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox.  I did
7983 a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start
7984 during boot when using systemd.  I suspect there are other problems
7985 too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can
7986 be run from the plinth web interface.</p>
7987
7988 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
7989 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
7990 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
7991 irc.debian.org)</a> and
7992 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
7993 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
7994
7995       </div>
7996       <div class="tags">
7997
7998
7999         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
8000
8001
8002       </div>
8003     </div>
8004     <div class="padding"></div>
8005
8006     <div class="entry">
8007       <div class="title">
8008         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/S3QL__a_locally_mounted_cloud_file_system___nice_free_software.html">S3QL, a locally mounted cloud file system - nice free software</a>
8009       </div>
8010       <div class="date">
8011          9th April 2014
8012       </div>
8013       <div class="body">
8014         <p>For a while now, I have been looking for a sensible offsite backup
8015 solution for use at home.  My requirements are simple, it must be
8016 cheap and locally encrypted (in other words, I keep the encryption
8017 keys, the storage provider do not have access to my private files).
8018 One idea me and my friends had many years ago, before the cloud
8019 storage providers showed up, was to use Google mail as storage,
8020 writing a Linux block device storing blocks as emails in the mail
8021 service provided by Google, and thus get heaps of free space.  On top
8022 of this one can add encryption, RAID and volume management to have
8023 lots of (fairly slow, I admit that) cheap and encrypted storage.  But
8024 I never found time to implement such system.  But the last few weeks I
8025 have looked at a system called
8026 <a href="https://bitbucket.org/nikratio/s3ql/">S3QL</a>, a locally
8027 mounted network backed file system with the features I need.</p>
8028
8029 <p>S3QL is a fuse file system with a local cache and cloud storage,
8030 handling several different storage providers, any with Amazon S3,
8031 Google Drive or OpenStack API.  There are heaps of such storage
8032 providers.  S3QL can also use a local directory as storage, which
8033 combined with sshfs allow for file storage on any ssh server.  S3QL
8034 include support for encryption, compression, de-duplication, snapshots
8035 and immutable file systems, allowing me to mount the remote storage as
8036 a local mount point, look at and use the files as if they were local,
8037 while the content is stored in the cloud as well.  This allow me to
8038 have a backup that should survive fire.  The file system can not be
8039 shared between several machines at the same time, as only one can
8040 mount it at the time, but any machine with the encryption key and
8041 access to the storage service can mount it if it is unmounted.</p>
8042
8043 <p>It is simple to use.  I'm using it on Debian Wheezy, where the
8044 package is included already.  So to get started, run <tt>apt-get
8045 install s3ql</tt>.  Next, pick a storage provider.  I ended up picking
8046 Greenqloud, after reading their nice recipe on
8047 <a href="https://greenqloud.zendesk.com/entries/44611757-How-To-Use-S3QL-to-mount-a-StorageQloud-bucket-on-Debian-Wheezy">how
8048 to use S3QL with their Amazon S3 service</a>, because I trust the laws
8049 in Iceland more than those in USA when it come to keeping my personal
8050 data safe and private, and thus would rather spend money on a company
8051 in Iceland.  Another nice recipe is available from the article
8052 <a href="http://www.admin-magazine.com/HPC/Articles/HPC-Cloud-Storage">S3QL
8053 Filesystem for HPC Storage</a> by Jeff Layton in the HPC section of
8054 Admin magazine.  When the provider is picked, figure out how to get
8055 the API key needed to connect to the storage API.  With Greencloud,
8056 the key did not show up until I had added payment details to my
8057 account.</p>
8058
8059 <p>Armed with the API access details, it is time to create the file
8060 system.  First, create a new bucket in the cloud.  This bucket is the
8061 file system storage area.  I picked a bucket name reflecting the
8062 machine that was going to store data there, but any name will do.
8063 I'll refer to it as <tt>bucket-name</tt> below.  In addition, one need
8064 the API login and password, and a locally created password.  Store it
8065 all in ~root/.s3ql/authinfo2 like this:
8066
8067 <p><blockquote><pre>
8068 [s3c]
8069 storage-url: s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
8070 backend-login: API-login
8071 backend-password: API-password
8072 fs-passphrase: local-password
8073 </pre></blockquote></p>
8074
8075 <p>I create my local passphrase using <tt>pwget 50</tt> or similar,
8076 but any sensible way to create a fairly random password should do it.
8077 Armed with these details, it is now time to run mkfs, entering the API
8078 details and password to create it:</p>
8079
8080 <p><blockquote><pre>
8081 # mkdir -m 700 /var/lib/s3ql-cache
8082 # mkfs.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
8083   --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
8084 Enter backend login:
8085 Enter backend password:
8086 Before using S3QL, make sure to read the user's guide, especially
8087 the 'Important Rules to Avoid Loosing Data' section.
8088 Enter encryption password:
8089 Confirm encryption password:
8090 Generating random encryption key...
8091 Creating metadata tables...
8092 Dumping metadata...
8093 ..objects..
8094 ..blocks..
8095 ..inodes..
8096 ..inode_blocks..
8097 ..symlink_targets..
8098 ..names..
8099 ..contents..
8100 ..ext_attributes..
8101 Compressing and uploading metadata...
8102 Wrote 0.00 MB of compressed metadata.
8103 # </pre></blockquote></p>
8104
8105 <p>The next step is mounting the file system to make the storage available.
8106
8107 <p><blockquote><pre>
8108 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
8109   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
8110 Using 4 upload threads.
8111 Downloading and decompressing metadata...
8112 Reading metadata...
8113 ..objects..
8114 ..blocks..
8115 ..inodes..
8116 ..inode_blocks..
8117 ..symlink_targets..
8118 ..names..
8119 ..contents..
8120 ..ext_attributes..
8121 Mounting filesystem...
8122 # df -h /s3ql
8123 Filesystem                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
8124 s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name  1.0T     0  1.0T   0% /s3ql
8125 #
8126 </pre></blockquote></p>
8127
8128 <p>The file system is now ready for use.  I use rsync to store my
8129 backups in it, and as the metadata used by rsync is downloaded at
8130 mount time, no network traffic (and storage cost) is triggered by
8131 running rsync.  To unmount, one should not use the normal umount
8132 command, as this will not flush the cache to the cloud storage, but
8133 instead running the umount.s3ql command like this:
8134
8135 <p><blockquote><pre>
8136 # umount.s3ql /s3ql
8137 #
8138 </pre></blockquote></p>
8139
8140 <p>There is a fsck command available to check the file system and
8141 correct any problems detected.  This can be used if the local server
8142 crashes while the file system is mounted, to reset the "already
8143 mounted" flag.  This is what it look like when processing a working
8144 file system:</p>
8145
8146 <p><blockquote><pre>
8147 # fsck.s3ql --force --ssl s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name
8148 Using cached metadata.
8149 File system seems clean, checking anyway.
8150 Checking DB integrity...
8151 Creating temporary extra indices...
8152 Checking lost+found...
8153 Checking cached objects...
8154 Checking names (refcounts)...
8155 Checking contents (names)...
8156 Checking contents (inodes)...
8157 Checking contents (parent inodes)...
8158 Checking objects (reference counts)...
8159 Checking objects (backend)...
8160 ..processed 5000 objects so far..
8161 ..processed 10000 objects so far..
8162 ..processed 15000 objects so far..
8163 Checking objects (sizes)...
8164 Checking blocks (referenced objects)...
8165 Checking blocks (refcounts)...
8166 Checking inode-block mapping (blocks)...
8167 Checking inode-block mapping (inodes)...
8168 Checking inodes (refcounts)...
8169 Checking inodes (sizes)...
8170 Checking extended attributes (names)...
8171 Checking extended attributes (inodes)...
8172 Checking symlinks (inodes)...
8173 Checking directory reachability...
8174 Checking unix conventions...
8175 Checking referential integrity...
8176 Dropping temporary indices...
8177 Backing up old metadata...
8178 Dumping metadata...
8179 ..objects..
8180 ..blocks..
8181 ..inodes..
8182 ..inode_blocks..
8183 ..symlink_targets..
8184 ..names..
8185 ..contents..
8186 ..ext_attributes..
8187 Compressing and uploading metadata...
8188 Wrote 0.89 MB of compressed metadata.
8189 #
8190 </pre></blockquote></p>
8191
8192 <p>Thanks to the cache, working on files that fit in the cache is very
8193 quick, about the same speed as local file access.  Uploading large
8194 amount of data is to me limited by the bandwidth out of and into my
8195 house.  Uploading 685 MiB with a 100 MiB cache gave me 305 kiB/s,
8196 which is very close to my upload speed, and downloading the same
8197 Debian installation ISO gave me 610 kiB/s, close to my download speed.
8198 Both were measured using <tt>dd</tt>.  So for me, the bottleneck is my
8199 network, not the file system code.  I do not know what a good cache
8200 size would be, but suspect that the cache should e larger than your
8201 working set.</p>
8202
8203 <p>I mentioned that only one machine can mount the file system at the
8204 time.  If another machine try, it is told that the file system is
8205 busy:</p>
8206
8207 <p><blockquote><pre>
8208 # mount.s3ql --cachedir /var/lib/s3ql-cache --authfile /root/.s3ql/authinfo2 \
8209   --ssl --allow-root s3c://s.greenqloud.com:443/bucket-name /s3ql
8210 Using 8 upload threads.
8211 Backend reports that fs is still mounted elsewhere, aborting.
8212 #
8213 </pre></blockquote></p>
8214
8215 <p>The file content is uploaded when the cache is full, while the
8216 metadata is uploaded once every 24 hour by default.  To ensure the
8217 file system content is flushed to the cloud, one can either umount the
8218 file system, or ask S3QL to flush the cache and metadata using
8219 s3qlctrl:
8220
8221 <p><blockquote><pre>
8222 # s3qlctrl upload-meta /s3ql
8223 # s3qlctrl flushcache /s3ql
8224 #
8225 </pre></blockquote></p>
8226
8227 <p>If you are curious about how much space your data uses in the
8228 cloud, and how much compression and deduplication cut down on the
8229 storage usage, you can use s3qlstat on the mounted file system to get
8230 a report:</p>
8231
8232 <p><blockquote><pre>
8233 # s3qlstat /s3ql
8234 Directory entries:    9141
8235 Inodes:               9143
8236 Data blocks:          8851
8237 Total data size:      22049.38 MB
8238 After de-duplication: 21955.46 MB (99.57% of total)
8239 After compression:    21877.28 MB (99.22% of total, 99.64% of de-duplicated)
8240 Database size:        2.39 MB (uncompressed)
8241 (some values do not take into account not-yet-uploaded dirty blocks in cache)
8242 #
8243 </pre></blockquote></p>
8244
8245 <p>I mentioned earlier that there are several possible suppliers of
8246 storage.  I did not try to locate them all, but am aware of at least
8247 <a href="https://www.greenqloud.com/">Greenqloud</a>,
8248 <a href="http://drive.google.com/">Google Drive</a>,
8249 <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/">Amazon S3 web serivces</a>,
8250 <a href="http://www.rackspace.com/">Rackspace</a> and
8251 <a href="http://crowncloud.net/">Crowncloud</A>.  The latter even
8252 accept payment in Bitcoin.  Pick one that suit your need.  Some of
8253 them provide several GiB of free storage, but the prize models are
8254 quite different and you will have to figure out what suits you
8255 best.</p>
8256
8257 <p>While researching this blog post, I had a look at research papers
8258 and posters discussing the S3QL file system.  There are several, which
8259 told me that the file system is getting a critical check by the
8260 science community and increased my confidence in using it.  One nice
8261 poster is titled
8262 "<a href="http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/adtsc/publications/science_highlights_2013/docs/pg68_69.pdf">An
8263 Innovative Parallel Cloud Storage System using OpenStack’s SwiftObject
8264 Store and Transformative Parallel I/O Approach</a>" by Hsing-Bung
8265 Chen, Benjamin McClelland, David Sherrill, Alfred Torrez, Parks Fields
8266 and Pamela Smith.  Please  have a look.</p>
8267
8268 <p>Given my problems with different file systems earlier, I decided to
8269 check out the mounted S3QL file system to see if it would be usable as
8270 a home directory (in other word, that it provided POSIX semantics when
8271 it come to locking and umask handling etc).  Running
8272 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">my
8273 test code to check file system semantics</a>, I was happy to discover that
8274 no error was found.  So the file system can be used for home
8275 directories, if one chooses to do so.</p>
8276
8277 <p>If you do not want a locally file system, and want something that
8278 work without the Linux fuse file system, I would like to mention the
8279 <a href="http://www.tarsnap.com/">Tarsnap service</a>, which also
8280 provide locally encrypted backup using a command line client.  It have
8281 a nicer access control system, where one can split out read and write
8282 access, allowing some systems to write to the backup and others to
8283 only read from it.</p>
8284
8285 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
8286 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
8287 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
8288
8289       </div>
8290       <div class="tags">
8291
8292
8293         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
8294
8295
8296       </div>
8297     </div>
8298     <div class="padding"></div>
8299
8300     <div class="entry">
8301       <div class="title">
8302         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ReactOS_Windows_clone___nice_free_software.html">ReactOS Windows clone - nice free software</a>
8303       </div>
8304       <div class="date">
8305          1st April 2014
8306       </div>
8307       <div class="body">
8308         <p>Microsoft have announced that Windows XP reaches its end of life
8309 2014-04-08, in 7 days.  But there are heaps of machines still running
8310 Windows XP, and depending on Windows XP to run their applications, and
8311 upgrading will be expensive, both when it comes to money and when it
8312 comes to the amount of effort needed to migrate from Windows XP to a
8313 new operating system.  Some obvious options (buy new a Windows
8314 machine, buy a MacOSX machine, install Linux on the existing machine)
8315 are already well known and covered elsewhere.  Most of them involve
8316 leaving the user applications installed on Windows XP behind and
8317 trying out replacements or updated versions. In this blog post I want
8318 to mention one strange bird that allow people to keep the hardware and
8319 the existing Windows XP applications and run them on a free software
8320 operating system that is Windows XP compatible.</p>
8321
8322 <p><a href="http://www.reactos.org/">ReactOS</a> is a free software
8323 operating system (GNU GPL licensed) working on providing a operating
8324 system that is binary compatible with Windows, able to run windows
8325 programs directly and to use Windows drivers for hardware directly.
8326 The project goal is for Windows user to keep their existing machines,
8327 drivers and software, and gain the advantages from user a operating
8328 system without usage limitations caused by non-free licensing.  It is
8329 a Windows clone running directly on the hardware, so quite different
8330 from the approach taken by <a href="http://www.winehq.org/">the Wine
8331 project</a>, which make it possible to run Windows binaries on
8332 Linux.</p>
8333
8334 <p>The ReactOS project share code with the Wine project, so most
8335 shared libraries available on Windows are already implemented already.
8336 There is also a software manager like the one we are used to on Linux,
8337 allowing the user to install free software applications with a simple
8338 click directly from the Internet.  Check out the
8339 <a href="http://www.reactos.org/screenshots">screen shots on the
8340 project web site</a> for an idea what it look like (it looks just like
8341 Windows before metro).</p>
8342
8343 <p>I do not use ReactOS myself, preferring Linux and Unix like
8344 operating systems.  I've tested it, and it work fine in a virt-manager
8345 virtual machine.  The browser, minesweeper, notepad etc is working
8346 fine as far as I can tell.  Unfortunately, my main test application
8347 is the software included on a CD with the Lego Mindstorms NXT, which
8348 seem to install just fine from CD but fail to leave any binaries on
8349 the disk after the installation.  So no luck with that test software.
8350 No idea why, but hope someone else figure out and fix the problem.
8351 I've tried the ReactOS Live ISO on a physical machine, and it seemed
8352 to work just fine.  If you like Windows and want to keep running your
8353 old Windows binaries, check it out by
8354 <a href="http://www.reactos.org/download">downloading</a> the
8355 installation CD, the live CD or the preinstalled virtual machine
8356 image.</p>
8357
8358       </div>
8359       <div class="tags">
8360
8361
8362         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos</a>.
8363
8364
8365       </div>
8366     </div>
8367     <div class="padding"></div>
8368
8369     <div class="entry">
8370       <div class="title">
8371         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Roger_Marsal.html">Debian Edu interview: Roger Marsal</a>
8372       </div>
8373       <div class="date">
8374         30th March 2014
8375       </div>
8376       <div class="body">
8377         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
8378 keep gaining new users.  Some weeks ago, a person showed up on IRC,
8379 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>, with a
8380 wish to contribute, and I managed to get a interview with this great
8381 contributor Roger Marsal to learn more about his background.</p>
8382
8383 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8384
8385 <p>My name is Roger Marsal, I'm 27 years old (1986 generation) and I
8386 live in Barcelona, Spain. I've got a strong business background and I
8387 work as a patrimony manager and as a real estate agent.  Additionally,
8388 I've co-founded a British based tech company that is nowadays on the
8389 last development phase of a new social networking concept.</p>
8390
8391 <p>I'm a Linux enthusiast that started its journey with Ubuntu four years
8392 ago and have recently switched to Debian seeking rock solid stability
8393 and as a necessary step to gain expertise.</p>
8394
8395 <p>In a nutshell, I spend my days working and learning as much as I
8396 can to face both my job, entrepreneur project and feed my Linux
8397 hunger.</p>
8398
8399 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
8400 project?</strong></p>
8401
8402 <p>I discovered the <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP</a> advantages
8403 with "Ubuntu 12.04 alternate install" and after a year of use I
8404 started looking for an alternative.  Even though I highly value and
8405 respect the Ubuntu project, I thought it was necessary for me to
8406 change to a more robust and stable alternative.  As far as I was using
8407 Debian on my personal laptop I thought it would be fine to install
8408 Debian and configure an LTSP server myself.  Surprised, I discovered
8409 that the Debian project also supported a kind of Edubuntu equivalent,
8410 and after having some pain I obtained a Debian Edu network up and
8411 running.  I just loved it.</p>
8412
8413 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
8414 Edu?</strong></p>
8415
8416 <p>I found a main advantage in that, once you know "the tips and
8417 tricks", a new installation just works out of the box. It's the most
8418 complete alternative I've found to create an LTSP network. All the
8419 other distributions seems to be made of plastic, Debian Edu seems to
8420 be made of steel.</p>
8421
8422 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
8423 Edu?</strong></p>
8424
8425 <p>I found two main disadvantages.</p>
8426
8427 <p>I'm not an expert but I've got notions and I had to spent a considerable
8428 amount of time trying to bring up a standard network topology. I'm quite
8429 stubborn and I just worked until I did but I'm sure many people with few
8430 resources (not big schools, but academies for example) would have switched
8431 or dropped.</p>
8432
8433 <p>It's amazing how such a complex system like Debian Edu has achieved
8434 this out-of-the-box state. Even though tweaking without breaking gets
8435 more difficult, as more factors have to be considered. This can
8436 discourage many people too.</p>
8437
8438 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8439
8440 <p>I use Debian, Firefox, Okular, Inkscape, LibreOffice and
8441 Virtualbox.</p>
8442
8443
8444 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8445 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8446
8447 <p>I don't think there is a need for a particular strategy. The free
8448 attribute in both "freedom" and "no price" meanings is what will
8449 really bring free software to schools. In my experience I can think of
8450 the <a href="http://www.r-project.org/">"R" statistical language</a>; a
8451 few years a ago was an extremely nerd tool for university people.
8452 Today it's being increasingly used to teach statistics at many
8453 different level of studies.  I believe free and open software will
8454 increasingly gain popularity, but I'm sure schools will be one of the
8455 first scenarios where this will happen.</p>
8456
8457       </div>
8458       <div class="tags">
8459
8460
8461         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>.
8462
8463
8464       </div>
8465     </div>
8466     <div class="padding"></div>
8467
8468     <div class="entry">
8469       <div class="title">
8470         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Public_Trusted_Timestamping_services_for_everyone.html">Public Trusted Timestamping services for everyone</a>
8471       </div>
8472       <div class="date">
8473         25th March 2014
8474       </div>
8475       <div class="body">
8476         <p>Did you ever need to store logs or other files in a way that would
8477 allow it to be used as evidence in court, and needed a way to
8478 demonstrate without reasonable doubt that the file had not been
8479 changed since it was created?  Or, did you ever need to document that
8480 a given document was received at some point in time, like some
8481 archived document or the answer to an exam, and not changed after it
8482 was received?  The problem in these settings is to remove the need to
8483 trust yourself and your computers, while still being able to prove
8484 that a file is the same as it was at some given time in the past.</p>
8485
8486 <p>A solution to these problems is to have a trusted third party
8487 "stamp" the document and verify that at some given time the document
8488 looked a given way.  Such
8489 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notarius">notarius</a> service
8490 have been around for thousands of years, and its digital equivalent is
8491 called a
8492 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_timestamping">trusted
8493 timestamping service</a>.  <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">The Internet
8494 Engineering Task Force</a> standardised how such service could work a
8495 few years ago as <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3161">RFC
8496 3161</a>.  The mechanism is simple.  Create a hash of the file in
8497 question, send it to a trusted third party which add a time stamp to
8498 the hash and sign the result with its private key, and send back the
8499 signed hash + timestamp.  Both email, FTP and HTTP can be used to
8500 request such signature, depending on what is provided by the service
8501 used. Anyone with the document and the signature can then verify that
8502 the document matches the signature by creating their own hash and
8503 checking the signature using the trusted third party public key.
8504 There are several commercial services around providing such
8505 timestamping.  A quick search for
8506 "<a href="https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rfc+3161+service">rfc 3161
8507 service</a>" pointed me to at least
8508 <a href="https://www.digistamp.com/technical/how-a-digital-time-stamp-works/">DigiStamp</a>,
8509 <a href="http://www.quovadisglobal.co.uk/CertificateServices/SigningServices/TimeStamp.aspx">Quo
8510 Vadis</a>,
8511 <a href="https://www.globalsign.com/timestamp-service/">Global Sign</a>
8512 and <a href="http://www.globaltrustfinder.com/TSADefault.aspx">Global
8513 Trust Finder</a>.  The system work as long as the private key of the
8514 trusted third party is not compromised.</p>
8515
8516 <p>But as far as I can tell, there are very few public trusted
8517 timestamp services available for everyone.  I've been looking for one
8518 for a while now. But yesterday I found one over at
8519 <a href="https://www.pki.dfn.de/zeitstempeldienst/">Deutches
8520 Forschungsnetz</a> mentioned in
8521 <a href="http://www.d-mueller.de/blog/dealing-with-trusted-timestamps-in-php-rfc-3161/">a
8522 blog by David Müller</a>.  I then found
8523 <a href="http://www.rz.uni-greifswald.de/support/dfn-pki-zertifikate/zeitstempeldienst.html">a
8524 good recipe on how to use the service</a> over at the University of
8525 Greifswald.</p>
8526
8527 <p><a href="http://www.openssl.org/">The OpenSSL library</a> contain
8528 both server and tools to use and set up your own signing service.  See
8529 the ts(1SSL), tsget(1SSL) manual pages for more details.  The
8530 following shell script demonstrate how to extract a signed timestamp
8531 for any file on the disk in a Debian environment:</p>
8532
8533 <p><blockquote><pre>
8534 #!/bin/sh
8535 set -e
8536 url="http://zeitstempel.dfn.de"
8537 caurl="https://pki.pca.dfn.de/global-services-ca/pub/cacert/chain.txt"
8538 reqfile=$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXXXXXX.tsq)
8539 resfile=$(mktemp -t tmp.XXXXXXXXXX.tsr)
8540 cafile=chain.txt
8541 if [ ! -f $cafile ] ; then
8542     wget -O $cafile "$caurl"
8543 fi
8544 openssl ts -query -data "$1" -cert | tee "$reqfile" \
8545     | /usr/lib/ssl/misc/tsget -h "$url" -o "$resfile"
8546 openssl ts -reply -in "$resfile" -text 1>&2
8547 openssl ts -verify -data "$1" -in "$resfile" -CAfile "$cafile" 1>&2
8548 base64 < "$resfile"
8549 rm "$reqfile" "$resfile"
8550 </pre></blockquote></p>
8551
8552 <p>The argument to the script is the file to timestamp, and the output
8553 is a base64 encoded version of the signature to STDOUT and details
8554 about the signature to STDERR.  Note that due to
8555 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=742553">a bug
8556 in the tsget script</a>, you might need to modify the included script
8557 and remove the last line.  Or just write your own HTTP uploader using
8558 curl. :) Now you too can prove and verify that files have not been
8559 changed.</p>
8560
8561 <p>But the Internet need more public trusted timestamp services.
8562 Perhaps something for <a href="http://www.uninett.no/">Uninett</a> or
8563 my work place the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
8564 to set up?</p>
8565
8566       </div>
8567       <div class="tags">
8568
8569
8570         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
8571
8572
8573       </div>
8574     </div>
8575     <div class="padding"></div>
8576
8577     <div class="entry">
8578       <div class="title">
8579         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Video_DVD_reader_library___python_dvdvideo___nice_free_software.html">Video DVD reader library / python-dvdvideo - nice free software</a>
8580       </div>
8581       <div class="date">
8582         21st March 2014
8583       </div>
8584       <div class="body">
8585         <p>Keeping your DVD collection safe from scratches and curious
8586 children fingers while still having it available when you want to see a
8587 movie is not straight forward.  My preferred method at the moment is
8588 to store a full copy of the ISO on a hard drive, and use VLC, Popcorn
8589 Hour or other useful players to view the resulting file.  This way the
8590 subtitles and bonus material are still available and using the ISO is
8591 just like inserting the original DVD record in the DVD player.</p>
8592
8593 <p>Earlier I used dd for taking security copies, but it do not handle
8594 DVDs giving read errors (which are quite a few of them).  I've also
8595 tried using
8596 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">dvdbackup
8597 and genisoimage</a>, but these days I use the marvellous python library
8598 and program
8599 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">python-dvdvideo</a>
8600 written by Bastian Blank.  It is
8601 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/python-dvdvideo.html">in Debian
8602 already</a> and the binary package name is python3-dvdvideo. Instead
8603 of trying to read every block from the DVD, it parses the file
8604 structure and figure out which block on the DVD is actually in used,
8605 and only read those blocks from the DVD.  This work surprisingly well,
8606 and I have been able to almost backup my entire DVD collection using
8607 this method.</p>
8608
8609 <p>So far, python-dvdvideo have failed on between 10 and
8610 20 DVDs, which is a small fraction of my collection.  The most common
8611 problem is
8612 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=720831">DVDs
8613 using UTF-16 instead of UTF-8 characters</a>, which according to
8614 Bastian is against the DVD specification (and seem to cause some
8615 players to fail too).  A rarer problem is what seem to be inconsistent
8616 DVD structures, as the python library
8617 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=723079">claim
8618 there is a overlap between objects</a>.  An equally rare problem claim
8619 <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=741878">some
8620 value is out of range</a>.  No idea what is going on there.  I wish I
8621 knew enough about the DVD format to fix these, to ensure my movie
8622 collection will stay with me in the future.</p>
8623
8624 <p>So, if you need to keep your DVDs safe, back them up using
8625 python-dvdvideo. :)</p>
8626
8627       </div>
8628       <div class="tags">
8629
8630
8631         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/nice free software">nice free software</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
8632
8633
8634       </div>
8635     </div>
8636     <div class="padding"></div>
8637
8638     <div class="entry">
8639       <div class="title">
8640         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Freedombox_on_Dreamplug__Raspberry_Pi_and_virtual_x86_machine.html">Freedombox on Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and virtual x86 machine</a>
8641       </div>
8642       <div class="date">
8643         14th March 2014
8644       </div>
8645       <div class="body">
8646         <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox
8647 project</a> is working on providing the software and hardware for
8648 making it easy for non-technical people to host their data and
8649 communication at home, and being able to communicate with their
8650 friends and family encrypted and away from prying eyes.  It has been
8651 going on for a while, and is slowly progressing towards a new test
8652 release (0.2).</p>
8653
8654 <p>And what day could be better than the Pi day to announce that the
8655 new version will provide "hard drive" / SD card / USB stick images for
8656 Dreamplug, Raspberry Pi and VirtualBox (or any other virtualization
8657 system), and can also be installed using a Debian installer preseed
8658 file.  The Debian based Freedombox is now based on Debian Jessie,
8659 where most of the needed packages used are already present.  Only one,
8660 the freedombox-setup package, is missing.  To try to build your own
8661 boot image to test the current status, fetch the freedom-maker scripts
8662 and build using
8663 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/vmdebootstrap">vmdebootstrap</a>
8664 with a user with sudo access to become root:
8665
8666 <pre>
8667 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \
8668   freedom-maker
8669 sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \
8670   mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \
8671   u-boot-tools
8672 make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image
8673 </pre>
8674
8675 <p>Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback
8676 devices.  See the README for more details on the build. If you do not
8677 want all three images, trim the make line.  But note that thanks to <a
8678 href="https://bugs.debian.org/741407">a race condition in
8679 vmdebootstrap</a>, the build might fail without the patch to the
8680 kpartx call.</p>
8681
8682 <p>If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed
8683 method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load
8684 the preseed values:</p>
8685
8686 <pre>
8687 url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat</a>
8688 </pre>
8689
8690 <p>But note that due to <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/740673">a
8691 recently introduced bug in apt in Jessie</a>, the installer will
8692 currently hang while setting up APT sources.  Killing the
8693 '<tt>apt-cdrom ident</tt>' process when it hang a few times during the
8694 installation will get the installation going.  This affect all
8695 installations in Jessie, and I expect it will be fixed soon.</p>
8696
8697 <p>Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help
8698 us get the new release published. :) Please join us on
8699 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC (#freedombox on
8700 irc.debian.org)</a> and
8701 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
8702 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
8703
8704       </div>
8705       <div class="tags">
8706
8707
8708         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
8709
8710
8711       </div>
8712     </div>
8713     <div class="padding"></div>
8714
8715     <div class="entry">
8716       <div class="title">
8717         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_add_extra_storage_servers_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">How to add extra storage servers in Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
8718       </div>
8719       <div class="date">
8720         12th March 2014
8721       </div>
8722       <div class="body">
8723         <p>On larger sites, it is useful to use a dedicated storage server for
8724 storing user home directories and data.  The design for handling this
8725 in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, is
8726 to update the automount rules in LDAP and let the automount daemon on
8727 the clients take care of the rest.  I was reminded about the need to
8728 document this better when one of the customers of
8729 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a>, where I am
8730 on the board of directors, asked about how to do this.  The steps to
8731 get this working are the following:</p>
8732
8733 <p><ol>
8734
8735 <li>Add new storage server in DNS.  I use nas-server.intern as the
8736 example host here.</li>
8737
8738 <li>Add automoun LDAP information about this server in LDAP, to allow
8739 all clients to automatically mount it on reqeust.</li>
8740
8741 <li>Add the relevant entries in tjener.intern:/etc/fstab, because
8742 tjener.intern do not use automount to avoid mounting loops.</li>
8743
8744 </ol></p>
8745
8746 <p>DNS entries are added in GOsa², and not described here.  Follow the
8747 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy/GettingStarted">instructions
8748 in the manual</a> (Machine Management with GOsa² in section Getting
8749 started).</p>
8750
8751 <p>Ensure that the NFS export points on the server are exported to the
8752 relevant subnets or machines:</p>
8753
8754 <p><blockquote><pre>
8755 root@tjener:~# showmount -e nas-server
8756 Export list for nas-server:
8757 /storage         10.0.0.0/8
8758 root@tjener:~#
8759 </pre></blockquote></p>
8760
8761 <p>Here everything on the backbone network is granted access to the
8762 /storage export.  With NFSv3 it is slightly better to limit it to
8763 netgroup membership or single IP addresses to have some limits on the
8764 NFS access.</p>
8765
8766 <p>The next step is to update LDAP.  This can not be done using GOsa²,
8767 because it lack a module for automount.  Instead, use ldapvi and add
8768 the required LDAP objects using an editor.</p>
8769
8770 <p><blockquote><pre>
8771 ldapvi --ldap-conf -ZD '(cn=admin)' -b ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8772 </pre></blockquote></p>
8773
8774 <p>When the editor show up, add the following LDAP objects at the
8775 bottom of the document.  The "/&" part in the last LDAP object is a
8776 wild card matching everything the nas-server exports, removing the
8777 need to list individual mount points in LDAP.</p>
8778
8779 <p><blockquote><pre>
8780 add cn=nas-server,ou=auto.skole,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8781 objectClass: automount
8782 cn: nas-server
8783 automountInformation: -fstype=autofs --timeout=60 ldap:ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8784
8785 add ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8786 objectClass: top
8787 objectClass: automountMap
8788 ou: auto.nas-server
8789
8790 add cn=/,ou=auto.nas-server,ou=automount,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8791 objectClass: automount
8792 cn: /
8793 automountInformation: -fstype=nfs,tcp,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,rw,intr,hard,nodev,nosuid,noatime nas-server.intern:/&
8794 </pre></blockquote></p>
8795
8796 <p>The last step to remember is to mount the relevant mount points in
8797 tjener.intern by adding them to /etc/fstab, creating the mount
8798 directories using mkdir and running "mount -a" to mount them.</p>
8799
8800 <p>When this is done, your users should be able to access the files on
8801 the storage server directly by just visiting the
8802 /tjener/nas-server/storage/ directory using any application on any
8803 workstation, LTSP client or LTSP server.</p>
8804
8805       </div>
8806       <div class="tags">
8807
8808
8809         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/ldap">ldap</a>.
8810
8811
8812       </div>
8813     </div>
8814     <div class="padding"></div>
8815
8816     <div class="entry">
8817       <div class="title">
8818         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_home_and_release_1_0_for_netgroup_and_innetgr__aka_ng_utils_.html">New home and release 1.0 for netgroup and innetgr (aka ng-utils)</a>
8819       </div>
8820       <div class="date">
8821         22nd February 2014
8822       </div>
8823       <div class="body">
8824         <p>Many years ago, I wrote a GPL licensed version of the netgroup and
8825 innetgr tools, because I needed them in
8826 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>.  I called the project
8827 ng-utils, and it has served me well.  I placed the project under the
8828 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/">Hungry Programmer</a> umbrella, and it was maintained in our CVS
8829 repository.  But many years ago, the CVS repository was dropped (lost,
8830 not migrated to new hardware, not sure), and the project have lacked a
8831 proper home since then.</p>
8832
8833 <p>Last summer, I had a look at the package and made a new release
8834 fixing a irritating crash bug, but was unable to store the changes in
8835 a proper source control system.  I applied for a project on
8836 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/">Alioth</a>, but did not have time
8837 to follow up on it.  Until today. :)</p>
8838
8839 <p>After many hours of cleaning and migration, the ng-utils project
8840 now have a new home, and a git repository with the highlight of the
8841 history of the project.  I published all release tarballs and imported
8842 them into the git repository.  As the project is really stable and not
8843 expected to gain new features any time soon, I decided to make a new
8844 release and call it 1.0.  Visit the new project home on
8845 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/">https://alioth.debian.org/projects/ng-utils/</a>
8846 if you want to check it out.  The new version is also uploaded into
8847 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/ng-utils.html">Debian Unstable</a>.</p>
8848
8849       </div>
8850       <div class="tags">
8851
8852
8853         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8854
8855
8856       </div>
8857     </div>
8858     <div class="padding"></div>
8859
8860     <div class="entry">
8861       <div class="title">
8862         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html">Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd</a>
8863       </div>
8864       <div class="date">
8865          3rd February 2014
8866       </div>
8867       <div class="body">
8868         <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get
8869 their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit
8870 boot system instead of their old one.  This follow up on the
8871 <a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great
8872 Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to
8873 get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux.  To get started,
8874 I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from
8875 <a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>,
8876 and started it using virt-manager.</p>
8877
8878 <p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any
8879 password) was to get the network operational.  I followed
8880 <a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the
8881 instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these
8882 commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the
8883 kvm internal DHCP server:</p>
8884
8885 <p><blockquote><pre>
8886 settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde
8887 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}')
8888 kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}')
8889 dhclient /dev/eth0
8890 </pre></blockquote></p>
8891
8892 <p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could
8893 upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and
8894 enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p>
8895
8896 <p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is
8897 running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be
8898 set.  Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block
8899 compression from working.  Remember to turn that off on the client
8900 side.</p>
8901
8902 <p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit
8903 stuff:</p>
8904
8905 <p><blockquote><pre>
8906 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF
8907 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main
8908 EOF
8909 apt-get update
8910 apt-get dist-upgrade
8911 apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \
8912     sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
8913 update-alternatives --config runsystem
8914 </pre></blockquote></p>
8915
8916 <p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use
8917 <tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not
8918 yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal
8919 'reboot' command.  After switching to sysvinit as the boot system,
8920 upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP
8921 after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the
8922 start is no longer needed.  But for some strange reason, there are no
8923 longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using
8924 ssh instead.
8925
8926 <p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot
8927 fail some times.  No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters
8928 figure it out.  At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on
8929 irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem.  A way to reduce
8930 the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by
8931 adding this repository to the machine:</p>
8932
8933 <p><blockquote><pre>
8934 cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF
8935 deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main
8936 EOF
8937 </pre></blockquote></p>
8938
8939 <p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from
8940 http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in
8941 unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in
8942 BTS.  This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p>
8943
8944 <p><blockquote><pre>
8945 # aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))'
8946 i   emacs                   - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
8947 i   gdb                     - GNU Debugger
8948 i   hurd-recommended        - Miscellaneous translators
8949 i   isc-dhcp-client         - ISC DHCP client
8950 i   isc-dhcp-common         - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages
8951 i   libc-bin                - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries
8952 i   libc-dev-bin            - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries
8953 i   libc0.3                 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries
8954 i A libc0.3-dbg             - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols
8955 i   libc0.3-dev             - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea
8956 i   multiarch-support       - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit
8957 i A x11-common              - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure
8958 i   xorg                    - X.Org X Window System
8959 i A xserver-xorg            - X.Org X server
8960 i A xserver-xorg-input-all  - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage
8961 #
8962 </pre></blockquote></p>
8963
8964 <p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :)
8965 X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow
8966 the porters instructions to fix it.  This time I was interested in the
8967 command line stuff.<p>
8968
8969       </div>
8970       <div class="tags">
8971
8972
8973         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8974
8975
8976       </div>
8977     </div>
8978     <div class="padding"></div>
8979
8980     <div class="entry">
8981       <div class="title">
8982         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_fist_full_of_non_anonymous_Bitcoins.html">A fist full of non-anonymous Bitcoins</a>
8983       </div>
8984       <div class="date">
8985         29th January 2014
8986       </div>
8987       <div class="body">
8988         <p>Bitcoin is a incredible use of peer to peer communication and
8989 encryption, allowing direct and immediate money transfer without any
8990 central control.  It is sometimes claimed to be ideal for illegal
8991 activity, which I believe is quite a long way from the truth.  At least
8992 I would not conduct illegal money transfers using a system where the
8993 details of every transaction are kept forever.  This point is
8994 investigated in
8995 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">USENIX ;login:</a>
8996 from December 2013, in the article
8997 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/03_meiklejohn-online.pdf">A
8998 Fistful of Bitcoins - Characterizing Payments Among Men with No
8999 Names</a>" by Sarah Meiklejohn, Marjori Pomarole,Grant Jordan, Kirill
9000 Levchenko, Damon McCoy, Geoffrey M. Voelker, and Stefan Savage.  They
9001 analyse the transaction log in the Bitcoin system, using it to find
9002 addresses belong to individuals and organisations and follow the flow
9003 of money from both Bitcoin theft and trades on Silk Road to where the
9004 money end up.  This is how they wrap up their article:</p>
9005
9006 <p><blockquote>
9007 <p>"To demonstrate the usefulness of this type of analysis, we turned
9008 our attention to criminal activity. In the Bitcoin economy, criminal
9009 activity can appear in a number of forms, such as dealing drugs on
9010 Silk Road or simply stealing someone else’s bitcoins. We followed the
9011 flow of bitcoins out of Silk Road (in particular, from one notorious
9012 address) and from a number of highly publicized thefts to see whether
9013 we could track the bitcoins to known services. Although some of the
9014 thieves attempted to use sophisticated mixing techniques (or possibly
9015 mix services) to obscure the flow of bitcoins, for the most part
9016 tracking the bitcoins was quite straightforward, and we ultimately saw
9017 large quantities of bitcoins flow to a variety of exchanges directly
9018 from the point of theft (or the withdrawal from Silk Road).</p>
9019
9020 <p>As acknowledged above, following stolen bitcoins to the point at
9021 which they are deposited into an exchange does not in itself identify
9022 the thief; however, it does enable further de-anonymization in the
9023 case in which certain agencies can determine (through, for example,
9024 subpoena power) the real-world owner of the account into which the
9025 stolen bitcoins were deposited.  Because such exchanges seem to serve
9026 as chokepoints into and out of the Bitcoin economy (i.e., there are
9027 few alternative ways to cash out), we conclude that using Bitcoin for
9028 money laundering or other illicit purposes does not (at least at
9029 present) seem to be particularly attractive."</p>
9030 </blockquote><p>
9031
9032 <p>These researches are not the first to analyse the Bitcoin
9033 transaction log.  The 2011 paper
9034 "<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.4524">An Analysis of Anonymity in
9035 the Bitcoin System</A>" by Fergal Reid and Martin Harrigan is
9036 summarized like this:</p>
9037
9038 <p><blockquote>
9039 "Anonymity in Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic currency system, is a
9040 complicated issue. Within the system, users are identified by
9041 public-keys only. An attacker wishing to de-anonymize its users will
9042 attempt to construct the one-to-many mapping between users and
9043 public-keys and associate information external to the system with the
9044 users. Bitcoin tries to prevent this attack by storing the mapping of
9045 a user to his or her public-keys on that user's node only and by
9046 allowing each user to generate as many public-keys as required. In
9047 this chapter we consider the topological structure of two networks
9048 derived from Bitcoin's public transaction history. We show that the
9049 two networks have a non-trivial topological structure, provide
9050 complementary views of the Bitcoin system and have implications for
9051 anonymity. We combine these structures with external information and
9052 techniques such as context discovery and flow analysis to investigate
9053 an alleged theft of Bitcoins, which, at the time of the theft, had a
9054 market value of approximately half a million U.S. dollars."
9055 </blockquote></p>
9056
9057 <p>I hope these references can help kill the urban myth that Bitcoin
9058 is anonymous.  It isn't really a good fit for illegal activites.  Use
9059 cash if you need to stay anonymous, at least until regular DNA
9060 sampling of notes and coins become the norm. :)</p>
9061
9062 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
9063 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
9064 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
9065
9066       </div>
9067       <div class="tags">
9068
9069
9070         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix</a>.
9071
9072
9073       </div>
9074     </div>
9075     <div class="padding"></div>
9076
9077     <div class="entry">
9078       <div class="title">
9079         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_16.html">New chrpath release 0.16</a>
9080       </div>
9081       <div class="date">
9082         14th January 2014
9083       </div>
9084       <div class="body">
9085         <p><a href="http://www.coverity.com/">Coverity</a> is a nice tool to
9086 find problems in C, C++ and Java code using static source code
9087 analysis.  It can detect a lot of different problems, and is very
9088 useful to find memory and locking bugs in the error handling part of
9089 the source.  The company behind it provide
9090 <a href="https://scan.coverity.com/">check of free software projects as
9091 a community service</a>, and many hundred free software projects are
9092 already checked.  A few days ago I decided to have a closer look at
9093 the Coverity system, and discovered that the
9094 <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and
9095 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ipmitool/">ipmitool</a>
9096 projects I am involved with was already registered.  But these are
9097 fairly big, and I would also like to have a small and easy project to
9098 check, and decided to <a href="http://scan.coverity.com/projects/1179">request
9099 checking of the chrpath project</a>.  It was
9100 added to the checker and discovered seven potential defects.  Six of
9101 these were real, mostly resource "leak" when the program detected an
9102 error.  Nothing serious, as the resources would be released a fraction
9103 of a second later when the program exited because of the error, but it
9104 is nice to do it right in case the source of the program some time in
9105 the future end up in a library.  Having fixed all defects and added
9106 <a href="https://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/chrpath-devel">a
9107 mailing list for the chrpath developers</a>, I decided it was time to
9108 publish a new release.  These are the release notes:</p>
9109
9110 <p>New in 0.16 released 2014-01-14:</p>
9111
9112 <ul>
9113
9114   <li>Fixed all minor bugs discovered by Coverity.</li>
9115   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project.</li>
9116   <li>Mention new project mailing list in the documentation.</li>
9117
9118 </ul>
9119
9120 <p>You can
9121 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
9122 new version 0.16 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
9123 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
9124 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
9125 include a test suite check.</p>
9126
9127       </div>
9128       <div class="tags">
9129
9130
9131         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9132
9133
9134       </div>
9135     </div>
9136     <div class="padding"></div>
9137
9138     <div class="entry">
9139       <div class="title">
9140         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Dominik_George.html">Debian Edu interview: Dominik George</a>
9141       </div>
9142       <div class="date">
9143         25th December 2013
9144       </div>
9145       <div class="body">
9146         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
9147 project</a> consist of both newcomers and old timers, and this time I
9148 was able to get an interview with a newcomer in the project who showed
9149 up on the IRC channel a few weeks ago to let us know about his
9150 successful installation of Debian Edu Wheezy in his School.  Say hello
9151 to <a href="https://www.ohloh.net/accounts/Natureshadow">Dominik
9152 George</a>.</p>
9153
9154 <!-- http://www.dominik-george.de/images/foto.jpg -->
9155
9156 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9157
9158 <p>I am a 23 year-old student from Germany who has spent half of his
9159 life with open source. In "real life", I am, as already mentioned, a
9160 student in the fields of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering,
9161 Information Technologies and Anglistics. Due to my (only partially
9162 voluntary) huge engagement in the open source world, these things are
9163 a bit vacant right now however.</p>
9164
9165 <p>I also have been working as a project teacher at a Gymasnium
9166 (public school) for various years now. I took up that work some time
9167 around 2005 when still attending that school myself and have continued
9168 it until today. I also had been running the (kind of very advanced)
9169 network of that school together with a team of very interested and
9170 talented students in the age of 11 to 15 years, who took the chance to
9171 learn a lot about open source and networking before I left the school
9172 to help building another school's informational education concept from
9173 scratch.</p>
9174
9175 <p>That said, one might see me as a kind of "glue" between school kids
9176 and the elderly of teachers as well as between the open source
9177 ecosystem and the (even more complex) educational ecosystem.</p>
9178
9179 <p>When I am not busy with open source or education, I like Geocaching
9180 and cycling.</p>
9181
9182 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
9183 project?</strong></p>
9184
9185 <p>I think that happened some time around 2009 when I first attended
9186 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">FrOSCon</a> and visited the project
9187 booth. I think I wasn't too interested back then because I used to
9188 have an attitude of disliking software that does too much stuff on its
9189 own. Maybe I was too inexperienced to realise the upsides of an
9190 "out-of-the-box" solution ;).</p>
9191
9192 <p>The first time I actively talked to Skolelinux people was at
9193 <a href="http://www.openrheinruhr.de">OpenRheinRuhr</a> 2011 when the
9194 BiscuIT project, a home-grewn software used by my school for various
9195 really cool things from timetables and class contact lists to lunch
9196 ordering, student ID card printing and project elections first got to
9197 a stage where it could have been published. I asked the Skolelinux
9198 guys running the booth if the project were interested in it and gave a
9199 small demonstration, but there wasn't any real feedback and the guys
9200 seemed rather uninterested.</p>
9201
9202 <p>After I left the school where I developed the software, it got
9203 mostly lost, but I am now reimplementing it for my new school. I have
9204 reusability and compatibility in mind, and I hop there will be a new
9205 basis for contributing it to the Skolelinux project ;)!</p>
9206
9207 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
9208 Edu?</strong></p>
9209
9210 <p>The most important advantage seems to be that it "just
9211 works". After overcoming some minor (but still very annoying) glitches
9212 in the installer, I got a fully functional, working school network,
9213 without the month-long hassle I experienced when setting all that up
9214 from scratch in earlier years. And above that, it rocked - I didn't
9215 have any real hardware at hand, because the school was just founded
9216 and has no money whatsoever, so I installed a combined server (main
9217 server, terminal services and workstation) in a VM on my personal
9218 notebook, bridging the LTSP network interface to the ethernet port,
9219 and then PXE-booted the Windows notebooks that were lying around from
9220 it. I could use 8 clients without any performance issues, by using a
9221 tiny little VM on a tiny little notebook. I think that's enough to say
9222 that it rocks!</p>
9223
9224 <p>Secondly, there are marketing reasons. Life's bad, and so no
9225 politician will ever permit a setup described as "Debian, an universal
9226 operating system, with some really cool educational tools" while they
9227 will be jsut fine with "Skolelinux, a single-purpose solution for your
9228 school network", even if both turn out to be the very same thing (yes,
9229 this is unfair towards the Skolelinux project, and must not be taken
9230 too seriously - you get the idea, anyway).</p>
9231
9232 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
9233 Edu?</strong></p>
9234
9235 <p>I have not been involved with Skolelinux long enough to really
9236 answer this question in a fair way. Thus, please allow me to put it in
9237 other words: "What do you expect from Skolelinux to keep liking it?" I
9238 can list a few points about that:</p>
9239
9240 <ul>
9241
9242  <li>always strive to get all things integrated into Debian upstream
9243  <li>be open to discussion about changes and the like, even with newcomers
9244  <li>be helpful at being helpful ;)
9245
9246 </ul>
9247
9248 <p>I'm really sorry I cannot say much more about that :(!</p>
9249
9250 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9251
9252 <p>First of all, all software I use is free and open. I have abandoned
9253 all non-free software (except for firmware on my darned phone) this
9254 year.</p>
9255
9256 <p>I run Debian GNU/Linux on all PC systems I use. On that, I mostly
9257 run text tools. I use
9258 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/mksh.htm">mksh</a> as shell,
9259 <a href="https://www.mirbsd.org/jupp.htm">jupp</a> as very advanced
9260 text editor (I even got the developer to help me write a script/macro
9261 based full-featured student management software with the two),
9262 <a href="http://mcabber.com/">mcabber</a> for XMPP and
9263 <a href="http://www.irssi.org/">irssi</a> for IRC. For that overly
9264 coloured world called the WWW, I use
9265 <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/">Iceweasel
9266 (Firefox)</a>. Oh, and <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</a> for
9267 e-mail.</p>
9268
9269 <p>However, while I am personally aware of the fact that text tools
9270 are more efficient and powerful than anything else, I also use (or at
9271 least operate) some tools that are suitable to bring open source to
9272 kids. One of these things is <a href="http://jappix.org/">Jappix</a>,
9273 which I already introduced to some kids even before they got aware of
9274 Facebook, making them see for themselves that they do not need
9275 Facebook now ;).</p>
9276
9277 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9278 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9279
9280 <p>Well, that's a two-sided thing. One side is what I believe, and one
9281 side is what I have experienced.</p>
9282
9283 <p>I believe that the right strategy is showing them the benefits. But
9284 that won't work out as long as the acceptance of free alternatives
9285 grows globally. What I mean is that if all the kids are almost forced
9286 to use Windows, Facebook, Skype, you name it at home, they will not
9287 see why they would want to use alternatives at school. I have seen
9288 students take seat in front of a fully-functional, modern Debian
9289 desktop that could do anything their Windows at home could do, and
9290 they jsut refused to use it because "Linux sucks". It is something
9291 that makes the council of our city spend around 600000 € to buy
9292 software - not including hardware, mind you - for operating school
9293 networks, and for installing a system that, as has been proved, does
9294 not work. For those of you readers who are good at maths, have you
9295 already found out how many lives could have been saved with that money
9296 if we had instead used it to bring education to parts of the world
9297 that need it? I have, and found it to be nothing less dramatic than
9298 plain criminal.</p>
9299
9300 <p>That said, the only feasible way appears to be the bottom up
9301 method. We have to bring free software to kids and parents. I have
9302 founded an association named
9303 <a href="https://www.teckids.org">Teckids</a> here in Germany that does
9304 just that. We organise several events for kids and adolescents in the
9305 area of free and open source software, for example the
9306 <a href="http://kids.froscon.org">FrogLabs</a>, which share staff with
9307 Teckids and are the youth programme of
9308 <a href="http://www.froscon.org">the Free and Open Source Software
9309 Conference (FrOSCon)</a>. We do a lot more than most other conferences
9310 - this year, we first offered the FrogLabs as a holiday camp for kids
9311 aged 10 to 16. It was a huge success, with approx. 30 kids taking part
9312 and learning with and about free software through a whole weekend. All
9313 of us had a lot of fun, and the results were really exciting.</p>
9314
9315 <p>Apart from that, we are preparing a campaign that is supposed to bring
9316 the message of free alternatives to stuff kids use every day to them and
9317 their parents, e.g. the use of Jabber / Jappix instead of Facebook and
9318 Skype. To make that possible, we are planning to get together a team of
9319 clever kids who understand very well what their peers need and can bring
9320 it across to them. So we will have a peer-driven network of adolescents
9321 who teach each other and collect feedback from the community of minors.
9322 We then take that feedback and our own experience to work closely with
9323 open source projects, such as Skolelinux or Jappix, at improving their
9324 software in a way that makes it more and more attractive for the target
9325 group. At least I hope that we will have good cooperation with
9326 Skolelinux in the future ;)!</p>
9327
9328 <p>So in conclusion, what I believe is that, if it weren't for the world
9329 being so bad, it should be very clear to the political decision makers
9330 that the only way to go nowadays is free software for various reasons,
9331 but I have learnt that the only way that seems to work is bottom up.</p>
9332
9333 <!--
9334
9335 >  * Who should be interviewed with this questions in the future?
9336
9337 That's probably the hardest question of them all, as I do not know the
9338 community. However, I would be willing to do the following:
9339
9340  <li>Run an interview with a German headteacher who is very open to
9341    free software, and also prefers it, but cannot really use it because
9342    of the decision makers above;
9343  <li>Run interviews with some kids, both with and without previous
9344    knowledge about free software
9345
9346 If that is wanted, just let me know ;).
9347
9348 -->
9349
9350       </div>
9351       <div class="tags">
9352
9353
9354         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>.
9355
9356
9357       </div>
9358     </div>
9359     <div class="padding"></div>
9360
9361     <div class="entry">
9362       <div class="title">
9363         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Klaus_Knopper.html">Debian Edu interview: Klaus Knopper</a>
9364       </div>
9365       <div class="date">
9366          6th December 2013
9367       </div>
9368       <div class="body">
9369         <p>It has been a while since I managed to publish the last interview,
9370 but the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
9371 Skolelinux</a> community is still going strong, and yesterday we even
9372 had a new school administrator show up on
9373 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a> to share
9374 his success story with installing Debian Edu at their school.  This
9375 time I have been able to get some helpful comments from the creator of
9376 Knoppix, Klaus Knopper, who was involved in a Skolelinux project in
9377 Germany a few years ago.</p>
9378
9379 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9380
9381 <p>I am Klaus Knopper.  I have a master degree in electrical
9382 engineering, and is currently professor in information management at
9383 the university of applied sciences Kaiserslautern / Germany and
9384 freelance Open Source software developer and consultant.</p>
9385
9386 <p>All of this is pretty much of the work I spend my days with. Apart
9387 from teaching, I'm also conducting some more or less experimental
9388 projects like the <a href="http://www.knoppix.org">Knoppix GNU/Linux live
9389 system</a> (Debian-based like Skolelinux),
9390 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html">ADRIANE</a>
9391 (a blind-friendly talking desktop system) and
9392 <a href="http://www.knopper.net/linbo/index-en.html">LINBO</a>
9393 (Linux-based network boot console, a fast remote install and repair
9394 system supporting various operating systems).</p>
9395
9396 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
9397 project?</strong></p>
9398
9399 <p>The credit for this have to go to Kurt Gramlich, who is the German
9400 coordinator for Skolelinux.  We were looking for an all-in-one open
9401 source community-supported distribution for schools, and Kurt
9402 introduced us to Skolelinux for this purpose.</p>
9403
9404 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
9405 Edu?</strong></p>
9406
9407 <ul>
9408   <li>Quick installation,</li>
9409   <li>works (almost) out of the box,</li>
9410   <li>contains many useful software packages for teaching and learning,</li>
9411   <li>is a purely community-based distro and not controlled by a
9412     single company,</li>
9413   <li>has a large number of supporters and teachers who share their
9414     experience and problem solutions.</li>
9415 </ul>
9416
9417 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
9418 Edu?</strong></p>
9419
9420 <ul>
9421   <li>Skolelinux is - as we had to learn - not easily upgradable to
9422   the next version.  Opposed to its genuine Debian base, upgrading to
9423   a new version means a full new installation from scratch to get it
9424   working again reliably.
9425
9426   <li>Skolelinux is based on Debian/stable, and therefore always a
9427   little outdated in terms of program versions compared to Edubuntu or
9428   similar educational Linux distros, which rather use Debian/testing
9429   as their base.
9430
9431   <li>Skolelinux has some very self-opinionated and stubborn default
9432   configuration which in my opinion adds unnecessary complexity and is
9433   not always suitable for a schools needs, the preset network
9434   configuration is actually a core definition feature of Skolelinux
9435   and not easy to change, so schools sometimes have to change their
9436   network configuration to make it "Skolelinux-compatible".
9437
9438   <li>Some proposed extensions, which were made available as
9439   contribution, like secure examination mode and lecture material
9440   distribution and collection, were not accepted into the mainline
9441   Skolelinux development and are now not easy to maintain in the
9442   future because of Skolelinux somewhat undeterministic update
9443   schemes.</li>
9444
9445   <li>Skolelinux has only a very tiny number of base developers
9446   compared to Debian.</li>
9447
9448 </ul>
9449
9450 <p>For these reasons and experience from our project, I would now
9451 rather consider using plain Debian for schools next time, until
9452 Skolelinux is more closely integrated into Debian and becomes
9453 upgradeable without reinstallation.</p>
9454
9455 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9456
9457 <p>GNU/Linux with LXDE desktop, bash for interactive dialog and
9458 programming, texlive for documentation and correspondence,
9459 occasionally LibreOffice for document format conversion. Various
9460 programming languages for teaching.</p>
9461
9462 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9463 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9464
9465 <p>Strong arguments are</p>
9466
9467 <ul>
9468
9469   <li>Knowledge is free, and so should be methods and tools for
9470     teaching and learning.</li>
9471
9472   <li>Students can learn with and use the same software at school, at
9473     home, and at their working place without running into license or
9474     conversion problems.</li>
9475
9476   <li>Closed source or proprietary software hides knowledge rather
9477     than exposing it, and proprietary software vendors try to bind
9478     customers to certain products.  But teachers need to teach
9479     science, not products.</li>
9480
9481   <li>If you have everything you for daily work as open source, what
9482     would you need proprietary software for?</li>
9483
9484 </ul>
9485
9486       </div>
9487       <div class="tags">
9488
9489
9490         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>.
9491
9492
9493       </div>
9494     </div>
9495     <div class="padding"></div>
9496
9497     <div class="entry">
9498       <div class="title">
9499         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnadsnett_for_alle__a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo__take_shape.html">Dugnadsnett for alle, a wireless community network in Oslo, take shape</a>
9500       </div>
9501       <div class="date">
9502         30th November 2013
9503       </div>
9504       <div class="body">
9505         <p>If you want the ability to electronically communicate directly with
9506 your neighbors and friends using a network controlled by your peers in
9507 stead of centrally controlled by a few corporations, or would like to
9508 experiment with interesting network technology, the
9509 <a href="http://www.dugnadsnett.no/">Dugnasnett for alle i Oslo</a>
9510 might be project for you.  39 mesh nodes are currently being planned,
9511 in the freshly started initiative from NUUG and Hackeriet to create a
9512 wireless community network.  The work is inspired by
9513 <a href="http://freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a>,
9514 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan
9515 Network</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roofnet">Roofnet</a>
9516 and other successful mesh networks around the globe.  Two days ago we
9517 held a workshop to try to get people started on setting up their own
9518 mesh node, and there we decided to create a new mailing list
9519 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/dugnadsnett">dugnadsnett
9520 (at) nuug.no</a> and IRC channel
9521 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#dugnadsnett.no">#dugnadsnett.no</a> to
9522 coordinate the work.  See also the NUUG blog post
9523 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/E_postliste_og_IRC_kanal_for_Dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">announcing
9524 the mailing list and IRC channel</a>.</p>
9525
9526       </div>
9527       <div class="tags">
9528
9529
9530         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9531
9532
9533       </div>
9534     </div>
9535     <div class="padding"></div>
9536
9537     <div class="entry">
9538       <div class="title">
9539         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_chrpath_release_0_15.html">New chrpath release 0.15</a>
9540       </div>
9541       <div class="date">
9542         24th November 2013
9543       </div>
9544       <div class="body">
9545         <p>After many years break from the package and a vain hope that
9546 development would be continued by someone else, I finally pulled my
9547 acts together this morning and wrapped up a new release of chrpath,
9548 the command line tool to modify the rpath and runpath of already
9549 compiled ELF programs.  The update was triggered by the persistence of
9550 Isha Vishnoi at IBM, which needed a new config.guess file to get
9551 support for the ppc64le architecture (powerpc 64-bit Little Endian) he
9552 is working on.  I checked the
9553 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/chrpath">Debian</a>,
9554 <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chrpath">Ubuntu</a> and
9555 <a href="https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/chrpath">Fedora</a>
9556 packages for interesting patches (failed to find the source from
9557 OpenSUSE and Mandriva packages), and found quite a few nice fixes.
9558 These are the release notes:</p>
9559
9560 <p>New in 0.15 released 2013-11-24:</p>
9561
9562 <ul>
9563
9564   <li>Updated config.sub and config.guess from the GNU project to work
9565    with newer architectures.  Thanks to isha vishnoi for the heads
9566    up.</li>
9567
9568   <li>Updated README with current URLs.</li>
9569
9570   <li>Added byteswap fix found in Ubuntu, credited Jeremy Kerr and
9571    Matthias Klose.</li>
9572
9573   <li>Added missing help for -k|--keepgoing option, using patch by
9574    Petr Machata found in Fedora.</li>
9575
9576   <li>Rewrite removal of RPATH/RUNPATH to make sure the entry in
9577    .dynamic is a NULL terminated string.  Based on patch found in
9578    Fedora credited Axel Thimm and Christian Krause.</li>
9579
9580 </ul>
9581
9582 <p>You can
9583 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/frs/?group_id=31052">download the
9584 new version 0.15 from alioth</a>.  Please let us know via the Alioth
9585 project if something is wrong with the new release.  The test suite
9586 did not discover any old errors, so if you find a new one, please also
9587 include a testsuite check.</p>
9588
9589       </div>
9590       <div class="tags">
9591
9592
9593         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
9594
9595
9596       </div>
9597     </div>
9598     <div class="padding"></div>
9599
9600     <div class="entry">
9601       <div class="title">
9602         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/All_drones_should_be_radio_marked_with_what_they_do_and_who_they_belong_to.html">All drones should be radio marked with what they do and who they belong to</a>
9603       </div>
9604       <div class="date">
9605         21st November 2013
9606       </div>
9607       <div class="body">
9608         <p>Drones, flying robots, are getting more and more popular.  The most
9609 know ones are the killer drones used by some government to murder
9610 people they do not like without giving them the chance of a fair
9611 trial, but the technology have many good uses too, from mapping and
9612 forest maintenance to photography and search and rescue.  I am sure it
9613 is just a question of time before "bad drones" are in the hands of
9614 private enterprises and not only state criminals but petty criminals
9615 too.  The drone technology is very useful and very dangerous.  To have
9616 some control over the use of drones, I agree with Daniel Suarez in his
9617 TED talk
9618 "<a href="https://archive.org/details/DanielSuarez_2013G">The kill
9619 decision shouldn't belong to a robot</a>", where he suggested this
9620 little gem to keep the good while limiting the bad use of drones:</p>
9621
9622 <blockquote>
9623
9624 <p>Each robot and drone should have a cryptographically signed
9625 I.D. burned in at the factory that can be used to track its movement
9626 through public spaces. We have license plates on cars, tail numbers on
9627 aircraft. This is no different. And every citizen should be able to
9628 download an app that shows the population of drones and autonomous
9629 vehicles moving through public spaces around them, both right now and
9630 historically. And civic leaders should deploy sensors and civic drones
9631 to detect rogue drones, and instead of sending killer drones of their
9632 own up to shoot them down, they should notify humans to their
9633 presence. And in certain very high-security areas, perhaps civic
9634 drones would snare them and drag them off to a bomb disposal facility.</p>
9635
9636 <p>But notice, this is more an immune system than a weapons system. It
9637 would allow us to avail ourselves of the use of autonomous vehicles
9638 and drones while still preserving our open, civil society.</p>
9639
9640 </blockquote>
9641
9642 <p>The key is that <em>every citizen</em> should be able to read the
9643 radio beacons sent from the drones in the area, to be able to check
9644 both the government and others use of drones.  For such control to be
9645 effective, everyone must be able to do it.  What should such beacon
9646 contain?  At least formal owner, purpose, contact information and GPS
9647 location.  Probably also the origin and target position of the current
9648 flight.  And perhaps some registration number to be able to look up
9649 the drone in a central database tracking their movement.  Robots
9650 should not have privacy.  It is people who need privacy.</p>
9651
9652       </div>
9653       <div class="tags">
9654
9655
9656         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
9657
9658
9659       </div>
9660     </div>
9661     <div class="padding"></div>
9662
9663     <div class="entry">
9664       <div class="title">
9665         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_wireless_community_network_in_Oslo_.html">Lets make a wireless community network in Oslo!</a>
9666       </div>
9667       <div class="date">
9668         13th November 2013
9669       </div>
9670       <div class="body">
9671         <p>Today NUUG and Hackeriet announced
9672 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Bli_med___bygge_dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">our
9673 plans to join forces and create a wireless community network in
9674 Oslo</a>.  The workshop to help people get started will take place
9675 Thursday 2013-11-28, but we already are collecting the geolocation of
9676 people joining forces to make this happen.  We have
9677 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/oslo-nodes.geojson">9
9678 locations plotted on the map</a>, but we will need more before we have
9679 a connected mesh spread across Oslo.  If this sound interesting to
9680 you, please join us at the workshop.  If you are too impatient to wait
9681 15 days, please join us on the IRC channel
9682 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
9683 right away. :)</p>
9684
9685       </div>
9686       <div class="tags">
9687
9688
9689         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9690
9691
9692       </div>
9693     </div>
9694     <div class="padding"></div>
9695
9696     <div class="entry">
9697       <div class="title">
9698         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Running_TP_Link_MR3040_as_a_batman_adv_mesh_node_using_openwrt.html">Running TP-Link MR3040 as a batman-adv mesh node using openwrt</a>
9699       </div>
9700       <div class="date">
9701         10th November 2013
9702       </div>
9703       <div class="body">
9704         <p>Continuing my research into mesh networking, I was recommended to
9705 use TP-Link 3040 and 3600 access points as mesh nodes, and the pair I
9706 bought arrived on Friday.  Here are my notes on how to set up the
9707 MR3040 as a mesh node using
9708 <a href="http://www.openwrt.org/">OpenWrt</a>.</p>
9709
9710 <p>I started by following the instructions on the OpenWRT wiki for
9711 <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3040">TL-MR3040</a>,
9712 and downloaded
9713 <a href="http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin">the
9714 recommended firmware image</a>
9715 (openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin) and
9716 uploaded it into the original web interface.  The flashing went fine,
9717 and the machine was available via telnet on the ethernet port.  After
9718 logging in and setting the root password, ssh was available and I
9719 could start to set it up as a batman-adv mesh node.</p>
9720
9721 <p>I started off by reading the instructions from
9722 <a href="http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php?title=Antoine's_Research">Wireless
9723 Africa</a>, which had quite a lot of useful information, but
9724 eventually I followed the recipe from the Open Mesh wiki for
9725 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Batman-adv-openwrt-config">using
9726 batman-adv on OpenWrt</a>.  A small snag was the fact that the
9727 <tt>opkg install kmod-batman-adv</tt> command did not work as it
9728 should.  The batman-adv kernel module would fail to load because its
9729 dependency crc16 was not already loaded.  I
9730 <a href="https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/14452">reported the bug</a> to
9731 the openwrt project and hope it will be fixed soon.  But the problem
9732 only seem to affect initial testing of batman-adv, as configuration
9733 seem to work when booting from scratch.</p>
9734
9735 <p>The setup is done using files in /etc/config/.  I did not bridge
9736 the Ethernet and mesh interfaces this time, to be able to hook up the
9737 box on my local network and log into it for configuration updates.
9738 The following files were changed and look like this after modifying
9739 them:</p>
9740
9741 <p><tt>/etc/config/network</tt></p>
9742
9743 <pre>
9744
9745 config interface 'loopback'
9746         option ifname 'lo'
9747         option proto 'static'
9748         option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
9749         option netmask '255.0.0.0'
9750
9751 config globals 'globals'
9752         option ula_prefix 'fdbf:4c12:3fed::/48'
9753
9754 config interface 'lan'
9755         option ifname 'eth0'
9756         option type 'bridge'
9757         option proto 'dhcp'
9758         option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
9759         option netmask '255.255.255.0'
9760         option hostname 'tl-mr3040'
9761         option ip6assign '60'
9762
9763 config interface 'mesh'
9764         option ifname 'adhoc0'
9765         option mtu '1528'
9766         option proto 'batadv'
9767         option mesh 'bat0'
9768 </pre>
9769
9770 <p><tt>/etc/config/wireless</tt></p>
9771 <pre>
9772
9773 config wifi-device 'radio0'
9774         option type 'mac80211'
9775         option channel '11'
9776         option hwmode '11ng'
9777         option path 'platform/ar933x_wmac'
9778         option htmode 'HT20'
9779         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-20'
9780         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-40'
9781         list ht_capab 'RX-STBC1'
9782         list ht_capab 'DSSS_CCK-40'
9783         option disabled '0'
9784
9785 config wifi-iface 'wmesh'
9786         option device 'radio0'
9787         option ifname 'adhoc0'
9788         option network 'mesh'
9789         option encryption 'none'
9790         option mode 'adhoc'
9791         option bssid '02:BA:00:00:00:01'
9792         option ssid 'meshfx@hackeriet'
9793 </pre>
9794 <p><tt>/etc/config/batman-adv</tt></p>
9795 <pre>
9796
9797 config 'mesh' 'bat0'
9798         option interfaces 'adhoc0'
9799         option 'aggregated_ogms'
9800         option 'ap_isolation'
9801         option 'bonding'
9802         option 'fragmentation'
9803         option 'gw_bandwidth'
9804         option 'gw_mode'
9805         option 'gw_sel_class'
9806         option 'log_level'
9807         option 'orig_interval'
9808         option 'vis_mode'
9809         option 'bridge_loop_avoidance'
9810         option 'distributed_arp_table'
9811         option 'network_coding'
9812         option 'hop_penalty'
9813
9814 # yet another batX instance
9815 # config 'mesh' 'bat5'
9816 #       option 'interfaces' 'second_mesh'
9817 </pre>
9818
9819 <p>The mesh node is now operational.  I have yet to test its range,
9820 but I hope it is good.  I have not yet tested the TP-Link 3600 box
9821 still wrapped up in plastic.</p>
9822
9823       </div>
9824       <div class="tags">
9825
9826
9827         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
9828
9829
9830       </div>
9831     </div>
9832     <div class="padding"></div>
9833
9834     <div class="entry">
9835       <div class="title">
9836         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_init_d_boot_script_example_for_rsyslog.html">Debian init.d boot script example for rsyslog</a>
9837       </div>
9838       <div class="date">
9839          2nd November 2013
9840       </div>
9841       <div class="body">
9842         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
9843 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
9844 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
9845 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
9846 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
9847
9848 <p><pre>
9849 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
9850 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
9851 # Provides:          rsyslog
9852 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
9853 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
9854 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
9855 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
9856 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
9857 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
9858 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
9859 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
9860 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
9861 ### END INIT INFO
9862 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
9863 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
9864 </pre></p>
9865
9866 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
9867 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
9868 info/comments.</p>
9869
9870 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
9871 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
9872
9873 <p><pre>
9874 #!/bin/sh
9875
9876 # Define LSB log_* functions.
9877 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
9878 # and status_of_proc is working.
9879 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
9880
9881 #
9882 # Function that starts the daemon/service
9883
9884 #
9885 do_start()
9886 {
9887         # Return
9888         #   0 if daemon has been started
9889         #   1 if daemon was already running
9890         #   2 if daemon could not be started
9891         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
9892                 || return 1
9893         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
9894                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
9895                 || return 2
9896         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
9897         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
9898         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
9899 }
9900
9901 #
9902 # Function that stops the daemon/service
9903 #
9904 do_stop()
9905 {
9906         # Return
9907         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
9908         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
9909         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
9910         #   other if a failure occurred
9911         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
9912         RETVAL="$?"
9913         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
9914         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
9915         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
9916         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
9917         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
9918         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
9919         # sleep for some time.
9920         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
9921         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
9922         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
9923         rm -f $PIDFILE
9924         return "$RETVAL"
9925 }
9926
9927 #
9928 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
9929 #
9930 do_reload() {
9931         #
9932         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
9933         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
9934         # then implement that here.
9935         #
9936         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
9937         return 0
9938 }
9939
9940 SCRIPTNAME=$1
9941 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
9942 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
9943 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
9944     script="$1"
9945     shift
9946     . $script
9947 else
9948     exit 0
9949 fi
9950
9951 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
9952 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
9953
9954 # Exit if the package is not installed
9955 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
9956
9957 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
9958 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
9959
9960 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
9961 . /lib/init/vars.sh
9962
9963 case "$1" in
9964   start)
9965         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
9966         do_start
9967         case "$?" in
9968                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
9969                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
9970         esac
9971         ;;
9972   stop)
9973         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
9974         do_stop
9975         case "$?" in
9976                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
9977                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
9978         esac
9979         ;;
9980   status)
9981         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
9982         ;;
9983   #reload|force-reload)
9984         #
9985         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
9986         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
9987         #
9988         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
9989         #do_reload
9990         #log_end_msg $?
9991         #;;
9992   restart|force-reload)
9993         #
9994         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
9995         # 'force-reload' alias
9996         #
9997         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
9998         do_stop
9999         case "$?" in
10000           0|1)
10001                 do_start
10002                 case "$?" in
10003                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
10004                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
10005                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
10006                 esac
10007                 ;;
10008           *)
10009                 # Failed to stop
10010                 log_end_msg 1
10011                 ;;
10012         esac
10013         ;;
10014   *)
10015         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
10016         exit 3
10017         ;;
10018 esac
10019
10020 :
10021 </pre></p>
10022
10023 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
10024 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
10025 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
10026 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
10027
10028 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
10029 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
10030 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
10031 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
10032 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
10033
10034       </div>
10035       <div class="tags">
10036
10037
10038         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10039
10040
10041       </div>
10042     </div>
10043     <div class="padding"></div>
10044
10045     <div class="entry">
10046       <div class="title">
10047         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html">Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian</a>
10048       </div>
10049       <div class="date">
10050          1st November 2013
10051       </div>
10052       <div class="body">
10053         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
10054 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
10055 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
10056 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
10057 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
10058 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
10059 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
10060 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
10061 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
10062 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
10063 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
10064 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
10065
10066 <p>The source is now available from
10067 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary">http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/spice-xpi.git;a=summary</a>.</p>
10068
10069       </div>
10070       <div class="tags">
10071
10072
10073         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
10074
10075
10076       </div>
10077     </div>
10078     <div class="padding"></div>
10079
10080     <div class="entry">
10081       <div class="title">
10082         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html">Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images</a>
10083       </div>
10084       <div class="date">
10085         27th October 2013
10086       </div>
10087       <div class="body">
10088         <p>The
10089 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
10090 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
10091 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
10092 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
10093 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
10094 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
10095 of a plan to simplify the build system for
10096 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
10097 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
10098 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
10099 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
10100 Raspberry Pi.</p>
10101
10102 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
10103 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
10104 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
10105 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
10106 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
10107 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
10108 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
10109 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
10110 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
10111 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
10112 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
10113 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
10114 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
10115 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
10116 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
10117 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
10118 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
10119 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
10120 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
10121 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
10122 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
10123 available from
10124 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
10125 upstream project page</a>.</p>
10126
10127 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
10128 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
10129 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
10130 list:</p>
10131
10132 <p><pre>
10133 #!/bin/sh
10134 set -e # Exit on first error
10135 rootdir="$1"
10136 cd "$rootdir"
10137 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
10138 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
10139 EOF
10140 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
10141 # install a kernel somewhere too.
10142 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
10143     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
10144 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
10145 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
10146 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
10147 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
10148 </pre></p>
10149
10150 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
10151 to build the image:</p>
10152
10153 <pre>
10154 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
10155     --variant minbase \
10156     --arch armel \
10157     --distribution jessie \
10158     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
10159     --image test.img \
10160     --size 600M \
10161     --bootsize 64M \
10162     --boottype vfat \
10163     --log-level debug \
10164     --verbose \
10165     --no-kernel \
10166     --no-extlinux \
10167     --root-password raspberry \
10168     --hostname raspberrypi \
10169     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
10170     --customize `pwd`/customize \
10171     --package netbase \
10172     --package git-core \
10173     --package binutils \
10174     --package ca-certificates \
10175     --package wget \
10176     --package kmod
10177 </pre></p>
10178
10179 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
10180 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
10181 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
10182 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
10183 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
10184 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
10185 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
10186
10187 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
10188 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
10189 build dependency list.</p>
10190
10191 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
10192 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
10193 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
10194 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
10195
10196       </div>
10197       <div class="tags">
10198
10199
10200         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>.
10201
10202
10203       </div>
10204     </div>
10205     <div class="padding"></div>
10206
10207     <div class="entry">
10208       <div class="title">
10209         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node</a>
10210       </div>
10211       <div class="date">
10212         21st October 2013
10213       </div>
10214       <div class="body">
10215         <p>The last few days I have been experimenting with
10216 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki">the
10217 batman-adv mesh technology</a>.  I want to gain some experience to see
10218 if it will fit <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the
10219 Freedombox project</a>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
10220 mesh network around the park where I live.  Batman-adv is a layer 2
10221 mesh system ("ethernet" in other words), where the mesh network appear
10222 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.</p>
10223
10224 <p>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
10225 around, but I've been unable to get them working with batman-adv.  So
10226 instead, I started playing with a
10227 <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>, and tried to
10228 get it working as a mesh node.  My idea is to use it to create a mesh
10229 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
10230 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
10231 network.  This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
10232 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
10233 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh.  This in turn is useful for
10234 Android phones using <a href="http://servalproject.org/">the Serval
10235 Project</a> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
10236 phone and message each other for free.  The reason is that Android
10237 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
10238 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted.  But if
10239 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
10240 every client on the local network.</p>
10241
10242 <p>To get this working, I've created a debian package
10243 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node">meshfx-node</a>
10244 and a script
10245 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node">build-rpi-mesh-node</a>
10246 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image.  I'm using Debian Jessie (and
10247 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
10248 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
10249 image to get it booting, but I'll ignore that for now.  Also, as
10250 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
10251 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit.  I hope
10252 the routing performance isn't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
10253 support.</p>
10254
10255 <p>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
10256 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:</p>
10257
10258 <p><pre>
10259 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
10260     https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
10261 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node > build.log 2>&1
10262 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M
10263 %
10264 </pre></p>
10265
10266 <p>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
10267 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node.  At least it does for
10268 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
10269 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
10270 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">an
10271 earlier blog post about this mesh testing</a>.</p>
10272
10273 <p>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either.  I bought
10274 everything over the counter in shops nearby.  If I had ordered online
10275 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:</p>
10276
10277 <p><table>
10278
10279 <tr><th>Supplier</th><th>Model</th><th>NOK</th></tr>
10280 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi model B</td><td>349.90</td></tr>
10281 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi type B case</td><td>99.90</td></tr>
10282 <tr><td>Lefdal</td><td>Jensen Air:Link 25150</td><td>295.-</td></tr>
10283 <tr><td>Clas Ohlson</td><td>Kingston 16 GB SD card</td><td>199.-</td></tr>
10284 <tr><td>Total cost</td><td></td><td>943.80</td></tr>
10285
10286 </table></p>
10287
10288 <p>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
10289 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the 1th
10290 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
10291 play-node I use to develop the image building script.  And some times
10292 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it.  I look forward
10293 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
10294 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)</p>
10295
10296       </div>
10297       <div class="tags">
10298
10299
10300         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
10301
10302
10303       </div>
10304     </div>
10305     <div class="padding"></div>
10306
10307     <div class="entry">
10308       <div class="title">
10309         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html">Perl library to control the Spykee robot moved to github</a>
10310       </div>
10311       <div class="date">
10312         19th October 2013
10313       </div>
10314       <div class="body">
10315         <p>Back in 2010, I created a Perl library to talk to
10316 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee">the Spykee robot</a>
10317 (with two belts, wifi, USB and Linux) and made it available from my
10318 web page.  Today I concluded that it should move to a site that is
10319 easier to use to cooperate with others, and moved it to github.  If
10320 you got a Spykee robot, you might want to check out
10321 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/libspykee-perl">the
10322 libspykee-perl github repository</a>.</p>
10323
10324       </div>
10325       <div class="tags">
10326
10327
10328         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
10329
10330
10331       </div>
10332     </div>
10333     <div class="padding"></div>
10334
10335     <div class="entry">
10336       <div class="title">
10337         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html">Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway</a>
10338       </div>
10339       <div class="date">
10340         15th October 2013
10341       </div>
10342       <div class="body">
10343         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
10344 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
10345 these. :)</p>
10346
10347 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
10348 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
10349 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
10350 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
10351 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
10352 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
10353 hope you will to. :)</p>
10354
10355 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
10356 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
10357 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
10358 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
10359 donated.  Are you next?</p>
10360
10361 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
10362 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
10363 statement under the heading
10364 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
10365 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
10366 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
10367 too.</p>
10368
10369       </div>
10370       <div class="tags">
10371
10372
10373         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
10374
10375
10376       </div>
10377     </div>
10378     <div class="padding"></div>
10379
10380     <div class="entry">
10381       <div class="title">
10382         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">Oslo community mesh network - with NUUG and Hackeriet at Hausmania</a>
10383       </div>
10384       <div class="date">
10385         11th October 2013
10386       </div>
10387       <div class="body">
10388         <p>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
10389 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
10390 areas, depending on the radio technology used.  Normal wifi equipment
10391 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
10392 successful examples like
10393 <a href="http://www.freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a> and
10394 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network</a>
10395 (see
10396 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece">wikipedia
10397 for a large list</a>) around the globe.  To give you an idea how it
10398 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
10399 can be seen from their
10400 <a href="http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html">dynamically
10401 updated node graph and map</a>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
10402 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
10403 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
10404 and that is the main topic of this blog post.</p>
10405
10406 <p>I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
10407 to do it as part of my involvement with the <a
10408 href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member organisation</a> community, and
10409 my recent involvement in
10410 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the Freedombox project</a>
10411 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
10412 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
10413 when possible, given that most communication between people are
10414 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
10415 communication patterns).  It also allow people to communicate without
10416 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
10417 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
10418 important over the years.</p>
10419
10420 <p>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
10421 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
10422 <a href="http://hackeriet.no/">Hackeriet</a> at Husmania.  They seem to
10423 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
10424 <a href="http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page">the Oslo
10425 Freifunk project</a>, but that effort is now dead and the people
10426 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
10427 <a href="http://meshfx.org/trac">meshfx</a>.  Unfortunately the wiki
10428 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
10429 reflect this fact, so the old project page can't be updated to point to
10430 the new project.  A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
10431 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks.  I
10432 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
10433 speakers about this talk (from
10434 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY">youtube</a>):</p>
10435
10436 <p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
10437
10438 <p>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
10439 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
10440 figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but
10441 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
10442 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
10443 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
10444 batman-adv for now.  It sure help me to  know that the very cool
10445 <a href="http://www.servalproject.org/">Serval project in Australia</a>
10446 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
10447 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
10448 less industrialized communities.  Check out this cool video presenting
10449 that project (from
10450 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qNfzJCQOA">youtube</a>):</p>
10451
10452 <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30qNfzJCQOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
10453
10454 <p>According to the wikipedia page on
10455 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network">Wireless
10456 mesh network</a> there are around 70 competing schemes for routing
10457 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
10458 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
10459 based community mesh networks.</p>
10460
10461 <p>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer 2
10462 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
10463 network.  One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
10464 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
10465 computer.  The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
10466 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up.  A
10467 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide">good
10468 introduction</a> is available from the Open Mesh project.  These are
10469 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:</p>
10470
10471 <p><table>
10472 <tr><th>Setting</th><th>Value</th></tr>
10473 <tr><td>Protocol / kernel module</td><td>batman-adv</td></tr>
10474 <tr><td>ESSID</td><td>meshfx@hackeriet</td></tr>
10475 <td>Channel / Frequency</td><td>11 / 2462</td></tr>
10476 <td>Cell ID</td><td>02:BA:00:00:00:01</td>
10477 </table></p>
10478
10479 <p>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
10480 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers.  (See a nice post from
10481 VillageTelco about
10482 "<a href="http://tiebing.blogspot.no/2009/12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html">Information
10483 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!</a>
10484 for details.)  When these settings are activated and you have some
10485 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
10486 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
10487 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)</p>
10488
10489 <p>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
10490 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
10491 firmware supporting batman-adv.  If anyone know how to use that old
10492 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.</p>
10493
10494 <p>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
10495 us on IRC, either channel
10496 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace">#oslohackerspace</a>
10497 or <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug">#nuug</a> on
10498 irc.freenode.net.</p>
10499
10500 <p>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
10501 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
10502 and Innovation called
10503 <a href="http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-2008.pdf">The
10504 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks</a> and elsewhere
10505 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
10506 Grünerløkka in Oslo.  So mesh networks are also interesting for
10507 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
10508 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
10509 know have closed down the experiment.  Perhaps Telenor or others would
10510 be interested in a cooperation?</p>
10511
10512 <p><strong>Update 2013-10-12</strong>: I was just
10513 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2013-October/005900.html">told
10514 by the Serval project developers</a> that they no longer use
10515 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
10516 mesh system.</p>
10517
10518       </div>
10519       <div class="tags">
10520
10521
10522         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
10523
10524
10525       </div>
10526     </div>
10527     <div class="padding"></div>
10528
10529     <div class="entry">
10530       <div class="title">
10531         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_7_1_install_and_overview_video_from_Marcelo_Salvador.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu 7.1 install and overview video from Marcelo Salvador</a>
10532       </div>
10533       <div class="date">
10534          8th October 2013
10535       </div>
10536       <div class="body">
10537         <p>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
10538 Salvador had published a
10539 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc">video on
10540 Youtube</a> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
10541 Skolelinux profile.  This is the profile intended for use at home or
10542 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
10543 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
10544 in other word a single user machine).  The result is 11 minutes long,
10545 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
10546 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
10547 showing the <a href="http://www.zygotebody.com/">Zygote Body 3D model
10548 of the human body</a>, but I guess he did not know about those or find
10549 other programs more interesting. :) And the video do not show the
10550 advantages I believe is one of the most valuable featuers in Debian
10551 Edu, its central school server making it possible to run hundreds of
10552 computers without hard drives by installing one central
10553 <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP server</a>.</p>
10554
10555 <p>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:</p>
10556
10557 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
10558
10559 <p>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux?  Please let
10560 me know. :)</p>
10561
10562       </div>
10563       <div class="tags">
10564
10565
10566         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/video">video</a>.
10567
10568
10569       </div>
10570     </div>
10571     <div class="padding"></div>
10572
10573     <div class="entry">
10574       <div class="title">
10575         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html">Finally, Debian Edu Wheezy is released today!</a>
10576       </div>
10577       <div class="date">
10578         29th September 2013
10579       </div>
10580       <div class="body">
10581         <p>A few hours ago, the announcement for the first stable release of
10582 Debian Edu Wheezy went out from the Debian publicity team.  The
10583 complete announcement text can be found at
10584 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130928">the Debian News
10585 section</a>, translated to several languages.  Please check it out.</p>
10586
10587 <p>There is one minor known problem that we will fix very soon.  One
10588 can not install a amd64 Thin Client Server using PXE, as the /var/
10589 partition is too small.  A workaround is to extend the partition (use
10590 lvresize + resize2fs in tty 2 while installing).</p>
10591
10592       </div>
10593       <div class="tags">
10594
10595
10596         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>.
10597
10598
10599       </div>
10600     </div>
10601     <div class="padding"></div>
10602
10603     <div class="entry">
10604       <div class="title">
10605         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html">Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning</a>
10606       </div>
10607       <div class="date">
10608         27th September 2013
10609       </div>
10610       <div class="body">
10611         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
10612 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
10613 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
10614 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
10615
10616 <ul>
10617
10618 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
10619 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
10620
10621 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
10622 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
10623
10624 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
10625 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
10626 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
10627 (Youtube)</li>
10628
10629 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
10630 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
10631
10632 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
10633 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
10634
10635 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
10636 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
10637 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
10638
10639 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
10640 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
10641 (Youtube)</li>
10642
10643 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
10644 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
10645
10646 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
10647 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
10648
10649 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
10650 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
10651 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
10652
10653 </ul>
10654
10655 <p>A larger list is available from
10656 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
10657 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
10658
10659 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
10660 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
10661 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
10662 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
10663 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
10664 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
10665 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
10666 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
10667 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
10668 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
10669 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
10670
10671       </div>
10672       <div class="tags">
10673
10674
10675         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
10676
10677
10678       </div>
10679     </div>
10680     <div class="padding"></div>
10681
10682     <div class="entry">
10683       <div class="title">
10684         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_and_probably_last_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Wheezy.html">Third and probably last beta release of Debian Edu Wheezy</a>
10685       </div>
10686       <div class="date">
10687         16th September 2013
10688       </div>
10689       <div class="body">
10690         <p>The third wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
10691 today.  This is the release announcement from Holger Levsen:</p>
10692
10693 <blockquote>
10694 <p>Hi,</p>
10695
10696 <p>it is my pleasure to announce the third beta release (beta 2 for
10697 short) of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
10698 Skolelinux</a> based on Debian Wheezy!</p>
10699
10700 <p>Please test these images extensivly, if no new problems are found
10701 we plan to do this final Debian Edu Wheezy release this coming
10702 weekend.  We are not aware of any major problems or blockers in beta2,
10703 if you find something, please notify us immediately!</p>
10704
10705 <p>(More about the remaining steps for the Edu Wheezy release in
10706 another mail to the edu list tonight or tomorrow...)</p>
10707
10708 <p>Noteworthy changes and software updates for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b2
10709 compared to beta1:</p>
10710
10711 <ul>
10712
10713 <li>The KDE proxy setup has been adjusted to use the provided wpad.dat. This
10714 also gets Chromium to use this proxy.</li>
10715 <li>Install kdepim-groupware with KDE desktops to make sure korganizer
10716 understand ical/dav sources.</li>
10717 <li>Increased default maximum size of /var/spool/squid and /skole/backup on the
10718 main server.</li>
10719 <li>A source DVD image containing all source packages is now available as well.</li>
10720 <li>Updates for chromium (29.0.1547.57-1~deb7u1), imagemagick
10721 (6.7.7.10-5+deb7u2), php5 (5.4.4-14+deb7u4), libmodplug
10722 (0.8.8.4-3+deb7u1+git20130828), tiff (4.0.2-6+deb7u2), linux-image
10723 (3.2.0-4-486_3.2.46-1+deb7u1).</li>
10724
10725 </ul>
10726
10727 <p>Where to get it:</p>
10728
10729 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
10730
10731 <ul>
10732 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso</a></li>
10733 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso</a></li>
10734 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso .</li>
10735 </ul>
10736
10737 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is:  3a1c89f4666df80eebcd46c5bf5fedb866f9472f</p>
10738
10739 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use
10740 <ul>
10741 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso</a></li>
10742 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso</a></li>
10743 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso .</li>
10744 </ul>
10745
10746 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 702d1718548f401c74bfa6df9f032cc3ee16597e</p>
10747
10748 <p>The Source DVD image has the filename
10749 debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-source-DVD.iso and the SHA1SUM
10750 089eed8b3f962db47aae1f6a9685e9bb2fa30ca5 and is available the same way
10751 as the other isos.</p>
10752
10753 <p>How to report bugs</p>
10754
10755 <p>For information how to report bugs please see
10756 <br><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
10757
10758
10759 <p>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</p>
10760
10761 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
10762 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
10763 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
10764 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
10765 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
10766 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
10767 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
10768 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
10769 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
10770 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
10771 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
10772 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
10773 can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
10774
10775 <p>This is the seventh test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
10776 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
10777 Squeeze release.</p>
10778
10779 <p>Notes for upgrades from Alpha Prereleases</p>
10780
10781 <p>Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
10782 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
10783 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
10784 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
10785 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined on the mailing list. (2)
10786 Accept the new version of gosa.conf and replace both contained admin
10787 password placeholders with the password hashes found in the old one
10788 (backup copy!). In both cases all users need to change their password
10789 to make sure a password is set for CIFS access to their home
10790 directory.</p>
10791
10792
10793 <p>cheers,
10794 <br>        Holger</p>
10795 </blockquote>
10796
10797       </div>
10798       <div class="tags">
10799
10800
10801         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>.
10802
10803
10804       </div>
10805     </div>
10806     <div class="padding"></div>
10807
10808     <div class="entry">
10809       <div class="title">
10810         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html">Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</a>
10811       </div>
10812       <div class="date">
10813         10th September 2013
10814       </div>
10815       <div class="body">
10816         <p>I was introduced to the
10817 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
10818 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
10819 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
10820 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
10821 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
10822 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
10823 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
10824 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
10825
10826 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
10827 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
10828 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
10829 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
10830 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
10831
10832 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
10833 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
10834 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
10835 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
10836 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
10837 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
10838 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
10839 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
10840 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
10841 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
10842 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
10843 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
10844 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
10845 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
10846 missing in Debian).</p>
10847
10848 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
10849 scripts
10850 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
10851 and a administrative web interface
10852 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
10853 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
10854 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
10855 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
10856 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
10857 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
10858 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
10859 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
10860 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
10861 this is really working yet, see
10862 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
10863 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
10864 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
10865 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
10866 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
10867 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
10868 with lots of half baked features.</p>
10869
10870 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
10871 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
10872 at.</p>
10873
10874 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
10875
10876 <ol>
10877
10878 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
10879 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
10880 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
10881 to the Debian installer:<p>
10882 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
10883
10884 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
10885 install on.</li>
10886
10887 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
10888 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
10889
10890 </ol>
10891
10892 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
10893
10894 <ol>
10895
10896 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
10897 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
10898 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
10899 <pre>
10900 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
10901 </pre></li>
10902 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
10903 <pre>
10904 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
10905    apt-key add -
10906 apt-get update
10907 apt-get install freedombox-setup
10908 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
10909 </pre></li>
10910 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
10911
10912 </ol>
10913
10914 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
10915 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
10916 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
10917 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
10918 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
10919
10920 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
10921 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
10922 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
10923 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
10924
10925 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
10926 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
10927 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
10928 irc.debian.org and the
10929 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
10930 mailing list</a>.</p>
10931
10932 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
10933 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
10934 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
10935 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
10936 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
10937 default password is 'secret'.</p>
10938
10939       </div>
10940       <div class="tags">
10941
10942
10943         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
10944
10945
10946       </div>
10947     </div>
10948     <div class="padding"></div>
10949
10950     <div class="entry">
10951       <div class="title">
10952         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_release__beta_1__of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second beta release (beta 1) of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
10953       </div>
10954       <div class="date">
10955         22nd August 2013
10956       </div>
10957       <div class="body">
10958         <p>The second wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
10959 today, slightly delayed because of some bugs in the initial Windows
10960 integration fixes .  This is the release announcement:</p>
10961
10962 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b1 released 2013-08-22</strong></p>
10963
10964 <p>These are the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
10965 7.1+edu0~b1, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
10966
10967 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
10968
10969 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
10970 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
10971 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
10972 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
10973 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
10974 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
10975 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
10976 the main server from CD or USB stick all other machines can be
10977 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
10978 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
10979 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
10980 desktop contains
10981 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
10982 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
10983 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
10984 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
10985
10986 <p>This is the sixth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically this
10987 is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the Squeeze
10988 release.</p>
10989
10990 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
10991 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
10992 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
10993 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
10994 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined
10995 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/08/msg00127.html">on
10996 the mailing list</a>. (2) Accept the new version of gosa.conf and
10997 replace both contained admin password placeholders with the password
10998 hashes found in the old one (backup copy!). In both cases every user
10999 need to change their their password to make sure a password is set for
11000 CIFS access to their home directory.</p>
11001
11002 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
11003
11004 <ul>
11005
11006 <li>Added ssh askpass packages to default installation, to ensure ssh
11007     work also without a attached tty.</li>
11008 <li>Add the command-not-found package to the default installation to
11009     make it easier to figure out where to find missing command line
11010     tools. Please note, that the command 'update-command-not-found'
11011     has to be run as root to actually make it useful (internet access
11012     required).</li>
11013
11014 </ul>
11015
11016 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
11017
11018 <ul>
11019
11020 <li>Adjusted the USB stick ISO image build to include every tool
11021 needed for desktop=xfce installations.</li>
11022 <li>Adjust thin-client-server task to work when installing from USB
11023 stick ISO image.</li>
11024 <li>Made new grub artwork (changed png from indexed to RGB format).</li>
11025 <li>Minor cleanup in the CUPS setup.</li>
11026 <li>Make sure that bootstrapping of the Samba domain really happens
11027     during installation of the main server and adjust SID handling to
11028     cope with this.</li>
11029 <li>Make Samba passwords changeable (again) via GOsa².</li>
11030 <li>Fix generation of LM and NT password hashes via GOsa² to avoid
11031     empty password hashes.</li>
11032 <li>Adapted Samba machine domain joining to latest change in the
11033     smbldap-tools Perl package, fixing bugs blocking Windows machines
11034     from joining the Samba domain.</li>
11035
11036 </ul>
11037
11038 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
11039
11040 <ul>
11041
11042 <li>KDE fails to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
11043     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
11044 <li>Chromium also fails to use the proxy when using the KDE desktop
11045     (using the KDE configuration).</li>
11046
11047 </ul>
11048
11049 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
11050
11051 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
11052
11053 <ul>
11054
11055 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
11056
11057 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso</a></li>
11058
11059 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso .</li>
11060
11061 </ul>
11062
11063 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 1e357f80b55e703523f2254adde6d78b
11064 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 7157f9be5fd27c7694d713c6ecfed61c3edda3b2</p>
11065
11066 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
11067
11068 <ul>
11069
11070 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
11071 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso</a></li>
11072 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso .</li>
11073
11074 </ul>
11075
11076 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 7a8408ead59cf7e3cef25afb6e91590b
11077 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: f1817c031f02790d5edb3bfa0dcf8451088ad119</p>
11078
11079
11080 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
11081
11082 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
11083
11084       </div>
11085       <div class="tags">
11086
11087
11088         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>.
11089
11090
11091       </div>
11092     </div>
11093     <div class="padding"></div>
11094
11095     <div class="entry">
11096       <div class="title">
11097         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_180_SSD_disk_with_Lenovo_firmware_can_not_use_Intel_firmware.html">Intel 180 SSD disk with Lenovo firmware can not use Intel firmware</a>
11098       </div>
11099       <div class="date">
11100         18th August 2013
11101       </div>
11102       <div class="body">
11103         <p>Earlier, I reported about
11104 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
11105 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
11106 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
11107 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
11108 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
11109 currently on the disk.</p>
11110
11111 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
11112 <a href="https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=3472&DwnldID=18363&ProductFamily=Solid-State+Drives+and+Caching&ProductLine=Intel%c2%ae+High+Performance+Solid-State+Drive&ProductProduct=Intel%c2%ae+SSD+520+Series+(180GB%2c+2.5in+SATA+6Gb%2fs%2c+25nm%2c+MLC)&lang=eng">issdfut_2.0.4.iso</a>
11113 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
11114 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
11115 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
11116 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
11117 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
11118 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
11119 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
11120 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
11121 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
11122 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
11123 the broken disks.</p>
11124
11125       </div>
11126       <div class="tags">
11127
11128
11129         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11130
11131
11132       </div>
11133     </div>
11134     <div class="padding"></div>
11135
11136     <div class="entry">
11137       <div class="title">
11138         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/90_percent_done_with_the_Norwegian_draft_translation_of_Free_Culture.html">90 percent done with the Norwegian draft translation of Free Culture</a>
11139       </div>
11140       <div class="date">
11141          2nd August 2013
11142       </div>
11143       <div class="body">
11144         <p>It has been a while since my last update.  Since last summer, I
11145 have worked on a Norwegian
11146 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
11147 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
11148 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright
11149 law.  Yesterday, I finally broken the 90% mark, when counting the
11150 number of strings to translate.  Due to real life constraints, I have
11151 not had time to work on it since March, but when the summer broke out,
11152 I found time to work on it again.  Still lots of work left, but the
11153 first draft is nearing completion.  I created a graph to show the
11154 progress of the translation:</p>
11155
11156 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
11157
11158 <p>When the first draft is done, the translated text need to be
11159 proof read, and the remaining formatting problems with images and SVG
11160 drawings need to be fixed.  There are probably also some index entries
11161 missing that need to be added.  This can be done by comparing the
11162 index entries listed in the SiSU version of the book, or comparing the
11163 English docbook version with the paper version.  Last, the colophon
11164 page with ISBN numbers etc need to be wrapped up before the release is
11165 done.  I should also figure out how to get correct Norwegian sorting
11166 of the index pages.  All docbook tools I have tried so far (xmlto,
11167 docbook-xsl, dblatex) get the order of symbols and the special
11168 Norwegian letters ÆØÅ wrong.</p>
11169
11170 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
11171 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
11172 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
11173 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
11174 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
11175 around?  There are also some legal terms that are unfamiliar to me.
11176 If you want to help, please get in touch with me, and check out the
11177 project files currently available from
11178 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
11179
11180 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
11181 the updated
11182 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
11183 and
11184 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
11185 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
11186 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
11187 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
11188
11189       </div>
11190       <div class="tags">
11191
11192
11193         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
11194
11195
11196       </div>
11197     </div>
11198     <div class="padding"></div>
11199
11200     <div class="entry">
11201       <div class="title">
11202         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_beta_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First beta release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
11203       </div>
11204       <div class="date">
11205         27th July 2013
11206       </div>
11207       <div class="body">
11208         <p>The first wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
11209 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
11210
11211 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b0 released
11212 2013-07-27</strong></p>
11213
11214 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
11215 7.1+edu0~b0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
11216
11217 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
11218
11219 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
11220 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
11221 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
11222 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
11223 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
11224 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
11225 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
11226 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
11227 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
11228 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
11229 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
11230 desktop contains
11231 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
11232 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
11233 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
11234 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
11235
11236 <p>This is the fifth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
11237 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
11238 Squeeze release.</p>
11239
11240 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
11241 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
11242 release.</p>
11243
11244 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
11245
11246 <ul>
11247
11248 <li>Switched roaming workstation profiles from wicd to network-manager
11249    for network configuration, as wicd didn't work any more.</li>
11250 <li>Changed version numbers of patched gosa and libpam-mklocaluser
11251    packages to make sure our locally patched versions will be replaced
11252    by the official packages when they are released from Debian. Those
11253    installing alpha version need to reinstall or manually downgrade gosa
11254    and libpam-mklocaluser.</li>
11255 <li>Added bluetooth tools to the default desktop (bluedevil, blueman).</li>
11256 <li>Added tools for sharing the desktop on KDE (krdc, krfb).</li>
11257 <li>Added valgrind to the default installation for easier debugging of
11258    crash bugs.</li>
11259
11260 </ul>
11261
11262 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
11263
11264 <ul>
11265
11266 <li>Fixed artwork package to work with gnome, no longer break
11267    desktop=gnome installations.</li>
11268 <li>Adjusted installer to now work when forced to use a proxy with the
11269    netinst CD.</li>
11270 <li>Fixed code detecting and setting/loading hardware specific
11271    setup/firmware to work more robust out of the box.</li>
11272 <li>Adjusted Kerberos setup to detect realm and server settings at
11273    install time instead of dynamically at run time. This avoid a crash
11274    with krb5-auth-dialog on diskless workstations without a DNS name.</li>
11275 <li>Worked around misfeature in network-manager not calling the dhclient
11276    exit hooks, causing automatic proxy configuration and automatic host
11277    name setting at run time to work again.</li>
11278 <li>Fixed feature setting the default Iceweasel start page from URL
11279    fetched from LDAP, to allow schools to set the global default by
11280    updating the dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no LDAP object.</li>
11281 <li>Changed default host name on all networked machines to be unique
11282    (generated from MAC or reverse DNS) after boot.</li>
11283 <li>Adjusted partition sizes to make sure they are big enough.</li>
11284
11285 </ul>
11286
11287 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
11288
11289 <ul>
11290
11291 <li>Grub is missing the new artwork.</li>
11292 <li>KDE fail to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
11293     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
11294 <li>Chromium also fail to use the proxy.</li>
11295
11296 </ul>
11297
11298 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
11299
11300 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
11301
11302 <ul>
11303
11304 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
11305
11306 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso</a></li>
11307
11308 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso .</li>
11309
11310 </ul>
11311
11312 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 55d5de9765b6dccd5d9ec33cf1a07109
11313 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 996a1d9517740e4d627d100de2d12b23dd545a3f</p>
11314
11315 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
11316
11317 <ul>
11318
11319 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
11320 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso</a></li>
11321 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso .</li>
11322
11323 </ul>
11324
11325 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: d8f0818c51a78d357de794066f289f69
11326 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 49185ca354e8d0543240423746924f76a6cee733</p>
11327
11328
11329 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
11330
11331 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
11332
11333       </div>
11334       <div class="tags">
11335
11336
11337         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>.
11338
11339
11340       </div>
11341     </div>
11342     <div class="padding"></div>
11343
11344     <div class="entry">
11345       <div class="title">
11346         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">How to fix a Thinkpad X230 with a broken 180 GB SSD disk</a>
11347       </div>
11348       <div class="date">
11349         17th July 2013
11350       </div>
11351       <div class="body">
11352         <p>Today I switched to
11353 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
11354 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
11355 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
11356 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">180
11357 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
11358 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
11359 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
11360 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
11361 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
11362 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
11363 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
11364 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
11365 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
11366 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
11367 station from now on.</p>
11368
11369 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
11370 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
11371 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
11372 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
11373 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
11374 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
11375 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
11376 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
11377 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
11378 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
11379 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
11380 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
11381
11382 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
11383 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
11384 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
11385 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
11386 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
11387 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
11388 parameters are tuned:</p>
11389
11390 <ul>
11391
11392 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
11393     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
11394
11395 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
11396     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
11397     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
11398
11399 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
11400     systems.</li>
11401
11402 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
11403     /etc/fstab.</li>
11404
11405 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
11406
11407 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
11408     cron.daily).</li>
11409
11410 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
11411     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
11412
11413 </ul>
11414
11415 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
11416 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
11417 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
11418 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
11419 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
11420 from getting the data on the disk (see
11421 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
11422 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
11423 right thing to do.</p>
11424
11425 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
11426 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
11427 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
11428
11429 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
11430 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
11431 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
11432 instead of during my work.</p>
11433
11434 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
11435 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
11436
11437 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
11438 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
11439 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
11440
11441 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
11442 there.</p>
11443
11444 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
11445 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
11446 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
11447 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
11448 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
11449 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
11450 back.</p>
11451
11452       </div>
11453       <div class="tags">
11454
11455
11456         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11457
11458
11459       </div>
11460     </div>
11461     <div class="padding"></div>
11462
11463     <div class="entry">
11464       <div class="title">
11465         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Intel_SSD_520_Series_180_GB_with_Lenovo_firmware_still_lock_up_from_sustained_writes.html">Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB with Lenovo firmware still lock up from sustained writes</a>
11466       </div>
11467       <div class="date">
11468         10th July 2013
11469       </div>
11470       <div class="body">
11471         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
11472 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
11473 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
11474 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
11475 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
11476 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
11477 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
11478 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
11479
11480 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
11481 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
11482 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
11483 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
11484 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
11485 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
11486 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
11487 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
11488 lock up when I download a new
11489 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
11490 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
11491 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
11492
11493 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
11494 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
11495 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
11496 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
11497 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
11498 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
11499
11500 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
11501 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
11502 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
11503 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
11504 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
11505 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
11506
11507 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
11508 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
11509 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
11510 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
11511 exist).</p>
11512
11513       </div>
11514       <div class="tags">
11515
11516
11517         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11518
11519
11520       </div>
11521     </div>
11522     <div class="padding"></div>
11523
11524     <div class="entry">
11525       <div class="title">
11526         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/July_13th__Debian_Ubuntu_BSP_and_Skolelinux_Debian_Edu_developer_gathering_in_Oslo.html">July 13th: Debian/Ubuntu BSP and Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering in Oslo</a>
11527       </div>
11528       <div class="date">
11529          9th July 2013
11530       </div>
11531       <div class="body">
11532         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
11533 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
11534 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
11535 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
11536 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
11537 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
11538 Bitraf</a>.</p>
11539
11540 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
11541 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
11542 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
11543 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
11544 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
11545
11546       </div>
11547       <div class="tags">
11548
11549
11550         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/nuug">nuug</a>.
11551
11552
11553       </div>
11554     </div>
11555     <div class="padding"></div>
11556
11557     <div class="entry">
11558       <div class="title">
11559         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?</a>
11560       </div>
11561       <div class="date">
11562          5th July 2013
11563       </div>
11564       <div class="body">
11565         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
11566 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
11567 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
11568 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
11569 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
11570 ended up picking a
11571 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
11572 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
11573 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
11574 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
11575 on that below.</p>
11576
11577 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
11578 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
11579 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
11580 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
11581 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
11582 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
11583 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
11584 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
11585 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
11586
11587 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
11588 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
11589 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
11590 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
11591 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
11592 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
11593 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
11594
11595 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
11596 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
11597
11598 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
11599 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
11600 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
11601 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
11602 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
11603 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
11604 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
11605 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
11606 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
11607 kernel developers as
11608 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
11609 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
11610 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
11611 Lenovo forums, both for
11612 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
11613 2012-11-10</a> and for
11614 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
11615 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
11616 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
11617 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
11618 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
11619 There is even a
11620 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
11621 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
11622 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
11623
11624 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
11625 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
11626 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
11627 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
11628 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
11629 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
11630 fixed. :)</p>
11631
11632       </div>
11633       <div class="tags">
11634
11635
11636         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11637
11638
11639       </div>
11640     </div>
11641     <div class="padding"></div>
11642
11643     <div class="entry">
11644       <div class="title">
11645         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html">The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</a>
11646       </div>
11647       <div class="date">
11648          4th July 2013
11649       </div>
11650       <div class="body">
11651         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
11652 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
11653 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
11654 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
11655 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
11656 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
11657 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
11658 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
11659 with an expencive door stop.</p>
11660
11661 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
11662 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
11663 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
11664 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
11665 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
11666 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
11667 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
11668
11669 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
11670 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
11671 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
11672 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
11673 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
11674 new laptop now. :)</p>
11675
11676 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
11677
11678       </div>
11679       <div class="tags">
11680
11681
11682         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
11683
11684
11685       </div>
11686     </div>
11687     <div class="padding"></div>
11688
11689     <div class="entry">
11690       <div class="title">
11691         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fourth_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu_Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Fourth alpha release of Debian Edu/Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
11692       </div>
11693       <div class="date">
11694          3rd July 2013
11695       </div>
11696       <div class="body">
11697         <p>The fourth wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
11698 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
11699
11700 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~alpha3 released
11701 2013-07-03</strong></p>
11702
11703 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
11704 7.1+edu0~alpha3, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
11705
11706 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
11707
11708 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
11709 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
11710 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
11711 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
11712 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
11713 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
11714 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
11715 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
11716 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
11717 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
11718 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
11719 desktop contains
11720 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
11721 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
11722 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
11723 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
11724
11725 <p>This is the fourth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
11726 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
11727 Squeeze release.</p>
11728
11729 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
11730 <ul>
11731   <li>Dropped ispell dictionaries from our default installation.</li>
11732   <li>Dropped menu-xdg from the KDE desktop option, to drop the Debian
11733     submenu.  It was not included with Gnome, LXDE or Xfce, so this
11734     brings KDE in line with the others.</li>
11735   <li>Dropped xdrawchem, xjig and xsok from our default installation as
11736     they don't have a desktop menu entry and thus won't show up in the
11737     menu now that menu-xdg was removed.</li>
11738   <li>Removed the killer system to kill left behind processes on
11739     multi-user machines, as it was no longer able to understand when a
11740     X display was in use and killed the processes of the active users
11741     too.</li>
11742   <li>Dropped the golearn (from goplay) package as the debtags in wheezy
11743     are too few to make the package useful.</li>
11744 </ul>
11745 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
11746 <ul>
11747   <li>Updated artwork matching http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/Joy
11748   <li>Multi-arch i386/amd64 USB stick ISO available.</li>
11749   <li>Got rid of ispell/wordlist related debconf questions that showed
11750     up for some language options.</li>
11751   <li>Switched to using http.debian.net as APT source by default.</li>
11752   <li>Fixed proxy configuration on Main Server installations.</li>
11753   <li>Changed LTSP setup to ask dpkg to use force-unsafe-io the same way
11754     d-i is doing it.</li>
11755   <li>Made sure root and user passwords were not left behind in the
11756     debconf database after installation on Main Server installations.</li>
11757   <li>Made Roaming Workstation dynamic setup more robust and added draft
11758     script setup-ad-client to hook a Roaming Workstation up to a
11759     Active Directory server instead of a Debian Edu Main Server.</li>
11760   <li>Update system to install needed firmware packages during
11761     installation, to work properly in Wheezy.</li>
11762   <li>Update system to handle hardware quirks (debian-edu-hwsetup).</li>
11763   <li>Corrected PXE installation setup to properly pass selected desktop
11764     and keymap settings to PXE installation clients.</li>
11765   <li>LTSP diskless workstations use sshfs by default, allowing them to
11766     work without adding them to DNS and NIS netgroups for NFS access.</li>
11767 </ul>
11768 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
11769 <ul>
11770   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
11771     available yet (698840).</li>
11772   <li>Artwork not enabled for all desktops.</li>
11773 </ul>
11774 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
11775
11776 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
11777 <ul>
11778   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
11779   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso</a></li>
11780   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso .</li>
11781 </ul>
11782
11783 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 2b161a99d2a848c376d8d04e3854e30c
11784 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 498922e9c508c0a7ee9dbe1dfe5bf830d779c3c8</p>
11785
11786 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
11787 <ul>
11788   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
11789   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso</a></li>
11790   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso .</li>
11791 </ul>
11792
11793 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 25e808e403a4c15dbef1d13c37d572ac
11794 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 15ecfc93eb6b4f453b7eb0bc04b6a279262d9721</p>
11795
11796 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
11797
11798 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
11799
11800       </div>
11801       <div class="tags">
11802
11803
11804         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>.
11805
11806
11807       </div>
11808     </div>
11809     <div class="padding"></div>
11810
11811     <div class="entry">
11812       <div class="title">
11813         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_locate_and_install_required_firmware_packages_on_Debian__Isenkram_0_4_.html">Automatically locate and install required firmware packages on Debian (Isenkram 0.4)</a>
11814       </div>
11815       <div class="date">
11816         25th June 2013
11817       </div>
11818       <div class="body">
11819         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
11820 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
11821 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
11822 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
11823 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
11824 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
11825 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
11826 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
11827 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
11828 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
11829 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
11830
11831 <p><pre>
11832 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
11833 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
11834 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
11835 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
11836 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
11837 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
11838 firmware-ipw2x00
11839 firmware-ipw2x00
11840 Preconfiguring packages ...
11841 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
11842 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
11843 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
11844 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
11845 #
11846 </pre></p>
11847
11848 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
11849 printed instead:</p>
11850
11851 <p><pre>
11852 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
11853 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
11854 #
11855 </pre></p>
11856
11857 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
11858 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
11859
11860 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
11861 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
11862 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
11863 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
11864 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
11865 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
11866 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
11867 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
11868 machine.</p>
11869
11870 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
11871 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
11872 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
11873 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
11874 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
11875 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
11876
11877       </div>
11878       <div class="tags">
11879
11880
11881         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
11882
11883
11884       </div>
11885     </div>
11886     <div class="padding"></div>
11887
11888     <div class="entry">
11889       <div class="title">
11890         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_value_of_a_good_distro_wide_test_suite___.html">The value of a good distro wide test suite...</a>
11891       </div>
11892       <div class="date">
11893         22nd June 2013
11894       </div>
11895       <div class="body">
11896         <p>In the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
11897 Skolelinux</a> project, we include a post-installation test suite,
11898 which check that services are running, working, and return the
11899 expected results.  It runs automatically just after the first boot on
11900 test installations (using test ISOs), but not on production
11901 installations (using non-test ISOs).  It test that the LDAP service is
11902 operating, Kerberos is responding, DNS is replying, file systems are
11903 online resizable, etc, etc.  And it check that the PXE service is
11904 configured, which is the topic of this post.</p>
11905
11906 <p>The last week I've fixed the DVD and USB stick ISOs for our Debian
11907 Edu Wheezy release.  These ISOs are supposed to be able to install a
11908 complete system without any Internet connection, but for that to
11909 happen all the needed packages need to be on them.  Thanks to our test
11910 suite, I discovered that we had forgotten to adjust our PXE setup to
11911 cope with the new names and paths used by the netboot d-i packages.
11912 When Internet connectivity was available, the installer fall back to
11913 using wget to fetch d-i boot images, but when offline it require
11914 working packages to get it working.  And the packages changed name
11915 from debian-installer-6.0-netboot-$arch to
11916 debian-installer-7.0-netboot-$arch, we no longer pulled in the
11917 packages during installation.  Without our test suite, I suspect we
11918 would never have discovered this before release.  Now it is fixed
11919 right after we got the ISOs operational.</p>
11920
11921 <p>Another by-product of the test suite is that we can ask system
11922 administrators with problems getting Debian Edu to work, to run the
11923 test suite using <tt>/usr/sbin/debian-edu-test-install</tt> and see if
11924 any errors are detected.  This usually pinpoint the subsystem causing
11925 the problem.</p>
11926
11927 <p>If you want to help us help kids learn how to share and create,
11928 please join us on
11929 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
11930 irc.debian.org</a> and the
11931 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@</a> mailing
11932 list.</p>
11933
11934       </div>
11935       <div class="tags">
11936
11937
11938         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>.
11939
11940
11941       </div>
11942     </div>
11943     <div class="padding"></div>
11944
11945     <div class="entry">
11946       <div class="title">
11947         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html">Debian Edu interview: Victor Nițu</a>
11948       </div>
11949       <div class="date">
11950         17th June 2013
11951       </div>
11952       <div class="body">
11953         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
11954 Skolelinux</a> distribution have users and contributors all around the
11955 globe.  And a while back, an enterprising young man showed up on
11956 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">our IRC channel
11957 #debian-edu</a> and started asking questions about how Debian Edu
11958 worked.  We answered as good as we could, and even convinced him to
11959 help us with translations.  And today I managed to get an interview
11960 with him, to learn more about him.</p>
11961
11962 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
11963
11964 <p>I'm a 25 year old free software enthusiast, living in Romania,
11965 which is also my country of origin. Back in 2009, at a New Year's Eve
11966 party, I had a very nice <strike>beer</strike> discussion with a
11967 friend, when we realized we have no organised Debian community in our
11968 country. A few days later, we put together the infrastructure for such
11969 community and even gathered a nice Debian-ish crowd. Since then, I
11970 began my quest as a free software hacker and activist and I am
11971 constantly trying to cover as much ground as possible on that
11972 field.</p>
11973
11974 <p>A few years ago I founded a small web development company, which
11975 provided me the flexible schedule I needed so much for my
11976 activities. For the last 13 months, I have been the Technical Director
11977 of <a href="http://ceata.org/">Fundația Ceata</a>, which is a free
11978 software activist organisation endorsed by the FSF and the FSFE, and
11979 the only one we have in our country.</p>
11980
11981 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
11982 project?</strong></p>
11983
11984 <p>The idea of participating in the Debian Edu project was a surprise
11985 even to me, since I never used it before I began getting involved in
11986 it. This year I had a great opportunity to deliver a talk on
11987 educational software, and I knew immediately where to look. It was a
11988 love at first sight, since I was previously involved with some of the
11989 technologies the project incorporates, and I rapidly found a lot of
11990 ways to contribute.</p>
11991
11992 <p>My first contributions consisted in translating the installer and
11993 configuration dialogs, then I found some bugs to squash (I still
11994 haven't fixed them yet though), and I even got my eyes on some other
11995 areas where I can prove myself helpful. Since the appetite for free
11996 software in my country is pretty low, I'll be happy to be the first
11997 one around here advocating for the project's adoption in educational
11998 environments, and maybe even get my hands dirty in creating a flavour
11999 for our own needs. I am not used to make very advanced plannings, so
12000 from now on, time will tell what I'll be doing next, but I think I
12001 have a pretty consistent starting point.</p>
12002
12003 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
12004 Edu?</strong></p>
12005
12006 <p>Not a long time ago, I was in the position of configuring and
12007 maintaining a LDAP server on some Debian derivative, and I must say it
12008 took me a while. A long time ago, I was maintaining a bigger
12009 Samba-powered infrastructure, and I must say I spent quite a lot of
12010 time on it. I have similar stories about many of the services included
12011 with Skolelinux, and the main advantage I see about it is the
12012 out-of-the box availability of them, making it quite competitive when
12013 it comes to managing a school's network, for example.</p>
12014
12015 <p>Of course, there is more to say about Skolelinux than the
12016 availability of the software included, its flexibility in various
12017 scenarios is something I can't wait to experiment "into the wild" (I
12018 only played with virtual machines so far). And I am sure there is a
12019 lot more I haven't discovered yet about it, being so new within the
12020 project.</p>
12021
12022 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
12023 Edu?</strong></p>
12024
12025 <p>As usual, when it comes to Debian Blends, I see as the biggest
12026 disadvantage the lack of a numerous team dedicated to the
12027 project. Every day I see the same names in the changelogs, and I have
12028 a constantly fear of the bus factor in this story.  I'd like to see
12029 Debian Edu advertised more as an entry point into the Debian
12030 ecosystem, especially amongst newcomers and students. IMHO there are a
12031 lot low-hanging fruits in terms of bug squashing, and enough
12032 opportunities to get the feeling of the Debian Project's dynamics. Not
12033 to mention it's a very fun blend to work on!</p>
12034
12035 <p>Derived from the previous statement, is the delay in catching up
12036 with the main Debian release and documentation. This is common though
12037 to all blends and derivatives, but it's an issue we can all work
12038 on.</p>
12039
12040 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12041
12042 <p>I can hardly imagine myself spending a day without Vim, since my
12043 daily routine covers writing code and hacking configuration files. I
12044 am a fan of the Awesome window manager (but I also like the
12045 Enlightenment project a lot!),
12046 <a href="http://www.claws-mail.org/‎">Claws Mail</a> due to its ease of
12047 use and very configurable behaviour. Recently I fell in love with
12048 <a href="https://launchpad.net/redshift">Redshift</a>, which helps me
12049 get through the night without headaches. Of course, there is much more
12050 stuff in this bag, but I'll need a blog on my own for doing this!</p>
12051
12052 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12053 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12054
12055 <p>Well, on this field, I cannot do much more than experiment right
12056 now. So, being far from having a recipe for success, I can only assume
12057 that:</p>
12058
12059 <ul>
12060
12061 <li>schools would like to get rid of proprietary software</li>
12062
12063 <li>students will love the openness of the system, and will want to
12064     experiment with it - maybe we need to harvest the native curiosity
12065     of teenagers more?</li>
12066
12067 <li>there is no "right one" when it comes to strategies, but it would
12068     be useful to have some success stories published somewhere, so
12069     other can get some inspiration from them (I know I'd promote
12070     them!)</li>
12071
12072 <li>more active promotion - talks, conferences, even small school
12073     lectures can do magical things if they encounter at least one
12074     person interested. Who knows who that person might be? ;-)</li>
12075
12076 </ul>
12077
12078 <p>I also see some problems in getting Skolelinux into schools; for
12079 example, in our country we have a great deal of corruption issues, so
12080 it might be hard(er) to fight against proprietary solutions. Also,
12081 people who relied on commercial software for all their lives, would be
12082 very hard to convert against their will.</p>
12083
12084       </div>
12085       <div class="tags">
12086
12087
12088         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>.
12089
12090
12091       </div>
12092     </div>
12093     <div class="padding"></div>
12094
12095     <div class="entry">
12096       <div class="title">
12097         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html">Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</a>
12098       </div>
12099       <div class="date">
12100         12th June 2013
12101       </div>
12102       <div class="body">
12103         <p>There is a certain cross-over between the
12104 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
12105 project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
12106 project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
12107 effort between the projects.  One person with a foot in both camps is
12108 Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
12109
12110 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12111
12112 <p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
12113 days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
12114 getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>
12115
12116 <p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
12117 opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
12118 each other.</p>
12119
12120 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
12121 project?</strong></p>
12122
12123 <p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
12124 first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
12125 [Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
12126 London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
12127 Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
12128 it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
12129 was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
12130 day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
12131 over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
12132 been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
12133 still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
12134 we'll get there one day.</p>
12135
12136 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
12137 Edu?</strong></p>
12138
12139 <p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
12140 it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
12141 that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
12142 very high quality work.</p>
12143
12144 <p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
12145 set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
12146 with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
12147 helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
12148 community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>
12149
12150 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
12151 Edu?</strong></p>
12152
12153 <p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
12154 separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
12155 what I originally rambled on about)</p>
12156
12157 <p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
12158 project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
12159 think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
12160 content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
12161 on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
12162 years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
12163 concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
12164 more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
12165 myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
12166 currently.</p>
12167
12168 <p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
12169 for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
12170 their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
12171 educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
12172 have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
12173 much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
12174 autonomous.</p>
12175
12176 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12177
12178 <p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
12179 Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
12180 some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
12181 particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
12182 so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>
12183
12184 <p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
12185 git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
12186 which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
12187 while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
12188 Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
12189 it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
12190 up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
12191 X.</p>
12192
12193 <p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
12194 using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
12195 people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
12196 it :p)
12197
12198 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12199 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12200
12201 <p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
12202 many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
12203 don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
12204 that.</p>
12205
12206 <p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
12207 problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
12208 advantage of that.</p>
12209
12210 <p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
12211 some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
12212 Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
12213 general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
12214 Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
12215 that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
12216 best solution for them.</p>
12217
12218 <p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
12219 educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
12220 make a decision that would work for them.</p>
12221
12222       </div>
12223       <div class="tags">
12224
12225
12226         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>.
12227
12228
12229       </div>
12230     </div>
12231     <div class="padding"></div>
12232
12233     <div class="entry">
12234       <div class="title">
12235         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_the_Linux_black_screen_of_death_on_machines_with_Intel_HD_video.html">Fixing the Linux black screen of death on machines with Intel HD video</a>
12236       </div>
12237       <div class="date">
12238         11th June 2013
12239       </div>
12240       <div class="body">
12241         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
12242 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
12243 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
12244 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
12245 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
12246 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
12247 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
12248 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
12249 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
12250 i915 driver used by the
12251 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
12252 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
12253
12254 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
12255 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
12256 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
12257 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
12258 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
12259
12260 <pre>
12261 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
12262 update-initramfs -u -k all
12263 </pre>
12264
12265 <p>Since March 2012 there is
12266 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
12267 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
12268 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
12269 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
12270 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
12271 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
12272 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
12273 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
12274 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
12275 number.</p>
12276
12277 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
12278 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
12279
12280 <p><pre>
12281 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
12282     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
12283     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
12284  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
12285  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
12286     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
12287  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
12288     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
12289  Latency: 0
12290  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
12291  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
12292  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
12293  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
12294  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
12295  Capabilities: <access denied>
12296  Kernel driver in use: i915
12297 </pre></p>
12298
12299 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
12300
12301 <p><pre>
12302 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
12303        ...
12304         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
12305         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
12306        ...
12307 }
12308 </pre></p>
12309
12310 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
12311 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
12312 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
12313 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
12314 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
12315 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
12316 yet shown up in
12317 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
12318 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
12319 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
12320 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
12321 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
12322 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
12323
12324 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
12325 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
12326 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
12327 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
12328 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
12329 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
12330 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
12331 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
12332 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
12333 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
12334 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
12335 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
12336
12337 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
12338 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
12339 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
12340 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
12341 backlight.</p>
12342
12343       </div>
12344       <div class="tags">
12345
12346
12347         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12348
12349
12350       </div>
12351     </div>
12352     <div class="padding"></div>
12353
12354     <div class="entry">
12355       <div class="title">
12356         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Third alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
12357       </div>
12358       <div class="date">
12359         10th June 2013
12360       </div>
12361       <div class="body">
12362         <p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
12363 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
12364
12365 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
12366 2013-06-10</strong></p>
12367
12368 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
12369 alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
12370
12371 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
12372
12373 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
12374 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
12375 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
12376 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
12377 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
12378 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
12379 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
12380 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
12381 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
12382 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
12383 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
12384 desktop contains
12385 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
12386 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
12387 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
12388 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
12389
12390 <p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
12391 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
12392 Squeeze release.</p>
12393
12394 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
12395
12396 <ul>
12397
12398 <li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
12399 <li>Updated libxv (DSA-2674), libxvmc (DSA-2675), libxfixes (DSA-2676), libxrender (DSA-2677), mesa (DSA-2678), xserver-xorg-video-openchrome (DSA-2679), libxt (DSA-2680), libxcursor (DSA-2681), libxext (DSA-2682), libxi (DSA-2683), libxrandr (DSA-2684), libxp (DSA-2685), libxcb (DSA-2686), libfs (DSA-2687), libxres (DSA-2688), libxtst (DSA-2689), libxxf86dga (DSA-2690), libxinerama (DSA-2691), libxxf86vm (DSA-2692), libx11 (DSA-2693), chromium-browser (DSA-2695), gnutls26 (DSA-2697), wireshark (DSA-2700), krb5 (DSA-2701), telepathy-gabble (DSA-2702) and subversion (DSA-2703).
12400 <li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
12401 <li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
12402 <li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
12403
12404 </ul>
12405
12406 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
12407
12408 <ul>
12409
12410 <li>The subnet-change script is now able to change all files needing a change on the main-server when changing the IP network used.
12411 <li>Updated translation of the installation.
12412 <li>New Romanian translation.
12413 <li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
12414 <li>Fix roaming workstation setup (Closed in libpam-mklocaluser/0.8, libpam-mklocaluser/0.8~deb7u1: #706753: libpam-mklocaluser: Fail to create local user during first login).
12415 <li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
12416 <li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
12417 <li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
12418 <li>More testsuite tests.
12419 <li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
12420 <li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
12421
12422 <li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
12423 LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
12424
12425 <li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
12426 them up with GOsa².</li>
12427
12428 <li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
12429
12430 <li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
12431 slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
12432 entered password). </li>
12433
12434 </ul>
12435
12436 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
12437
12438 <ul>
12439
12440 <li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
12441
12442 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
12443 available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
12444 missing import feature).</li>
12445
12446 <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
12447
12448 <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
12449 own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
12450 unfixed.</li>
12451
12452 </ul>
12453
12454 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
12455
12456 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
12457
12458 <ul>
12459
12460 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
12461
12462 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso</a></li>
12463
12464 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
12465
12466 </ul>
12467
12468 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
12469 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
12470
12471 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
12472
12473 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
12474
12475       </div>
12476       <div class="tags">
12477
12478
12479         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>.
12480
12481
12482       </div>
12483     </div>
12484     <div class="padding"></div>
12485
12486     <div class="entry">
12487       <div class="title">
12488         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_there_a_PHP_expert_in_the_building___Debian_Edu_need_help_.html">Is there a PHP expert in the building?  Debian Edu need help!</a>
12489       </div>
12490       <div class="date">
12491          5th June 2013
12492       </div>
12493       <div class="body">
12494         <p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
12495 We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
12496 hope to get released soon.  The two problems require some with PHP
12497 skills, and we seem to lack anyone with both time and PHP skills in
12498 the project:
12499
12500 <ol>
12501
12502 <li>It is impossible to log into the slbackup web interface
12503   (slbackup-php) using the root user and password.  This is
12504   <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">BTS report #700257</a>.
12505   This used to work, but stopped working some time since Squeeze.
12506   Perhaps some obsolete PHP feature was used?</li>
12507
12508 <li>It is not possible to "mass import" user lists in Gosa, neither
12509   using ldif nor using CSV files.  The feature was disabled after a
12510   major rewrite of Gosa, and need to be ported to the new system.
12511   This is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">BTS report
12512   #698840</a>.</li>
12513
12514 </ol>
12515
12516 <p>If you can help us, please join us on IRC
12517 (<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
12518 irc.debian.org</a>) and provide patches via the BTS.</p>
12519
12520       </div>
12521       <div class="tags">
12522
12523
12524         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>.
12525
12526
12527       </div>
12528     </div>
12529     <div class="padding"></div>
12530
12531     <div class="entry">
12532       <div class="title">
12533         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</a>
12534       </div>
12535       <div class="date">
12536          4th June 2013
12537       </div>
12538       <div class="body">
12539         <p>It has been a while since my last English
12540 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
12541 interview last November.  But the developers and translators are still
12542 pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
12543 time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
12544 in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
12545
12546 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
12547
12548 <p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
12549 professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
12550 mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
12551 probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
12552
12553 <p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
12554 and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
12555 packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
12556
12557 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
12558 project?</strong></p>
12559
12560 <p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
12561 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
12562 Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
12563 then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
12564 manual.
12565
12566 <p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
12567 virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
12568 shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
12569 how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
12570
12571 <p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
12572 ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
12573 by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>.  What pleased
12574 me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
12575 there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
12576 to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
12577 artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
12578 <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
12579 movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
12580 <a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
12581
12582 <p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
12583 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
12584 Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
12585 beautiful project.</p>
12586
12587 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
12588 Edu?</strong></p>
12589
12590 <p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
12591 community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
12592 fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
12593
12594 <p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
12595 distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
12596 of educational free software.</p>
12597
12598 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
12599 Edu?</strong></p>
12600
12601 <p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
12602 project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
12603 not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
12604 solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
12605 is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
12606
12607 <p>One can find support from a company by looking at
12608 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
12609 wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
12610 companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
12611 Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
12612 for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
12613 consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
12614 support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
12615
12616 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
12617
12618 <p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
12619 most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
12620 scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice.  I am
12621 also using the mathematical software
12622 <a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about‎">Scilab</a> and
12623 <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html‎">Sage</a> (built from
12624 source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
12625
12626 <p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
12627 using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
12628 statistics?</strong></p>
12629
12630 <p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
12631 university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/‎">R</a> and
12632 Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
12633 geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
12634
12635 <ul>
12636
12637 <li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
12638 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig‎">kig</a> to do
12639 constructions in planar geometry
12640
12641 <li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
12642 to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
12643 groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
12644
12645 </ul>
12646
12647 <p>I like also
12648 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
12649 provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
12650 <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave‎">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
12651
12652 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
12653 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
12654
12655 <p>My suggestions would be to</p>
12656
12657 <ul>
12658
12659 <li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
12660
12661 <li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
12662     well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
12663     OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
12664
12665 <li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
12666
12667 <li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
12668     system.</li>
12669
12670 </ul>
12671
12672       </div>
12673       <div class="tags">
12674
12675
12676         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>.
12677
12678
12679       </div>
12680     </div>
12681     <div class="padding"></div>
12682
12683     <div class="entry">
12684       <div class="title">
12685         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">Educational applications included in Debian Edu / Skolelinux (the screenshot collection :-)</a>
12686       </div>
12687       <div class="date">
12688          1st June 2013
12689       </div>
12690       <div class="body">
12691         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
12692 Skolelinux</a>, there are quite a lot of educational software.
12693 Created to help teachers teach, and pupils learn.  We have tried to
12694 tag them all using debtags use::learning and role::program, and using
12695 the debtags I was happy to be able to create a collage of the
12696 educational software packages installed by default, sorted by the
12697 debtag field.  Here it is.  Click on a image to learn more about the
12698 program.</p>
12699
12700 <!-- for f in $(debtags tagcat|grep field::|awk '{print $2}'); do   echo; echo "<p><strong>$f</strong></p>"; echo "<p>";   (     for p in $(debtags search --names "use::learning && interface::x11 && role::program && $f"); do img="<img src='http://screenshots.debian.net/thumbnail/$p' alt='$p'>"; if dpkg -s $p > /dev/null 2>&1; then           echo "<a href='http://packages.qa.debian.org/$p'>$img</a>"; fi;     done;   ) | LANG=C sort; echo "</p>"; done -->
12701
12702 <p><strong>field::arts</strong></p>
12703 <p>
12704 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=audacity'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/audacity.png' alt='audacity'></a>
12705 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
12706 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=denemo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/denemo.png' alt='denemo'></a>
12707 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=freebirth'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/freebirth.png' alt='freebirth'></a>
12708 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
12709 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gimp'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gimp.png' alt='gimp'></a>
12710 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=hydrogen'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/hydrogen.png' alt='hydrogen'></a>
12711 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=lilypond'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/lilypond.png' alt='lilypond'></a>
12712 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=lmms'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/lmms.png' alt='lmms'></a>
12713 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=rosegarden'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/rosegarden.png' alt='rosegarden'></a>
12714 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scribus'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scribus.png' alt='scribus'></a>
12715 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=solfege'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/solfege.png' alt='solfege'></a>
12716 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=stopmotion'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/stopmotion.png' alt='stopmotion'></a>
12717 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=tuxpaint'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/tuxpaint.png' alt='tuxpaint'></a>
12718 </p>
12719
12720 <p><strong>field::astronomy</strong></p>
12721 <p>
12722 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=celestia-gnome'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/celestia-gnome.png' alt='celestia-gnome'></a>
12723 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpredict'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gpredict.png' alt='gpredict'></a>
12724 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kstars'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kstars.png' alt='kstars'></a>
12725 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=planets'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/planets.png' alt='planets'></a>
12726 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=stellarium'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/stellarium.png' alt='stellarium'></a>
12727 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xplanet'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xplanet.png' alt='xplanet'></a>
12728 </p>
12729
12730 <p><strong>field::biology:structural</strong></p>
12731 <p>
12732 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=pymol'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/pymol.png' alt='pymol'></a>
12733 </p>
12734
12735 <p><strong>field::chemistry</strong></p>
12736 <p>
12737 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=atomix'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/atomix.png' alt='atomix'></a>
12738 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=chemtool'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/chemtool.png' alt='chemtool'></a>
12739 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=easychem'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/easychem.png' alt='easychem'></a>
12740 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gchempaint'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gchempaint.png' alt='gchempaint'></a>
12741 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gdis'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gdis.png' alt='gdis'></a>
12742 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=ghemical'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/ghemical.png' alt='ghemical'></a>
12743 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gperiodic'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gperiodic.png' alt='gperiodic'></a>
12744 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kalzium'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kalzium.png' alt='kalzium'></a>
12745 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=pymol'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/pymol.png' alt='pymol'></a>
12746 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=viewmol'>[viewmol]</a>
12747 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xdrawchem'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xdrawchem.png' alt='xdrawchem'></a>
12748 </p>
12749
12750 <p><strong>field::electronics</strong></p>
12751 <p>
12752 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
12753 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpsim'>[gpsim]</a>
12754 </p>
12755
12756 <p><strong>field::geography</strong></p>
12757 <p>
12758 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kgeography'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kgeography.png' alt='kgeography'></a>
12759 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=marble'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/marble.png' alt='marble'></a>
12760 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xplanet'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xplanet.png' alt='xplanet'></a>
12761 </p>
12762
12763 <p><strong>field::linguistics</strong></p>
12764 <p>
12765 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
12766 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kanagram'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kanagram.png' alt='kanagram'></a>
12767 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=khangman'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/khangman.png' alt='khangman'></a>
12768 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=klettres'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/klettres.png' alt='klettres'></a>
12769 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=parley'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/parley.png' alt='parley'></a>
12770 </p>
12771
12772 <p><strong>field::mathematics</strong></p>
12773 <p>
12774 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
12775 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=drgeo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/drgeo.png' alt='drgeo'></a>
12776 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
12777 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geogebra'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/geogebra.png' alt='geogebra'></a>
12778 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geomview'>[geomview]</a>
12779 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=grace'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/grace.png' alt='grace'></a>
12780 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=graphmonkey'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/graphmonkey.png' alt='graphmonkey'></a>
12781 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=graphthing'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/graphthing.png' alt='graphthing'></a>
12782 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kalgebra'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kalgebra.png' alt='kalgebra'></a>
12783 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kbruch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kbruch.png' alt='kbruch'></a>
12784 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kig'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kig.png' alt='kig'></a>
12785 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=kmplot'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/kmplot.png' alt='kmplot'></a>
12786 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=mathwar'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/mathwar.png' alt='mathwar'></a>
12787 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=rocs'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/rocs.png' alt='rocs'></a>
12788 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scratch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scratch.png' alt='scratch'></a>
12789 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=tuxmath'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/tuxmath.png' alt='tuxmath'></a>
12790 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=xabacus'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/xabacus.png' alt='xabacus'></a>
12791 </p>
12792
12793 <p><strong>field::physics</strong></p>
12794 <p>
12795 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
12796 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=step'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/step.png' alt='step'></a>
12797 </p>
12798
12799 <p><strong>field::TODO</strong></p>
12800 <p>
12801 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=blinken'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/blinken.png' alt='blinken'></a>
12802 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=cgoban'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/cgoban.png' alt='cgoban'></a>
12803 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=childsplay'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/childsplay.png' alt='childsplay'></a>
12804 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gcompris'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gcompris.png' alt='gcompris'></a>
12805 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gnuchess'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gnuchess.png' alt='gnuchess'></a>
12806 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gnugo'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gnugo.png' alt='gnugo'></a>
12807 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gtans'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/gtans.png' alt='gtans'></a>
12808 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=ktouch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/ktouch.png' alt='ktouch'></a>
12809 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=librecad'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/librecad.png' alt='librecad'></a>
12810 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=scratch'><img src='http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-06-01-debian-edu-apps/scratch.png' alt='scratch'></a>
12811 </p>
12812
12813 <p>In total, 61 applications.  3 of them lacked screen shots on
12814 <a href="http://screenshot.debian.net">screenshot.debian.net</a>.  If
12815 you know of some packages we should install by default, please let us
12816 know on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu
12817 on irc.debian.org</a>, or our
12818 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">mailing list
12819 debian-edu@</a>.</p>
12820
12821       </div>
12822       <div class="tags">
12823
12824
12825         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>.
12826
12827
12828       </div>
12829     </div>
12830     <div class="padding"></div>
12831
12832     <div class="entry">
12833       <div class="title">
12834         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8.html">How to install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8</a>
12835       </div>
12836       <div class="date">
12837         27th May 2013
12838       </div>
12839       <div class="body">
12840         <p>Two days ago, I asked
12841 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">how
12842 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
12843 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
12844 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
12845 and Windows 8.</p>
12846
12847 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
12848 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
12849 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
12850 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
12851 enough to tell.</p>
12852
12853 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
12854 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
12855 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
12856 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
12857 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
12858 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
12859 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
12860 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
12861 to follow.</p>
12862
12863 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
12864 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
12865 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
12866 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
12867 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
12868 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
12869 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
12870 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
12871
12872 <p>I've updated the
12873 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
12874 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
12875 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
12876 machine.</p>
12877
12878 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
12879 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
12880
12881       </div>
12882       <div class="tags">
12883
12884
12885         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12886
12887
12888       </div>
12889     </div>
12890     <div class="padding"></div>
12891
12892     <div class="entry">
12893       <div class="title">
12894         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_can_I_install_Linux_on_a_Packard_Bell_Easynote_LV_preinstalled_with_Windows_8_.html">How can I install Linux on a Packard Bell Easynote LV preinstalled with Windows 8?</a>
12895       </div>
12896       <div class="date">
12897         25th May 2013
12898       </div>
12899       <div class="body">
12900         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
12901 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
12902 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
12903 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
12904 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
12905 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
12906
12907 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
12908 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
12909 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
12910 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
12911 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
12912 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
12913 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
12914 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
12915 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
12916 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
12917
12918 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
12919 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
12920 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
12921 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
12922 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
12923 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
12924
12925 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
12926 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
12927 on new Laptops?</p>
12928
12929       </div>
12930       <div class="tags">
12931
12932
12933         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
12934
12935
12936       </div>
12937     </div>
12938     <div class="padding"></div>
12939
12940     <div class="entry">
12941       <div class="title">
12942         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_transform_a_Debian_based_system_to_a_Debian_Edu_installation.html">How to transform a Debian based system to a Debian Edu installation</a>
12943       </div>
12944       <div class="date">
12945         17th May 2013
12946       </div>
12947       <div class="body">
12948         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
12949 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
12950 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
12951 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
12952 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
12953 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
12954 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
12955 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
12956 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
12957 donate some money</a>.
12958
12959 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
12960 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
12961 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
12962 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
12963 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
12964
12965 <p>The script,
12966 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/branches/wheezy/debian-edu-config/share/debian-edu-config/tools/debian-edu-bless?view=markup">debian-edu-bless<a/>
12967 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
12968 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
12969 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
12970
12971 <ol>
12972
12973 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
12974 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
12975 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
12976     our configuration.</li>
12977 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
12978     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
12979     according to the profile specified in the config above,
12980     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
12981 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
12982     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
12983 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
12984
12985 </ol>
12986
12987 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
12988 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
12989 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
12990 the needed packages.</p>
12991
12992 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
12993 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
12994 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
12995 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
12996 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
12997 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
12998
12999 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
13000 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
13001 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
13002
13003 <p><pre>
13004 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
13005 DESKTOP="lxde"
13006 </pre></p>
13007
13008 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
13009 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
13010 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
13011 boot.</p>
13012
13013       </div>
13014       <div class="tags">
13015
13016
13017         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
13018
13019
13020       </div>
13021     </div>
13022     <div class="padding"></div>
13023
13024     <div class="entry">
13025       <div class="title">
13026         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">Second alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
13027       </div>
13028       <div class="date">
13029         14th May 2013
13030       </div>
13031       <div class="body">
13032         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
13033 project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
13034 release today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
13035
13036 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
13037 2013-05-14</strong></p>
13038
13039 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
13040 alpha1, based on <a href="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a> with
13041 codename "Wheezy".</p>
13042
13043 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
13044
13045 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
13046 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
13047 configured school network. Immediatly after installation a school
13048 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
13049 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
13050 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
13051 initial installation of the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all
13052 other machines can be installed via the network.</p>
13053
13054 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
13055 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
13056 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
13057
13058 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
13059 <ul>
13060   <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
13061     default.</li>
13062   <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
13063   <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
13064   <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
13065     ibus-anthy.</li>
13066 </ul>
13067
13068 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
13069 <ul>
13070
13071   <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
13072     reliability improvements.</li>
13073   <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
13074     of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
13075   <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
13076     problems.</li>
13077   <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
13078     direct:// URL.</li>
13079   <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
13080   <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
13081   <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
13082   <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
13083     servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
13084   <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
13085     log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
13086 </ul>
13087
13088 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
13089 <ul>
13090
13091   <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
13092     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>).  Only install
13093     libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
13094   <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
13095   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
13096     available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
13097   <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
13098   <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
13099   <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
13100     (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
13101   <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
13102     password submission problem
13103     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
13104
13105 </ul>
13106
13107 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
13108
13109 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
13110 <ul>
13111
13112   <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</a></li>
13113   <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</a></li>
13114   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso debian-edu~7.0+edu0~a1-CD.iso</li>
13115
13116 </ul>
13117
13118 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
13119
13120 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</p>
13121
13122 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
13123
13124 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
13125
13126       </div>
13127       <div class="tags">
13128
13129
13130         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>.
13131
13132
13133       </div>
13134     </div>
13135     <div class="padding"></div>
13136
13137     <div class="entry">
13138       <div class="title">
13139         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian__the_Linux_distribution_of_choice_for_LEGO_designers_.html">Debian, the Linux distribution of choice for LEGO designers?</a>
13140       </div>
13141       <div class="date">
13142         11th May 2013
13143       </div>
13144       <div class="body">
13145         <P>In January,
13146 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
13147 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
13148 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
13149 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
13150 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
13151 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
13152 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
13153 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
13154 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
13155 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
13156 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
13157 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
13158
13159 <p><table>
13160 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/brickos">brickos</a></td><td>alternative OS for LEGO Mindstorms RCX. Supports development in C/C++</td></tr>
13161 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
13162 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libnxt">libnxt</a></td><td>utility library for talking to the LEGO Mindstorms NX</td></tr>
13163 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
13164 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
13165 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
13166 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt">python-nxt</a></td><td>python driver/interface/wrapper for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot</td></tr>
13167 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/python-nxt-filer">python-nxt-filer</a></td><td>simple GUI to manage files on a LEGO Mindstorms NXT</td></tr>
13168 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/scratch">scratch</a></td><td>easy to use programming environment for ages 8 and up</td></tr>
13169 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
13170 </table></p>
13171
13172 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
13173 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
13174 available in experimental.</p>
13175
13176 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
13177 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
13178 for LEGO designers.</p>
13179
13180       </div>
13181       <div class="tags">
13182
13183
13184         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
13185
13186
13187       </div>
13188     </div>
13189     <div class="padding"></div>
13190
13191     <div class="entry">
13192       <div class="title">
13193         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Wheezy_is_out___and_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_should_soon_follow___newinwheezy.html">Debian Wheezy is out - and Debian Edu / Skolelinux should soon follow! #newinwheezy</a>
13194       </div>
13195       <div class="date">
13196          5th May 2013
13197       </div>
13198       <div class="body">
13199         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
13200 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
13201 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
13202 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
13203 soon.</p>
13204
13205 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
13206 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
13207 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
13208 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
13209 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
13210 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
13211 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
13212 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
13213 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
13214 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
13215 Edu.</a>
13216
13217 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
13218 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
13219 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
13220 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
13221 follow.<p>
13222
13223       </div>
13224       <div class="tags">
13225
13226
13227         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
13228
13229
13230       </div>
13231     </div>
13232     <div class="padding"></div>
13233
13234     <div class="entry">
13235       <div class="title">
13236         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_alpha_release_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Debian_Wheezy.html">First alpha release of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Debian Wheezy</a>
13237       </div>
13238       <div class="date">
13239         26th April 2013
13240       </div>
13241       <div class="body">
13242         <p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
13243 its first Wheezy based release today.  This is the release
13244 announcement:</p>
13245
13246 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu ~7.0.0 alpha0 released
13247 2013-04-26</strong></p>
13248
13249 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
13250 edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
13251
13252 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
13253
13254 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
13255 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
13256 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
13257 network. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
13258 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
13259 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
13260 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
13261 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
13262 installed via the network.</p>
13263
13264 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
13265 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
13266 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
13267
13268 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
13269
13270 <ul>
13271 <li>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
13272   <ul>
13273      <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
13274      <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
13275          (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
13276          manual.)</li>
13277      <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
13278      <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
13279      <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
13280      <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
13281      <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
13282      <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
13283      <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
13284      <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
13285      <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
13286      <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
13287      <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
13288      <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
13289          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
13290          manual</a> for more details.</li>
13291      <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
13292          installation.</li>
13293      <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
13294          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/releasenotes">release notes</a> and the <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation manual</a>.</li>
13295   </ul></li>
13296 </ul>
13297
13298 <p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
13299 <ul>
13300 <li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
13301     German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
13302     for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
13303 </ul>
13304
13305 <p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
13306 <ul>
13307 <li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
13308     choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
13309     server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
13310 </ul>
13311
13312 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
13313 <ul>
13314 <li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
13315     configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
13316     entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
13317 <li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
13318     functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
13319     completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
13320 </ul>
13321
13322 <p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
13323 <ul>
13324 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
13325     yet.</li>
13326 </ul>
13327
13328 <p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
13329
13330 <ul>
13331 <li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
13332     screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
13333     had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
13334 </ul>
13335
13336 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
13337
13338 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
13339 <ul>
13340 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
13341 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
13342 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
13343 </ul>
13344
13345 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
13346
13347 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
13348
13349 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
13350
13351 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
13352
13353       </div>
13354       <div class="tags">
13355
13356
13357         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>.
13358
13359
13360       </div>
13361     </div>
13362     <div class="padding"></div>
13363
13364     <div class="entry">
13365       <div class="title">
13366         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_developer_gathering_in_2013_take_place_in_Trondheim.html">First Debian Edu / Skolelinux developer gathering in 2013 take place in Trondheim</a>
13367       </div>
13368       <div class="date">
13369         16th April 2013
13370       </div>
13371       <div class="body">
13372         <p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
13373 Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
13374 Details about the gathering can be found
13375 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
13376 the FRiSK wiki</a>.  The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
13377 participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
13378 and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
13379 weekend.</p>
13380
13381 <p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
13382 infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
13383 Edu release.</p>
13384
13385 <p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
13386
13387       </div>
13388       <div class="tags">
13389
13390
13391         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>.
13392
13393
13394       </div>
13395     </div>
13396     <div class="padding"></div>
13397
13398     <div class="entry">
13399       <div class="title">
13400         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram_0_2_finally_in_the_Debian_archive.html">Isenkram 0.2 finally in the Debian archive</a>
13401       </div>
13402       <div class="date">
13403          3rd April 2013
13404       </div>
13405       <div class="body">
13406         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
13407 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
13408 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
13409 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
13410
13411 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
13412 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
13413 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
13414 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
13415 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
13416 BTS. :)</p>
13417
13418       </div>
13419       <div class="tags">
13420
13421
13422         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
13423
13424
13425       </div>
13426     </div>
13427     <div class="padding"></div>
13428
13429     <div class="entry">
13430       <div class="title">
13431         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Change_the_font__save_the_world__and_save_some_money_in_the_process_.html">Change the font, save the world (and save some money in the process)</a>
13432       </div>
13433       <div class="date">
13434         26th March 2013
13435       </div>
13436       <div class="body">
13437         <p>Would you like to help the environment and save money at the same
13438 time, without much sacrifice?  A small step could be to change the
13439 font you use when printing.</p>
13440
13441 <p>Three years ago,
13442 <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/04/last-year-printer-comparison-website/">Ars
13443 Technica</a> reported how the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
13444 changed their default front from
13445 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial">Arial</a> to
13446 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic">Century
13447 Gothic</a> to save money.  The Century Gothic font uses 30% less toner
13448 than Arial to print the same text.  In other word, you could cut your
13449 toner costs by 30% (or actually, increase your toner supply life time
13450 by more than 30%), by simply changing the default font used in your
13451 prints.</p>
13452
13453 <p>But it is not quite obvious how much one will save by switching.
13454 The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay said it used $100,000 per year
13455 on ink and toner cartridges, according to
13456 <a href="http://www.twincities.com/ci_14833097">a report from
13457 TwinCities.com</a>, and expected to save between $5,000 and $10,000
13458 per year by asking staff and students to use a different font.  Not
13459 all PDFs and documents are created internally, and those from external
13460 sources will most likely still use a different font.  Also, the
13461 Century Gothic font is slightly wider than Arial, and thus might use
13462 more sheets of paper to print the same text, so the total saving
13463 depend on the documents printed.</p>
13464
13465 <p>But it is definitely something to consider, if you want to reduce
13466 the amount of trash, decrease the amount of toner used in the world,
13467 and save some money in the process.</p>
13468
13469 <p>Update 2013-04-10: If you want to know how much ink/toner could be
13470 saved when switching between fonts, Inkfarm got a
13471 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/What-the-Font">service to calculate the
13472 difference between font pairs</a>.  They also
13473 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/Recommended-Ink-Saving-Fonts---">recommend
13474 which fonts to use</a> to save ink.  Check it out. :) While updating
13475 this blog post, I also came across a blog post from InkCloners,
13476 <a href="http://inkcloners.com/blog/ink-cartridges/change-fonts-to-save-ink-costs/">listing
13477 the fonts they recommend</a>, with Centory Gothic at the top.</p>
13478
13479       </div>
13480       <div class="tags">
13481
13482
13483         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
13484
13485
13486       </div>
13487     </div>
13488     <div class="padding"></div>
13489
13490     <div class="entry">
13491       <div class="title">
13492         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Typesetting_a_short_story_using_docbook_for_PDF__HTML_and_EPUB.html">Typesetting a short story using docbook for PDF, HTML and EPUB</a>
13493       </div>
13494       <div class="date">
13495         24th March 2013
13496       </div>
13497       <div class="body">
13498         <p>A few days ago, during a discussion in
13499 <a href="http://www.efn.no/">EFN</a> about interesting books to read
13500 about copyright and the data retention directive, a suggestion to read
13501 the 1968 short story Kodémus by
13502 <a href="http://web2.gyldendal.no/toraage/">Tore Åge Bringsværd</a>
13503 came up.  The text was only available in old paper books, and thus not
13504 easily available for current and future generations.  Some of the
13505 people participating in the discussion contacted the author, and
13506 reported back 2013-03-19 that the author was OK with releasing the
13507 short story using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative
13508 Commons</a> license.  The text was quickly scanned and OCR-ed, and we
13509 were ready to start on the editing and typesetting.</p>
13510
13511 <p>As I already had some experience formatting text in my project to
13512 provide a Norwegian version of the Free Culture book by Lawrence
13513 Lessig, I chipped in and set up a
13514 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook</a> processing framework to
13515 generate PDF, HTML and EPUB version of the short story.  The tools to
13516 transform DocBook to different formats are already in my Linux
13517 distribution of choice, <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, so
13518 all I had to do was to use the
13519 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a>,
13520 <a href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/epub/README">dbtoepub</a>
13521 and <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/xmlto/">xmlto</a> tools to do the
13522 conversion.  After a few days, we decided to replace dblatex with
13523 xsltproc/fop (aka
13524 <a href="http://wiki.docbook.org/DocBookXslStylesheets">docbook-xsl</a>),
13525 to get the copyright information to show up in the PDF and to get a
13526 nicer &lt;variablelist&gt; typesetting, but that is just a minor
13527 technical detail.</p>
13528
13529 <p>There were a few challenges, of course.  We want to typeset the
13530 short story to look like the original, and that require fairly good
13531 control over the layout.  The original short story have three
13532 parts/scenes separated by a single horizontally centred star (*), and
13533 the paragraphs do not contain only flowing text, but dialogs and text
13534 that started on a new line in the middle of the paragraph.</p>
13535
13536 <p>I initially solved the first challenge by using a paragraph with a
13537 single star in it, ie &lt;para&gt;*&lt;/para&gt;, but it made sure a
13538 placeholder indicated where the scene shifted.  This did not look too
13539 good without the centring.  The next approach was to create a new
13540 preprocessor directive &lt;?newscene?&gt;, mapping to "&lt;hr/&gt;"
13541 for HTML and "&lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;&lt;fo:leader
13542 leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;&lt;/fo:block&gt;"
13543 for FO/PDF output (did not try to implement this in dblatex, as we had
13544 switched at this time).  The HTML XSL file looked like this:</p>
13545
13546 <p><blockquote><pre>
13547 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
13548 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
13549   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
13550     &lt;hr/&gt;
13551   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
13552 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
13553 </pre></blockquote></p>
13554
13555 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
13556
13557 <p><blockquote><pre>
13558 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
13559 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
13560   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
13561     &lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;
13562       &lt;fo:leader leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;
13563     &lt;/fo:block&gt;
13564   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
13565 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
13566 </pre></blockquote></p>
13567
13568 <p>Finally, I came across the &lt;bridgehead&gt; tag, which seem to be
13569 a good fit for the task at hand, and I replaced &lt;?newscene?&gt;
13570 with &lt;bridgehead&gt;*&lt;/bridgehead&gt;.  It isn't centred, but we
13571 can fix it with some XSL rule if the current visual layout isn't
13572 enough.</p>
13573
13574 <p>I did not find a good DocBook compliant way to solve the
13575 linebreak/paragraph challenge, so I ended up creating a new processor
13576 directive &lt;?linebreak?&gt;, mapping to &lt;br/&gt; in HTML, and
13577 &lt;fo:block/&gt; in FO/PDF.  I suspect there are better ways to do
13578 this, and welcome ideas and patches on github.  The HTML XSL file now
13579 look like this:</p>
13580
13581 <p><blockquote><pre>
13582 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
13583 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
13584   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
13585     &lt;br/&gt;
13586   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
13587 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
13588 </pre></blockquote></p>
13589
13590 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
13591
13592 <p><blockquote><pre>
13593 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
13594 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'
13595   xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"&gt;
13596   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
13597     &lt;fo:block/&gt;
13598   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
13599 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
13600 </pre></blockquote></p>
13601
13602 <p>One unsolved challenge is our wish to expose different ISBN numbers
13603 per publication format, while keeping all of them in some conditional
13604 structure in the DocBook source.  No idea how to do this, so we ended
13605 up listing all the ISBN numbers next to their format in the colophon
13606 page.</p>
13607
13608 <p>If you want to check out the finished result, check out the
13609 <a href="https://github.com/sickel/kodemus">source repository at
13610 github</a>
13611 (<a href="https://github.com/EFN/kodemus">future/new/official
13612 repository</a>).  We expect it to be ready and announced in a few
13613 days.</p>
13614
13615       </div>
13616       <div class="tags">
13617
13618
13619         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
13620
13621
13622       </div>
13623     </div>
13624     <div class="padding"></div>
13625
13626     <div class="entry">
13627       <div class="title">
13628         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_6_got_a_video_review_from_Pcwizz.html">Skolelinux 6 got a video review from Pcwizz</a>
13629       </div>
13630       <div class="date">
13631         17th March 2013
13632       </div>
13633       <div class="body">
13634         <p>Via
13635 <a href="https://twitter.com/pcwizz/status/313044373262716930">twitter</a>
13636 I just discovered that <a href="http://pcwizz.net/">Pcwizz</a> have
13637 done a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzTZ61Pcuc">video
13638 review</a> on Youtube of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
13639 / Debian Edu</a> version 6.  He installed the standalone profile and
13640 the video show a walk-through of of the menu content, demonstration of
13641 a few programs and his view of our distribution.</p>
13642
13643 <p>There is also some really nice quotes (transcribed by me, might
13644 have heard wrong).  While looking thought the Graphics menu:</p>
13645
13646 <blockquote>
13647 "Basically everything you ever need in a school environment."
13648 </blockquote>
13649
13650 <p>And as a general evaluation of the entire distribution:</p>
13651
13652 <blockquote>
13653 "So, yeah, a bit bloated.  It kept all the Debian stuff in there, just
13654 to keep it nice and GNU.  So, I do not want to go on about it, but
13655 lets give it 7 out of 10.  I am not going to use it.  That is because
13656 I am not deploying a school network.  There may be some mythical
13657 feature to help you deploy Skolelinux on a school network."
13658 </blockquote>
13659
13660 <p>To bad he did not test the server profile, and discovered the PXE
13661 installation option.  It make it possible to install only the main
13662 server from CD, and the rest of the machines via the net, and might be
13663 considered the mythical feature he talk about. :)</p>
13664
13665 <p>While looking through the menus, there is also this funny comment
13666 about the part of the K menu generated from the Debian menu subsystem:
13667
13668 <blockquote>
13669 "[The K menu] have a special Debian section for software that no-one
13670 is going to look at, because it contain lots of junky stuff that you
13671 actually don't need in the education distribution, but have just been
13672 included because it isn't stripped out for some reason."
13673 </blockquote>
13674
13675 <p>I guess it is yet another argument for merging the Debian menu and
13676 Gnome/KDE desktop menu entries into
13677 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries">one
13678 consistent menu system</a> instead of two incomplete and partly
13679 inconsistent menu systems.</p>
13680
13681 <p>The entire video is available below for those accepting iframe
13682 embedding:</p>
13683
13684 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPzTZ61Pcuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
13685
13686       </div>
13687       <div class="tags">
13688
13689
13690         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/video">video</a>.
13691
13692
13693       </div>
13694     </div>
13695     <div class="padding"></div>
13696
13697     <div class="entry">
13698       <div class="title">
13699         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_update_released.html">First Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze update released</a>
13700       </div>
13701       <div class="date">
13702          8th March 2013
13703       </div>
13704       <div class="body">
13705         <p>Last Sunday, 2013-03-03,, Holger Levsen announced the first update
13706 of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
13707 based on Debian Squeeze.  This is the first update since
13708 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
13709 initial release 2012-03-11</a>.  This is the
13710 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2013/03/msg00000.html">release
13711 announcement email from Holger</a>:</p>
13712
13713 <blockquote><p>Hi,</p>
13714
13715 <p>it's my pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Debian
13716 Edu 6.0.7+r1 ("Debian Edu Squeeze").</p>
13717
13718 <p>Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 is an incremental update to Debian Edu
13719 6.0.4+r0, containing all the changes between Debian 6.0.4 and 6.0.7 as
13720 well Debian Edu specific bugfixes and enhancements. See below (in this
13721 mail) for the full list of (edu) changes.  Please see
13722 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311">http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311</a>
13723 for more information on "Debian Edu Squeeze".</p>
13724
13725 <p>Images are available for download at
13726 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/</a></p>
13727
13728 <p>md5sums:
13729 <br>1fe79eb4f0f9ae1c58fc318e26cc1e2e  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
13730 <br>a6ddd924a8bd9a1b5ca122e8fe1c34ec  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
13731 <br>ac6c72cd7925ccec51bfbf58e2a7c69c  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
13732
13733 <p>sha1sums:
13734 <br>a4b58233b672a99c7df8dc24fb6de3327654a5c3  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
13735 <br>9b524915e0ff2aa793f13d93123e5bd2bab2dbaa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
13736 <br>43997614893fc5e9e59ad6ce066b05d07fd836fa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
13737
13738 <p>These images are suitable for amd64+i386.</p>
13739
13740 <p>Changes for Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 Codename "Squeeze", released
13741 2013-03-03:</p>
13742
13743 <ul>
13744   <li>sitesummary was updated from 0.1.3 to 0.1.8
13745   <ul>
13746         <li>Make Nagios configuration more robust and efficient</li>
13747         <li>Comply with 3.X kernel</li>
13748   </ul></li>
13749   <li>debian-edu-doc from 1.4~20120310~6.0.4+r0 to 1.4~20130228~6.0.7+r1
13750   <ul>
13751         <li>Minor updates from the wiki</li>
13752         <li>Danish translation now complete</li>
13753   </ul></li>
13754   <li>debian-edu-config from 1.453 to 1.455
13755      <ul>
13756         <li>Fix /etc/hosts for LTSP diskless workstations. Closes: #699880</li>
13757         <li>Make ltsp_local_mount script work for multiple devices.</li>
13758         <li>Correct Kerberos user policy: don't expire password after 2 days.
13759                 Closes: #664596</li>
13760         <li>Handle '#' characters in the root or first users password.
13761                 Closes: #664976</li>
13762         <li>Fixes for gosa-sync:
13763            <ul>
13764                 <li>Don't fail if password contains "</li>
13765                 <li>Don't disclose new password string in syslog</li>
13766            </ul></li>
13767         <li>Fixes for gosa-create:
13768            <ul>
13769                 <li>Invalidate libnss cache before applying changes</li>
13770                 <li>Multiple failures during mass user import into GOsa²</li>
13771                 <li>gosa-netgroups plugin: don't erase entries of attribute type
13772                          "memberNisNetgroup". Closes: #687256</li>
13773                 <li>First user now uses the same Kerberos policy as all other users</li>
13774            </ul></li>
13775         <li>Add Danish web page</li>
13776     </ul>
13777   <li>debian-edu-install from 1.528 to 1.530
13778     <ul>
13779         <li>Improve preseeding support and documentation</li>
13780     </ul></li>
13781 </ul>
13782
13783 <p>End-user documentation in English is available at
13784 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/</a>
13785 - translations to French, Italian, Danish and German are available in
13786 the debian-edu-doc package. (Other languages could use your help!)</p>
13787
13788 <p>If you want to contribute to Debian Edu, please join our
13789 mailinglist
13790 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@lists.debian.org</a>!
13791 </p></blockquote>
13792
13793 <p>I am very happy to see the fruits of a year of hard work. :)</p>
13794
13795       </div>
13796       <div class="tags">
13797
13798
13799         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>.
13800
13801
13802       </div>
13803     </div>
13804     <div class="padding"></div>
13805
13806     <div class="entry">
13807       <div class="title">
13808         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen___Complete_TV_station_organised_using_the_web.html">Frikanalen - Complete TV station organised using the web</a>
13809       </div>
13810       <div class="date">
13811          3rd March 2013
13812       </div>
13813       <div class="body">
13814         <p>Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and
13815 broadcast them on the air?  Using free software?  With video on demand
13816 support using
13817 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
13818 open standards</a>?  Included a web based video stream as well?  And
13819 administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world?  A
13820 few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel
13821 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> have been building a
13822 system to do just this.  The source code for the solution is licensed
13823 using the GNU LGPL, and
13824 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from github</a>.</p>
13825
13826 <p>The idea is simple.  You upload a video file over the web, and
13827 attach meta information to the file.  You select a time slot in the
13828 program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and
13829 in the web stream.  It is also made available in a video on demand
13830 solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time.  All
13831 you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.</p>
13832
13833 <p>There are several parts to this web based solution.  I'll mention
13834 the three most important ones.  The first part is the database of
13835 videos and the schedule.  This is written in Django and include a REST
13836 API.  The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to
13837 PostgreSQL.  At the moment this system can be tested on
13838 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/">beta.frikanalen.tv</a>.  The
13839 second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from
13840 the database and providing a video stream to broadcast.  This is done
13841 using <a href="http://www.casparcg.com/">CasparCG from SVT</a> and
13842 <a href="http://www.mltframework.org/">Media Lovin' Toolkit</a>.  Video
13843 signal distribution is handled using
13844 <a href="http://www.ob-encoder.com/">Open Broadcast Encoder</a>.  The
13845 third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded
13846 video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video
13847 on demand.  It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet
13848 decided what it will end up using.  Note that the source of the latter
13849 two parts are not yet pushed to github.  The lead author want to clean
13850 them up a bit more first.</p>
13851
13852 <p>The development is coordinated on the
13853 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23frikanalen">#frikanalen IRC
13854 channel</a> (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on
13855 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/frikanalen">the
13856 frikanalen mailing list</a>. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim
13857 (phed on IRC).  Anyone is welcome to participate in the
13858 development.</p>
13859
13860       </div>
13861       <div class="tags">
13862
13863
13864         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
13865
13866
13867       </div>
13868     </div>
13869     <div class="padding"></div>
13870
13871     <div class="entry">
13872       <div class="title">
13873         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dr__Richard_Stallman__founder_of_Free_Software_Foundation__give_a_talk_in_Oslo_March_1st_2013.html">Dr. Richard Stallman, founder of Free Software Foundation, give a talk in Oslo March 1st 2013</a>
13874       </div>
13875       <div class="date">
13876         27th February 2013
13877       </div>
13878       <div class="body">
13879         <p>Dr. <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a>,
13880 founder of <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>,
13881 is giving <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">a
13882 talk in Oslo March 1st 2013 17:00 to 19:00</a>.  The event is public
13883 and organised by <a href="">Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG)</a>
13884 (where I am the chair of the board) and
13885 <a href="http://www.friprog.no/">The Norwegian Open Source Competence
13886 Center</a>.  The title of the talk is «The Free Software Movement and
13887 GNU», with this description:
13888
13889 <p><blockquote>
13890 The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to
13891 cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement
13892 developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the
13893 kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.
13894 </blockquote></p>
13895
13896 <p>The meeting is open for everyone.  Due to space limitations, the
13897 doors opens for NUUG members at 16:15, and everyone else at 16:45.  I
13898 am really curious how many will show up.  See
13899 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">the event
13900 page</a> for the location details.</p>
13901
13902       </div>
13903       <div class="tags">
13904
13905
13906         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
13907
13908
13909       </div>
13910     </div>
13911     <div class="padding"></div>
13912
13913     <div class="entry">
13914       <div class="title">
13915         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikart___Free_Garmin_maps_for_European_countries_based_on_OpenStreetmap.html">Frikart - Free Garmin maps for European countries based on OpenStreetmap</a>
13916       </div>
13917       <div class="date">
13918         15th February 2013
13919       </div>
13920       <div class="body">
13921         <p>If you, like me, want an updated a map for your Garmin GPS, there is
13922 now a great source of free maps available from
13923 <a href="http://www.frikart.no/garmin/index.html">Frikart</a>.  To
13924 download a map, just click on the country you are interested in, and
13925 download the map type you want.  There are 8 different maps available,
13926 using different colours and data selection.  Pick one of Roadmap, Topo
13927 Summer, Topo Winter, Roadmap II, Topo Summer II, Topo Winter II,
13928 "Trails - overlay map" and "Cross country - overlay map" (see the web
13929 page for descriptions).</p>
13930
13931 <p>The maps are updated weekly, so if you find something wrong in the
13932 map you can just edit the
13933 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> map source
13934 (anyone can contribute) and fetch a fixed map a week later. :)</p>
13935
13936       </div>
13937       <div class="tags">
13938
13939
13940         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
13941
13942
13943       </div>
13944     </div>
13945     <div class="padding"></div>
13946
13947     <div class="entry">
13948       <div class="title">
13949         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Electronic__paper_invoices___using_vCard_in_a_QR_code.html">"Electronic" paper invoices - using vCard in a QR code</a>
13950       </div>
13951       <div class="date">
13952         12th February 2013
13953       </div>
13954       <div class="body">
13955         <p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
13956 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
13957 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
13958 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
13959 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
13960 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
13961 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
13962 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
13963 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
13964 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
13965 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
13966 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
13967 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
13968 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
13969 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
13970 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
13971
13972 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
13973 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
13974 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
13975 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
13976 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
13977 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
13978 fields:</p>
13979
13980 <p><pre>
13981 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
13982 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
13983 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
13984 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
13985 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
13986 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
13987 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
13988 </pre></p>
13989
13990 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
13991 answer regarding
13992 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
13993 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
13994 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
13995 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
13996
13997 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
13998
13999 <p><pre>
14000 BEGIN:VCARD
14001 VERSION:2.1
14002 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
14003 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
14004 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
14005 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
14006 REV:20130212T095000Z
14007 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
14008 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
14009 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
14010 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
14011 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
14012 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
14013 END:VCARD
14014 </pre></p>
14015
14016 <p>The resulting QR code created using
14017 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
14018 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
14019 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
14020 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
14021 system.</p>
14022
14023 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
14024
14025 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
14026 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
14027 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
14028 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
14029
14030 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
14031 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
14032
14033       </div>
14034       <div class="tags">
14035
14036
14037         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
14038
14039
14040       </div>
14041     </div>
14042     <div class="padding"></div>
14043
14044     <div class="entry">
14045       <div class="title">
14046         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sleep_until_morning___home_automation_for_the_kids.html">Sleep until morning - home automation for the kids</a>
14047       </div>
14048       <div class="date">
14049         10th February 2013
14050       </div>
14051       <div class="body">
14052         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
14053
14054 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
14055 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
14056 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
14057 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
14058 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
14059 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
14060 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
14061 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
14062 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
14063 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
14064 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
14065
14066 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
14067 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
14068 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
14069 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
14070 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
14071 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
14072 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
14073 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
14074 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
14075 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
14076 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
14077 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
14078 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
14079 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
14080 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
14081 ones own
14082 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
14083 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
14084 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
14085 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
14086 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
14087 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
14088 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
14089 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
14090 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
14091 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
14092 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
14093
14094 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
14095 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
14096 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
14097 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
14098 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
14099 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
14100
14101 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
14102 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
14103 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
14104
14105       </div>
14106       <div class="tags">
14107
14108
14109         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14110
14111
14112       </div>
14113     </div>
14114     <div class="padding"></div>
14115
14116     <div class="entry">
14117       <div class="title">
14118         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bitcoin_GUI_now_available_from_Debian_unstable__and_Ubuntu_raring_.html">Bitcoin GUI now available from Debian/unstable (and Ubuntu/raring)</a>
14119       </div>
14120       <div class="date">
14121          2nd February 2013
14122       </div>
14123       <div class="body">
14124         <p>My
14125 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
14126 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
14127 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
14128 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
14129 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
14130 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
14131 version too.</p>
14132
14133 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
14134 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
14135 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
14136 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
14137 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
14138 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
14139 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
14140 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
14141
14142 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
14143 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
14144 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
14145 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
14146 it. :)</p>
14147
14148 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
14149 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
14150 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
14151
14152       </div>
14153       <div class="tags">
14154
14155
14156         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14157
14158
14159       </div>
14160     </div>
14161     <div class="padding"></div>
14162
14163     <div class="entry">
14164       <div class="title">
14165         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
14166       </div>
14167       <div class="date">
14168         22nd January 2013
14169       </div>
14170       <div class="body">
14171         <p>Yesterday, I
14172 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
14173 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
14174 pluggable hardware devices, which I
14175 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
14176 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
14177 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
14178 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
14179 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
14180 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
14181 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
14182 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
14183 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
14184 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
14185
14186 <pre>
14187 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
14188 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
14189 </pre>
14190
14191 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
14192 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
14193 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
14194 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
14195
14196 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
14197 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
14198 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
14199 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
14200 word.</p>
14201
14202 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
14203 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
14204 process.</p>
14205
14206 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
14207 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
14208
14209       </div>
14210       <div class="tags">
14211
14212
14213         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
14214
14215
14216       </div>
14217     </div>
14218     <div class="padding"></div>
14219
14220     <div class="entry">
14221       <div class="title">
14222         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">First prototype ready making hardware easier to use in Debian</a>
14223       </div>
14224       <div class="date">
14225         21st January 2013
14226       </div>
14227       <div class="body">
14228         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
14229 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
14230 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
14231 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
14232 it, fetch the
14233 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
14234 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
14235 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
14236 autostart script.</p>
14237
14238 <p>The design is simple:</p>
14239
14240 <ul>
14241
14242 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
14243 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
14244
14245 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
14246 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
14247 initially did.</li>
14248
14249 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
14250 the APT database, a database
14251 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
14252 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
14253
14254 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
14255 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
14256 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
14257 package or packages.</li>
14258
14259 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
14260 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
14261
14262 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
14263 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
14264
14265 </ul>
14266
14267 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
14268 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
14269 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
14270 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
14271
14272 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
14273 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
14274 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
14275 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
14276 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
14277
14278 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
14279 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
14280 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
14281 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
14282 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
14283 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
14284 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
14285 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
14286
14287 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
14288 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
14289 '<tt>svn checkout
14290 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
14291 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
14292 devscripts package.</p>
14293
14294 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
14295 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
14296 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
14297 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
14298 instructions</a> for details.</p>
14299
14300       </div>
14301       <div class="tags">
14302
14303
14304         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
14305
14306
14307       </div>
14308     </div>
14309     <div class="padding"></div>
14310
14311     <div class="entry">
14312       <div class="title">
14313         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">Thank you Thinkpad X41, for your long and trustworthy service</a>
14314       </div>
14315       <div class="date">
14316         19th January 2013
14317       </div>
14318       <div class="body">
14319         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
14320 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
14321 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
14322 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
14323 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
14324 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
14325 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
14326 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
14327 not a durable solution.
14328
14329 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
14330 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
14331
14332 <ul>
14333
14334 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
14335   than A4).</li>
14336 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
14337 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
14338 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
14339 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
14340 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
14341 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
14342 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
14343 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
14344 size).</li>
14345 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
14346   X.org packages.</li>
14347 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
14348   the time).
14349
14350 </ul>
14351
14352 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
14353 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
14354 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
14355 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
14356 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
14357 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
14358 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
14359 still be useful.</p>
14360
14361 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
14362 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
14363 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
14364 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
14365 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
14366 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
14367
14368       </div>
14369       <div class="tags">
14370
14371
14372         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14373
14374
14375       </div>
14376     </div>
14377     <div class="padding"></div>
14378
14379     <div class="entry">
14380       <div class="title">
14381         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_find_a_browser_plugin_supporting_a_given_MIME_type.html">How to find a browser plugin supporting a given MIME type</a>
14382       </div>
14383       <div class="date">
14384         18th January 2013
14385       </div>
14386       <div class="body">
14387         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
14388 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
14389 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
14390 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
14391 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
14392 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
14393 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
14394
14395 <pre>
14396 #!/usr/bin/python
14397 import sys
14398 import apt
14399 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
14400     cache = apt.Cache()
14401     cache.open(None)
14402     thepkgs = []
14403     for pkg in cache:
14404         version = pkg.candidate
14405         if version is None:
14406             version = pkg.installed
14407         if version is None:
14408             continue
14409         record = version.record
14410         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
14411             continue
14412         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
14413         for t in mime_types:
14414             t = t.rstrip().strip()
14415             if t == mimetype:
14416                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
14417     return thepkgs
14418 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
14419 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
14420     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
14421 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
14422 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
14423     print "  %s" %pkg
14424 </pre>
14425
14426 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
14427
14428 <pre>
14429 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
14430 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
14431   gecko-mediaplayer
14432 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
14433 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
14434   browser-plugin-gnash
14435 %
14436 </pre>
14437
14438 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
14439 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
14440 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
14441 anyone working on adding it?</p>
14442
14443 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
14444 request for icweasel support for this feature is
14445 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
14446 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
14447 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
14448 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
14449
14450       </div>
14451       <div class="tags">
14452
14453
14454         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14455
14456
14457       </div>
14458     </div>
14459     <div class="padding"></div>
14460
14461     <div class="entry">
14462       <div class="title">
14463         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_most_supported_MIME_type_in_Debian_.html">What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?</a>
14464       </div>
14465       <div class="date">
14466         16th January 2013
14467       </div>
14468       <div class="body">
14469         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
14470 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
14471 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
14472 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
14473 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
14474 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
14475 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
14476 downloaded by the browser.</p>
14477
14478 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
14479 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
14480 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
14481 can be found on the
14482 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
14483 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
14484 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
14485 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
14486 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
14487
14488 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
14489
14490 <pre>
14491   count MIME type
14492   ----- -----------------------
14493      32 text/plain
14494      30 audio/mpeg
14495      29 image/png
14496      28 image/jpeg
14497      27 application/ogg
14498      26 audio/x-mp3
14499      25 image/tiff
14500      25 image/gif
14501      22 image/bmp
14502      22 audio/x-wav
14503      20 audio/x-flac
14504      19 audio/x-mpegurl
14505      18 video/x-ms-asf
14506      18 audio/x-musepack
14507      18 audio/x-mpeg
14508      18 application/x-ogg
14509      17 video/mpeg
14510      17 audio/x-scpls
14511      17 audio/ogg
14512      16 video/x-ms-wmv
14513 </pre>
14514
14515 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
14516
14517 <pre>
14518   count MIME type
14519   ----- -----------------------
14520      33 text/plain
14521      32 image/png
14522      32 image/jpeg
14523      29 audio/mpeg
14524      27 image/gif
14525      26 image/tiff
14526      26 application/ogg
14527      25 audio/x-mp3
14528      22 image/bmp
14529      21 audio/x-wav
14530      19 audio/x-mpegurl
14531      19 audio/x-mpeg
14532      18 video/mpeg
14533      18 audio/x-scpls
14534      18 audio/x-flac
14535      18 application/x-ogg
14536      17 video/x-ms-asf
14537      17 text/html
14538      17 audio/x-musepack
14539      16 image/x-xbitmap
14540 </pre>
14541
14542 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
14543
14544 <pre>
14545   count MIME type
14546   ----- -----------------------
14547      31 text/plain
14548      31 image/png
14549      31 image/jpeg
14550      29 audio/mpeg
14551      28 application/ogg
14552      27 image/gif
14553      26 image/tiff
14554      26 audio/x-mp3
14555      23 audio/x-wav
14556      22 image/bmp
14557      21 audio/x-flac
14558      20 audio/x-mpegurl
14559      19 audio/x-mpeg
14560      18 video/x-ms-asf
14561      18 video/mpeg
14562      18 audio/x-scpls
14563      18 application/x-ogg
14564      17 audio/x-musepack
14565      16 video/x-ms-wmv
14566      16 video/x-msvideo
14567 </pre>
14568
14569 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
14570 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
14571 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
14572 issues.</p>
14573
14574 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
14575 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
14576
14577       </div>
14578       <div class="tags">
14579
14580
14581         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
14582
14583
14584       </div>
14585     </div>
14586     <div class="padding"></div>
14587
14588     <div class="entry">
14589       <div class="title">
14590         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_modalias_info_to_find_packages_handling_my_hardware.html">Using modalias info to find packages handling my hardware</a>
14591       </div>
14592       <div class="date">
14593         15th January 2013
14594       </div>
14595       <div class="body">
14596         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
14597 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
14598 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
14599 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
14600 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
14601 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
14602 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
14603 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
14604 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
14605 packages.</p>
14606
14607 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
14608 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
14609 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
14610 modalias.</p>
14611
14612 <p><blockquote>
14613 Package: package-name
14614 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
14615 </blockquote></p>
14616
14617 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
14618 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
14619
14620 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
14621 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
14622
14623 <p><blockquote>
14624 Package: cheese
14625 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
14626 </blockquote></p>
14627
14628 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
14629 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
14630
14631 <p><blockquote>
14632 Package: pcmciautils
14633 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
14634 </blockquote></p>
14635
14636 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
14637 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
14638
14639 <p><blockquote>
14640 Package: colorhug-client
14641 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
14642 </blockquote></p>
14643
14644 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
14645 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
14646 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
14647
14648 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
14649 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
14650 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
14651 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
14652 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
14653 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
14654 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
14655 Raring.</p>
14656
14657 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
14658 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
14659 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
14660 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
14661 try the
14662 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
14663 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
14664 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
14665 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
14666
14667 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
14668 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
14669
14670 <p><blockquote>
14671 % ./hw-support-lookup
14672 <br>yubikey-personalization
14673 <br>%
14674 </blockquote></p>
14675
14676 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
14677 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
14678
14679 <p><blockquote>
14680 % ./hw-support-lookup
14681 <br>pcmciautils
14682 <br>%
14683 </blockquote></p>
14684
14685 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
14686 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
14687 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
14688
14689 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
14690 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
14691 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
14692 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
14693 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
14694 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
14695 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
14696 see if it work.</p>
14697
14698 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
14699 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
14700 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
14701 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
14702
14703       </div>
14704       <div class="tags">
14705
14706
14707         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
14708
14709
14710       </div>
14711     </div>
14712     <div class="padding"></div>
14713
14714     <div class="entry">
14715       <div class="title">
14716         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">Modalias strings - a practical way to map "stuff" to hardware</a>
14717       </div>
14718       <div class="date">
14719         14th January 2013
14720       </div>
14721       <div class="body">
14722         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
14723 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
14724 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
14725 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
14726 in
14727 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
14728 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
14729
14730 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
14731
14732 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
14733 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
14734 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
14735 &lt;URL: <a href="http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device">http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26132/how-to-assign-usb-driver-to-device</a> &gt;,
14736 &lt;URL: <a href="http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c">http://code.metager.de/source/history/linux/stable/scripts/mod/file2alias.c</a> &gt; and
14737 &lt;URL: <a href="http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup">http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/dmidecode/dmidecode.c?root=dmidecode&view=markup</a> &gt;.
14738
14739 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
14740 this shell script:</p>
14741
14742 <pre>
14743 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
14744 </pre>
14745
14746 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
14747 using modinfo:</p>
14748
14749 <pre>
14750 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
14751 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
14752 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
14753 %
14754 </pre>
14755
14756 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
14757
14758 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
14759 Bridge memory controller:</p>
14760
14761 <p><blockquote>
14762 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
14763 </blockquote></p>
14764
14765 <p>This represent these values:</p>
14766
14767 <pre>
14768  v   00008086  (vendor)
14769  d   00002770  (device)
14770  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
14771  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
14772  bc  06        (bus class)
14773  sc  00        (bus subclass)
14774  i   00        (interface)
14775 </pre>
14776
14777 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
14778 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
14779 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
14780 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
14781
14782 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
14783 means.</p>
14784
14785 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
14786
14787 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
14788 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
14789
14790 <p><blockquote>
14791 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
14792 </blockquote></p>
14793
14794 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
14795
14796 <pre>
14797  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
14798  p    0001  (device product)
14799  d    0206  (bcddevice)
14800  dc     09  (device class)
14801  dsc    00  (device subclass)
14802  dp     00  (device protocol)
14803  ic     09  (interface class)
14804  isc    00  (interface subclass)
14805  ip     00  (interface protocol)
14806 </pre>
14807
14808 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
14809 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
14810 these alias entries show up:</p>
14811
14812 <p><blockquote>
14813 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
14814 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
14815 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
14816 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
14817 </blockquote></p>
14818
14819 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
14820 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
14821 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
14822
14823 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
14824
14825 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
14826 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
14827
14828 <p><blockquote>
14829 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
14830 </blockquote></p>
14831
14832 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
14833
14834 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
14835
14836 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
14837 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
14838 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
14839
14840 <p><blockquote>
14841 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
14842 </blockquote></p>
14843
14844 <p>The values present are</p>
14845
14846 <pre>
14847  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
14848  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
14849  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
14850  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
14851  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
14852  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
14853  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
14854  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
14855  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
14856  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
14857  ct   10             (chassis type)
14858  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
14859 </pre>
14860
14861 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
14862 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
14863
14864 <pre>
14865   3 Desktop
14866   4 Low Profile Desktop
14867   5 Pizza Box
14868   6 Mini Tower
14869   7 Tower
14870   8 Portable
14871   9 Laptop
14872  10 Notebook
14873  11 Hand Held
14874  12 Docking Station
14875  13 All In One
14876  14 Sub Notebook
14877  15 Space-saving
14878  16 Lunch Box
14879  17 Main Server Chassis
14880  18 Expansion Chassis
14881  19 Sub Chassis
14882  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
14883  21 Peripheral Chassis
14884  22 RAID Chassis
14885  23 Rack Mount Chassis
14886  24 Sealed-case PC
14887  25 Multi-system
14888  26 CompactPCI
14889  27 AdvancedTCA
14890  28 Blade
14891  29 Blade Enclosing
14892 </pre>
14893
14894 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
14895 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
14896 claim it is a desktop.</p>
14897
14898 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
14899
14900 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
14901 test machine:</p>
14902
14903 <p><blockquote>
14904 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
14905 </blockquote></p>
14906
14907 <p>The values present are</p>
14908
14909 <pre>
14910   ty  01  (type)
14911   pr  00  (prototype)
14912   id  00  (id)
14913   ex  00  (extra)
14914 </pre>
14915
14916 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
14917 the valid values are.</p>
14918
14919 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
14920
14921 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
14922 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
14923 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
14924 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
14925 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
14926 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
14927 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
14928
14929 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
14930
14931 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
14932 one can use the following shell script:</p>
14933
14934 <pre>
14935   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
14936     echo "$id" ; \
14937     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
14938   done
14939 </pre>
14940
14941 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
14942 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
14943
14944 <pre>
14945   acpi:ACPI0003:
14946     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
14947   acpi:device:
14948   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
14949   acpi:IBM0068:
14950     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
14951     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
14952     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
14953     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
14954   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
14955     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
14956     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
14957     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
14958   [...]
14959 </pre>
14960
14961 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
14962 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
14963 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
14964 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
14965
14966 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
14967 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
14968 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
14969
14970       </div>
14971       <div class="tags">
14972
14973
14974         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
14975
14976
14977       </div>
14978     </div>
14979     <div class="padding"></div>
14980
14981     <div class="entry">
14982       <div class="title">
14983         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Moved_the_pymissile_Debian_packaging_to_collab_maint.html">Moved the pymissile Debian packaging to collab-maint</a>
14984       </div>
14985       <div class="date">
14986         10th January 2013
14987       </div>
14988       <div class="body">
14989         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
14990 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
14991 Launcher and updated the Debian package
14992 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
14993 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
14994 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
14995 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
14996 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
14997 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
14998 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
14999 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
15000 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
15001 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
15002 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
15003 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
15004 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
15005 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
15006 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
15007
15008       </div>
15009       <div class="tags">
15010
15011
15012         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
15013
15014
15015       </div>
15016     </div>
15017     <div class="padding"></div>
15018
15019     <div class="entry">
15020       <div class="title">
15021         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">Lets make hardware dongles easier to use in Debian</a>
15022       </div>
15023       <div class="date">
15024          9th January 2013
15025       </div>
15026       <div class="body">
15027         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
15028 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
15029 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
15030 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
15031 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
15032 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
15033 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
15034 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
15035 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
15036 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
15037 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
15038
15039 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
15040 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
15041 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
15042 simple:
15043
15044 <ul>
15045
15046 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
15047   starting when a user log in.</li>
15048
15049 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
15050   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
15051
15052 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
15053   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
15054   packages.</li>
15055
15056 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
15057   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
15058
15059 </ul>
15060
15061 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
15062 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
15063 discover database to find packages and
15064 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
15065 packages.</p>
15066
15067 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
15068 draft package is now checked into
15069 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
15070 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
15071 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
15072 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
15073 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
15074 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
15075 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
15076 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
15077 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
15078 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
15079 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
15080 because of the freeze).</p>
15081
15082 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
15083 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
15084 inserted):</p>
15085
15086 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
15087
15088 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
15089 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
15090 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
15091
15092 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
15093 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
15094 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
15095 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
15096 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
15097 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
15098 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
15099
15100 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
15101 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
15102 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
15103 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
15104 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
15105 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
15106 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
15107 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
15108 not be installed?</p>
15109
15110 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
15111 please send me an email. :)</p>
15112
15113       </div>
15114       <div class="tags">
15115
15116
15117         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram</a>.
15118
15119
15120       </div>
15121     </div>
15122     <div class="padding"></div>
15123
15124     <div class="entry">
15125       <div class="title">
15126         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian</a>
15127       </div>
15128       <div class="date">
15129          2nd January 2013
15130       </div>
15131       <div class="body">
15132         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
15133 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
15134 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
15135 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
15136 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
15137 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
15138 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
15139 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
15140 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
15141 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
15142
15143 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
15144 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
15145 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
15146
15147       </div>
15148       <div class="tags">
15149
15150
15151         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
15152
15153
15154       </div>
15155     </div>
15156     <div class="padding"></div>
15157
15158     <div class="entry">
15159       <div class="title">
15160         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
15161       </div>
15162       <div class="date">
15163         28th December 2012
15164       </div>
15165       <div class="body">
15166         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
15167 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
15168 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
15169 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
15170 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
15171 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
15172 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
15173 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
15174 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
15175 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
15176 followed by many others. :)</p>
15177
15178 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
15179 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
15180 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
15181 you want to donate to the project.</p>
15182
15183       </div>
15184       <div class="tags">
15185
15186
15187         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>.
15188
15189
15190       </div>
15191     </div>
15192     <div class="padding"></div>
15193
15194     <div class="entry">
15195       <div class="title">
15196         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze</a>
15197       </div>
15198       <div class="date">
15199         25th December 2012
15200       </div>
15201       <div class="body">
15202         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
15203 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
15204
15205 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
15206 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
15207 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
15208 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
15209 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
15210 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
15211 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
15212 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
15213 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
15214 name.</p>
15215
15216 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
15217 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
15218 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
15219
15220 <blockquote><pre>
15221 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
15222 cd bitcoin
15223 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
15224 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
15225 </pre></blockquote>
15226
15227 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
15228 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
15229 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
15230 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
15231 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
15232 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
15233 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
15234 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
15235 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
15236
15237 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
15238 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
15239 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
15240
15241       </div>
15242       <div class="tags">
15243
15244
15245         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15246
15247
15248       </div>
15249     </div>
15250     <div class="padding"></div>
15251
15252     <div class="entry">
15253       <div class="title">
15254         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
15255       </div>
15256       <div class="date">
15257         21st December 2012
15258       </div>
15259       <div class="body">
15260         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
15261 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
15262 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
15263 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
15264 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
15265 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
15266 is now maintained by a
15267 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
15268 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
15269 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
15270 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
15271 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
15272 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
15273 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
15274 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
15275 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
15276 Corallo in a
15277 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
15278 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
15279 Debian package.</p>
15280
15281 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
15282 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
15283 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
15284 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
15285 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
15286 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
15287 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
15288 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
15289 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
15290 new version to unstable.
15291
15292 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
15293 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
15294 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
15295 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
15296 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
15297 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
15298 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
15299 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
15300 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
15301 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
15302 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
15303 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
15304 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
15305 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
15306 have not tested them.</p>
15307
15308 <p>My
15309 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
15310 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
15311 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
15312 years ago, as can be
15313 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
15314 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
15315 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
15316 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
15317 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
15318 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
15319 the same address as last time,
15320 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
15321
15322       </div>
15323       <div class="tags">
15324
15325
15326         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
15327
15328
15329       </div>
15330     </div>
15331     <div class="padding"></div>
15332
15333     <div class="entry">
15334       <div class="title">
15335         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ledger___double_entry_accounting_using_text_based_storage_format.html">Ledger - double-entry accounting using text based storage format</a>
15336       </div>
15337       <div class="date">
15338         18th December 2012
15339       </div>
15340       <div class="body">
15341         <p>A few days ago I came across
15342 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
15343 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
15344 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
15345 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
15346 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
15347 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
15348 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
15349 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
15350 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
15351
15352 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
15353 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
15354 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
15355 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
15356
15357 <blockquote><pre>
15358 2004-05-27 Book Store
15359       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
15360       Liabilities:Visa
15361 </pre></blockquote>
15362
15363 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
15364 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
15365 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
15366 Spang</a>,
15367 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
15368 Keen</a>,
15369 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
15370 Cantino</a> and
15371 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
15372 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
15373 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
15374 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
15375 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
15376
15377 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
15378 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
15379 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
15380 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
15381 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
15382
15383 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
15384 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
15385 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
15386 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
15387 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
15388 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
15389 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
15390 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
15391 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
15392
15393       </div>
15394       <div class="tags">
15395
15396
15397         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
15398
15399
15400       </div>
15401     </div>
15402     <div class="padding"></div>
15403
15404     <div class="entry">
15405       <div class="title">
15406         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Scripting_the_Cerebrum_bofhd_user_administration_system_using_XML_RPC.html">Scripting the Cerebrum/bofhd user administration system using XML-RPC</a>
15407       </div>
15408       <div class="date">
15409          6th December 2012
15410       </div>
15411       <div class="body">
15412         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
15413 Oslo</a>, we use the
15414 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
15415 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
15416 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
15417 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
15418 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
15419 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
15420 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
15421 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
15422 Python.</p>
15423
15424 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
15425 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
15426 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
15427 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
15428 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
15429 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
15430
15431 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
15432 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
15433 user currently logged in:</p>
15434
15435 <blockquote><pre>
15436 #!/usr/bin/env python
15437 import getpass
15438 import xmlrpclib
15439 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
15440 username = getpass.getuser()
15441 password = getpass.getpass()
15442 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
15443 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
15444 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
15445 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
15446 result = server.logout(sessionid)
15447 print result
15448 </pre></blockquote>
15449
15450 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
15451 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
15452
15453       </div>
15454       <div class="tags">
15455
15456
15457         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin</a>.
15458
15459
15460       </div>
15461     </div>
15462     <div class="padding"></div>
15463
15464     <div class="entry">
15465       <div class="title">
15466         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_the_value_of_copyright_taxed_.html">Why isn't the value of copyright taxed?</a>
15467       </div>
15468       <div class="date">
15469         17th November 2012
15470       </div>
15471       <div class="body">
15472         <p>While working on a
15473 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
15474 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
15475 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
15476 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
15477 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
15478 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
15479
15480 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
15481 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
15482 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
15483 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
15484 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
15485 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
15486 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
15487 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
15488 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
15489 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
15490 arguments.</p>
15491
15492 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
15493 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
15494 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
15495 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
15496 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
15497 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
15498 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
15499 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
15500
15501 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
15502 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
15503 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
15504 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
15505 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
15506 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
15507 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
15508 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
15509 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
15510 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
15511 correct right holder.</p>
15512
15513 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
15514 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
15515 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
15516 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
15517 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
15518 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
15519 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
15520 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
15521 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
15522 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
15523 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
15524 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
15525 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
15526 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
15527
15528 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
15529 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
15530 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
15531
15532 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
15533 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
15534
15535       </div>
15536       <div class="tags">
15537
15538
15539         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
15540
15541
15542       </div>
15543     </div>
15544     <div class="padding"></div>
15545
15546     <div class="entry">
15547       <div class="title">
15548         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
15549       </div>
15550       <div class="date">
15551         14th November 2012
15552       </div>
15553       <div class="body">
15554         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
15555 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
15556 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
15557 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
15558 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
15559 the people behind the German
15560 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
15561 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
15562 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
15563
15564 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
15565
15566 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
15567 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
15568 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
15569
15570 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
15571 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
15572 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
15573 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
15574 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
15575 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
15576
15577 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
15578 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
15579 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
15580 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
15581 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
15582 relationship management and the communication processes in the
15583 project.</p>
15584
15585 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
15586 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
15587 and a yoga teacher.</p>
15588
15589 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
15590 project?</strong></p>
15591
15592 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
15593
15594 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
15595 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
15596 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
15597 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
15598 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
15599 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
15600 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
15601 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
15602 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
15603 parents.</p>
15604
15605 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
15606 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
15607 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
15608 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
15609 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
15610 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
15611 Germany.</p>
15612
15613 <p>For information about our school project you can read
15614 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
15615 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
15616
15617 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
15618 Edu?</strong></p>
15619
15620 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
15621 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
15622
15623 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
15624 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
15625 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
15626 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
15627 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
15628 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
15629 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
15630 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
15631 teachers, parents...</p>
15632
15633 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
15634 Edu?</strong></p>
15635
15636 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
15637 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
15638
15639 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
15640 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
15641 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
15642 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
15643 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
15644
15645 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
15646 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
15647 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
15648 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
15649 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
15650 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
15651 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
15652
15653 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
15654
15655 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
15656 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
15657 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
15658 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
15659
15660 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
15661 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
15662
15663 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
15664 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
15665 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
15666 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
15667 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
15668
15669 <ul>
15670
15671 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
15672 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
15673 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
15674
15675 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
15676 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
15677 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
15678 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
15679 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
15680 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
15681 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
15682
15683 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
15684 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
15685 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
15686 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
15687
15688 </ul>
15689
15690       </div>
15691       <div class="tags">
15692
15693
15694         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>.
15695
15696
15697       </div>
15698     </div>
15699     <div class="padding"></div>
15700
15701     <div class="entry">
15702       <div class="title">
15703         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_European_Central_Bank__ECB__take_a_look_at_bitcoin.html">The European Central Bank (ECB) take a look at bitcoin</a>
15704       </div>
15705       <div class="date">
15706          4th November 2012
15707       </div>
15708       <div class="body">
15709         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
15710 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
15711 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
15712 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
15713 see how a member of the bitcoin community
15714 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
15715 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
15716 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
15717 competition.  My thoughts go to the
15718 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
15719 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
15720 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
15721 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
15722 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
15723
15724 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
15725 that the community already seem to have
15726 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
15727 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
15728 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
15729 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
15730 wealth is available.</p>
15731
15732       </div>
15733       <div class="tags">
15734
15735
15736         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
15737
15738
15739       </div>
15740     </div>
15741     <div class="padding"></div>
15742
15743     <div class="entry">
15744       <div class="title">
15745         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/12_years_of_outages___summarised_by_Stuart_Kendrick.html">12 years of outages - summarised by Stuart Kendrick</a>
15746       </div>
15747       <div class="date">
15748         26th October 2012
15749       </div>
15750       <div class="body">
15751         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
15752 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
15753 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
15754 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
15755 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
15756 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
15757 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
15758 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
15759 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
15760 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
15761 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
15762 it every time.</p>
15763
15764 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
15765 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
15766 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
15767 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
15768 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
15769 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
15770 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
15771 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
15772 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
15773 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
15774 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
15775 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
15776
15777 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
15778 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
15779 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
15780 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
15781 article: First the unplanned outage:
15782
15783 <blockquote><pre>
15784 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
15785 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
15786 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
15787 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
15788 Duration:    40 minutes
15789 Scope:       Exchange 2003
15790 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
15791              a cluster failover.
15792
15793 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
15794              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
15795 Technician:  [xxx]
15796 </pre></blockquote>
15797
15798 Next the planned outage:
15799
15800 <blockquote><pre>
15801 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
15802 Severity:    Major (Planned)
15803 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
15804 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
15805 Duration:    10 hours
15806 Scope:       H2 Transport
15807 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
15808              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
15809              4510s.
15810 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
15811              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
15812              connectivity.
15813 Technician:  [xxx]
15814 </pre></blockquote>
15815
15816 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
15817 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
15818 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
15819 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
15820 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
15821 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
15822 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
15823
15824 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
15825 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
15826 university too.  We do register
15827 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
15828 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
15829 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
15830 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
15831 for other sites to consider too?</p>
15832
15833       </div>
15834       <div class="tags">
15835
15836
15837         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</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/usenix">usenix</a>.
15838
15839
15840       </div>
15841     </div>
15842     <div class="padding"></div>
15843
15844     <div class="entry">
15845       <div class="title">
15846         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Amazon_steal_books_from_customer_and_throw_out_her_out_without_any_explanation.html">Amazon steal books from customer and throw out her out without any explanation</a>
15847       </div>
15848       <div class="date">
15849         22nd October 2012
15850       </div>
15851       <div class="body">
15852         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
15853 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
15854 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
15855 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
15856 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
15857 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
15858 background information is available in Norwegian from
15859 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
15860 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
15861 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
15862 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
15863 willing to
15864 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
15865 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
15866 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
15867 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
15868 sounded like
15869 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
15870 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
15871 later.</p>
15872
15873 <p>And thought this action is
15874 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
15875 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
15876 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
15877 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
15878 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
15879 rights.</p>
15880
15881 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
15882 unacceptable terms.  For example
15883 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
15884 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
15885 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
15886 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
15887 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
15888
15889 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
15890 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
15891 restored the account of the user, as reported by
15892 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
15893 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
15894 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
15895 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
15896 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
15897 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
15898 reading two opinions from
15899 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
15900 Phipps</a> and
15901 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
15902 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
15903 details about the original story.</p>
15904
15905       </div>
15906       <div class="tags">
15907
15908
15909         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>.
15910
15911
15912       </div>
15913     </div>
15914     <div class="padding"></div>
15915
15916     <div class="entry">
15917       <div class="title">
15918         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
15919       </div>
15920       <div class="date">
15921         18th October 2012
15922       </div>
15923       <div class="body">
15924         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
15925 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
15926 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
15927 across a marvellous drawing by
15928 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
15929 visualising some of what is going on.
15930
15931 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
15932 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
15933
15934 <blockquote>
15935 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
15936 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
15937 </blockquote>
15938
15939 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
15940 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
15941 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
15942 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
15943 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
15944 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
15945
15946       </div>
15947       <div class="tags">
15948
15949
15950         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
15951
15952
15953       </div>
15954     </div>
15955     <div class="padding"></div>
15956
15957     <div class="entry">
15958       <div class="title">
15959         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
15960       </div>
15961       <div class="date">
15962         12th October 2012
15963       </div>
15964       <div class="body">
15965         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
15966 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
15967 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
15968 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
15969 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
15970 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
15971 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
15972 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
15973 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
15974 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
15975 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
15976 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
15977 matter".</p>
15978
15979 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
15980 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
15981 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
15982 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
15983 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
15984 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
15985 to argue its side.</p>
15986
15987 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
15988 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
15989 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
15990 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
15991
15992 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
15993 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
15994 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
15995
15996       </div>
15997       <div class="tags">
15998
15999
16000         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis</a>.
16001
16002
16003       </div>
16004     </div>
16005     <div class="padding"></div>
16006
16007     <div class="entry">
16008       <div class="title">
16009         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_is_your_local_library_collecting_the__wrong__computer_books_.html">Why is your local library collecting the "wrong" computer books?</a>
16010       </div>
16011       <div class="date">
16012          3rd October 2012
16013       </div>
16014       <div class="body">
16015         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
16016 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
16017 the computer science book collection available in his local
16018 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
16019 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
16020 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
16021 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
16022 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
16023 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
16024 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
16025 recently published books.</p>
16026
16027 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
16028 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
16029 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
16030 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
16031 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
16032 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
16033 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
16034 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
16035 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
16036 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
16037 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
16038 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
16039 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
16040 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
16041 for the library that evening.</p>
16042
16043 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
16044 going to know that for example
16045 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
16046 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
16047 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
16048 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
16049 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
16050 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
16051 book right away.</p>
16052
16053       </div>
16054       <div class="tags">
16055
16056
16057         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
16058
16059
16060       </div>
16061     </div>
16062     <div class="padding"></div>
16063
16064     <div class="entry">
16065       <div class="title">
16066         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Seventy_percent_done_with_Norwegian_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html">Seventy percent done with Norwegian docbook version of Free Culture</a>
16067       </div>
16068       <div class="date">
16069         23rd September 2012
16070       </div>
16071       <div class="body">
16072         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
16073 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
16074 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
16075 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
16076 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
16077 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
16078
16079 When I started, I
16080 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
16081 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
16082 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
16083 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
16084 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
16085 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
16086 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
16087
16088 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
16089
16090 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
16091 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
16092 the project files currently available from
16093 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
16094
16095 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
16096 the updated
16097 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
16098 and
16099 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
16100 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
16101 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
16102 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
16103
16104       </div>
16105       <div class="tags">
16106
16107
16108         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
16109
16110
16111       </div>
16112     </div>
16113     <div class="padding"></div>
16114
16115     <div class="entry">
16116       <div class="title">
16117         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
16118       </div>
16119       <div class="date">
16120         17th September 2012
16121       </div>
16122       <div class="body">
16123         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
16124 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
16125 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
16126 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
16127 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
16128 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
16129 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
16130
16131 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
16132
16133 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
16134 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
16135 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
16136 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
16137 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
16138 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
16139 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
16140 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
16141 training is anyway very important</p>
16142
16143 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
16144 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
16145 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
16146 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
16147 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
16148
16149 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
16150 project?</strong></p>
16151
16152 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
16153 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
16154 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
16155 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
16156 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
16157 hole.</p>
16158
16159 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
16160 Edu?</strong></p>
16161
16162 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
16163 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
16164 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
16165 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
16166 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
16167 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
16168 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
16169 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
16170 hassle.</p>
16171
16172 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
16173 Edu?</strong></p>
16174
16175 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
16176 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
16177 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
16178 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
16179 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
16180 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
16181 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
16182 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
16183
16184 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
16185
16186 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
16187 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
16188 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
16189 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
16190 has the same...</p>
16191
16192 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
16193 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
16194 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
16195 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
16196
16197 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
16198 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
16199
16200 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
16201 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
16202 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
16203
16204 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
16205 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
16206 don't.</p>
16207
16208 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
16209 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
16210 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
16211 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
16212 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
16213 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
16214 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
16215
16216       </div>
16217       <div class="tags">
16218
16219
16220         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>.
16221
16222
16223       </div>
16224     </div>
16225     <div class="padding"></div>
16226
16227     <div class="entry">
16228       <div class="title">
16229         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
16230       </div>
16231       <div class="date">
16232         15th September 2012
16233       </div>
16234       <div class="body">
16235         <p>After the
16236 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
16237 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
16238 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
16239 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
16240 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
16241 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
16242 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
16243 was
16244 <a href="http://ietf.10.n7.nabble.com/New-Non-WG-Mailing-List-video-codec-Video-codec-BoF-discussion-list-td119548.html">created 2012-08-20</a>.  It is intended to discuss the topic and if a
16245 formal working group should be formed.</p>
16246
16247 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
16248 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
16249 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
16250 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
16251 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
16252 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
16253 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
16254 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
16255
16256 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
16257 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
16258 IETF.</p>
16259
16260       </div>
16261       <div class="tags">
16262
16263
16264         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
16265
16266
16267       </div>
16268     </div>
16269     <div class="padding"></div>
16270
16271     <div class="entry">
16272       <div class="title">
16273         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
16274       </div>
16275       <div class="date">
16276         12th September 2012
16277       </div>
16278       <div class="body">
16279         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
16280 publication of of
16281 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
16282 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
16283 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
16284 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
16285 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
16286 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
16287 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
16288 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
16289 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
16290 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
16291
16292 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
16293 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
16294 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
16295 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
16296
16297 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
16298 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
16299
16300       </div>
16301       <div class="tags">
16302
16303
16304         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
16305
16306
16307       </div>
16308     </div>
16309     <div class="padding"></div>
16310
16311     <div class="entry">
16312       <div class="title">
16313         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</a>
16314       </div>
16315       <div class="date">
16316          7th September 2012
16317       </div>
16318       <div class="body">
16319         <p>As I
16320 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
16321 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
16322 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
16323 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
16324 repository for the project</a>.</p>
16325
16326 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
16327 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
16328 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
16329 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
16330
16331 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
16332 PostScript formats at
16333 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
16334 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
16335
16336       </div>
16337       <div class="tags">
16338
16339
16340         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</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>.
16341
16342
16343       </div>
16344     </div>
16345     <div class="padding"></div>
16346
16347     <div class="entry">
16348       <div class="title">
16349         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_software_forced_Microsoft_to_open_Office__and_don_t_forget_Officeshots_.html">Free software forced Microsoft to open Office (and don't forget Officeshots)</a>
16350       </div>
16351       <div class="date">
16352         23rd August 2012
16353       </div>
16354       <div class="body">
16355         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
16356 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
16357 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
16358 revisit the great site
16359 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
16360 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
16361 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
16362
16363       </div>
16364       <div class="tags">
16365
16366
16367         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
16368
16369
16370       </div>
16371     </div>
16372     <div class="padding"></div>
16373
16374     <div class="entry">
16375       <div class="title">
16376         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_way_there_with_translated_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html">Half way there with translated docbook version of Free Culture</a>
16377       </div>
16378       <div class="date">
16379         17th August 2012
16380       </div>
16381       <div class="body">
16382         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
16383 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
16384 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
16385 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
16386 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
16387 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
16388 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
16389 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
16390 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
16391 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
16392 summer I
16393 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
16394 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
16395 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
16396
16397 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
16398 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
16399 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
16400 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
16401 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
16402 progress:</p>
16403
16404 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
16405
16406 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
16407 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
16408 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
16409 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
16410 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
16411 english version of the docbook source.</p>
16412
16413 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
16414 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
16415 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
16416 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
16417 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
16418 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
16419 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
16420 project files currently available from <a
16421 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
16422
16423 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
16424 the updated
16425 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
16426 and
16427 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
16428 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
16429 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
16430 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
16431
16432       </div>
16433       <div class="tags">
16434
16435
16436         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
16437
16438
16439       </div>
16440     </div>
16441     <div class="padding"></div>
16442
16443     <div class="entry">
16444       <div class="title">
16445         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Notes_on_language_codes_for_Norwegian_docbook_processing___.html">Notes on language codes for Norwegian docbook processing...</a>
16446       </div>
16447       <div class="date">
16448         10th August 2012
16449       </div>
16450       <div class="body">
16451         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
16452 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
16453 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
16454 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
16455 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
16456 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
16457 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
16458 case for the language
16459 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
16460 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
16461
16462 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
16463 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
16464 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
16465 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
16466 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
16467
16468 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
16469 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
16470 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
16471 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
16472 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
16473 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
16474 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
16475 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
16476 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
16477 alias for 'nb'.</p>
16478
16479 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
16480 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
16481 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
16482 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
16483 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
16484 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
16485 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
16486 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
16487 at the same time. :(</p>
16488
16489 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
16490 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
16491 processors. :(</p>
16492
16493 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
16494
16495       </div>
16496       <div class="tags">
16497
16498
16499         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
16500
16501
16502       </div>
16503     </div>
16504     <div class="padding"></div>
16505
16506     <div class="entry">
16507       <div class="title">
16508         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
16509       </div>
16510       <div class="date">
16511         31st July 2012
16512       </div>
16513       <div class="body">
16514         <p>I tried to send this text to the
16515 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
16516 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
16517 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
16518 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
16519 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
16520 out.</p>
16521
16522 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
16523 learning curve at the moment.</p>
16524
16525 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
16526 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
16527 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
16528 available from
16529 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
16530 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
16531 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
16532 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
16533 Squeeze.</p>
16534
16535 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
16536 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
16537 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
16538 problems.</p>
16539
16540 <ul>
16541
16542 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
16543    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
16544    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
16545    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
16546    index references spanning several pages (See
16547    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
16548    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
16549    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
16550
16551 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
16552    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
16553    #683163</a>).</li>
16554
16555 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
16556    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
16557    footnote and text body, see
16558    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
16559    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
16560    refs listed are not right).</li>
16561
16562 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
16563
16564 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
16565    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
16566
16567 </ul>
16568
16569 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
16570 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
16571 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
16572
16573 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
16574
16575       </div>
16576       <div class="tags">
16577
16578
16579         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>.
16580
16581
16582       </div>
16583     </div>
16584     <div class="padding"></div>
16585
16586     <div class="entry">
16587       <div class="title">
16588         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">Free Culture in Norwegian - 5 chapters done, 74 percent left to do</a>
16589       </div>
16590       <div class="date">
16591         21st July 2012
16592       </div>
16593       <div class="body">
16594         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
16595 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
16596 norwegian version</a> of the book
16597 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
16598 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
16599 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
16600 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
16601 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
16602
16603 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
16604 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
16605 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
16606 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
16607 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
16608 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
16609 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
16610 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
16611 print. :)</p>
16612
16613 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
16614 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
16615 language.</p>
16616
16617       </div>
16618       <div class="tags">
16619
16620
16621         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
16622
16623
16624       </div>
16625     </div>
16626     <div class="padding"></div>
16627
16628     <div class="entry">
16629       <div class="title">
16630         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Call_for_help_from_docbook_expert_to_tag_Free_Culture_by_Lawrence_Lessig.html">Call for help from docbook expert to tag Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a>
16631       </div>
16632       <div class="date">
16633         16th July 2012
16634       </div>
16635       <div class="body">
16636         <p>I am currently working on a
16637 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
16638 to translate</a> the book
16639 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
16640 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
16641 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
16642 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
16643 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
16644 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
16645 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
16646
16647 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
16648 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
16649 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
16650 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
16651 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
16652 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
16653 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
16654 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
16655 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
16656
16657       </div>
16658       <div class="tags">
16659
16660
16661         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
16662
16663
16664       </div>
16665     </div>
16666     <div class="padding"></div>
16667
16668     <div class="entry">
16669       <div class="title">
16670         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
16671       </div>
16672       <div class="date">
16673          9th July 2012
16674       </div>
16675       <div class="body">
16676         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
16677 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
16678 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
16679 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
16680 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
16681 to adjust and scale the just released
16682 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
16683 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
16684 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
16685
16686 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
16687
16688 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
16689 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
16690 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
16691 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
16692 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
16693 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
16694 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
16695 perspective when working with IT.</p>
16696
16697 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
16698 project?</strong></p>
16699
16700 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
16701 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
16702 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
16703 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
16704 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
16705 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
16706
16707 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
16708 Edu?</strong></p>
16709
16710 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
16711 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
16712 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
16713 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
16714 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
16715 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
16716 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
16717 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
16718 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
16719 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
16720 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
16721 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
16722 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
16723 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
16724 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
16725 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
16726 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
16727 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
16728 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
16729 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
16730 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
16731 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
16732 quicker to update.
16733
16734 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
16735 Edu?</strong></p>
16736
16737 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
16738 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
16739 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
16740 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
16741 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
16742 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
16743
16744 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
16745 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
16746 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
16747 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
16748 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
16749 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
16750 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
16751 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
16752 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
16753 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
16754 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
16755 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
16756 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
16757 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
16758 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
16759
16760 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
16761 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
16762 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
16763 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
16764 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
16765 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
16766 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
16767 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
16768
16769 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
16770 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
16771 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
16772 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
16773 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
16774 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
16775 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
16776 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
16777 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
16778 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
16779 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
16780 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
16781 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
16782 sound file.</p>
16783
16784 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
16785 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
16786 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
16787 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
16788 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
16789 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
16790 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
16791 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
16792 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
16793
16794 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
16795
16796 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
16797 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
16798 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
16799 )</p>
16800
16801 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
16802 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
16803
16804 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
16805 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
16806 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
16807 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
16808 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
16809 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
16810 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
16811 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
16812 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
16813 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
16814 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
16815 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
16816 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
16817 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
16818 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
16819
16820 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
16821 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
16822 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
16823 management with Airtime</a>,
16824 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
16825 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
16826 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
16827 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
16828 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
16829
16830       </div>
16831       <div class="tags">
16832
16833
16834         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>.
16835
16836
16837       </div>
16838     </div>
16839     <div class="padding"></div>
16840
16841     <div class="entry">
16842       <div class="title">
16843         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
16844       </div>
16845       <div class="date">
16846          8th July 2012
16847       </div>
16848       <div class="body">
16849         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
16850 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
16851 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
16852 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
16853 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
16854 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
16855 Steinberg in his blog post
16856 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
16857 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
16858 spending of your tax money.</p>
16859
16860 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
16861 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
16862 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
16863 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
16864 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
16865 purchases.</p>
16866
16867       </div>
16868       <div class="tags">
16869
16870
16871         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>.
16872
16873
16874       </div>
16875     </div>
16876     <div class="padding"></div>
16877
16878     <div class="entry">
16879       <div class="title">
16880         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
16881       </div>
16882       <div class="date">
16883          7th July 2012
16884       </div>
16885       <div class="body">
16886         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
16887 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
16888 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
16889 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
16890 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
16891 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
16892 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
16893 receive.  The software is
16894
16895 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
16896 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
16897 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
16898 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
16899 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
16900 Windows</a>.</p>
16901
16902 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
16903 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
16904
16905 <p><ul>
16906
16907   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
16908     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
16909
16910   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
16911     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
16912     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
16913     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
16914     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
16915     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
16916     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
16917     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
16918     </li>
16919
16920   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
16921     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
16922
16923   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
16924     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
16925
16926   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
16927     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
16928
16929   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
16930
16931   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
16932     formats </li>
16933
16934   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
16935     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
16936     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
16937     (as separate sets)</li>
16938
16939   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
16940     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
16941     percentage)</li>
16942
16943   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
16944     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
16945     memory):
16946     <ul>
16947       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
16948       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
16949       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
16950       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
16951       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
16952       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
16953       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
16954       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
16955       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
16956       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
16957           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
16958           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
16959           activity)</li>
16960       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
16961       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
16962     </ul></li>
16963
16964   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
16965     <ul>
16966       <li>Break periods</li>
16967       <li>For teacher(s):
16968         <ul>
16969           <li>Not available periods</li>
16970           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
16971           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
16972           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
16973           <li>Min hours daily</li>
16974           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
16975
16976           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
16977             days per week</li>
16978         </ul></li>
16979       <li>For students (sets):
16980         <ul>
16981           <li>Not available periods</li>
16982           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
16983           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
16984           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
16985           <li>Min hours daily</li>
16986           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
16987
16988           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
16989             days per week</li>
16990         </ul></li>
16991       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
16992         <ul>
16993           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
16994           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
16995           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
16996           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
16997           <li>End(s) students day</li>
16998           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
16999           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
17000             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
17001           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
17002           <li>Not overlapping</li>
17003           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
17004           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
17005         </ul></li>
17006     </ul></li>
17007
17008   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
17009     <ul>
17010       <li>Room not available periods</li>
17011       <li>For teacher(s):
17012         <ul>
17013           <li>Home room(s)</li>
17014           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
17015           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
17016         </ul>
17017       </li>
17018
17019       <li>For students (sets):
17020         <ul>
17021           <li>Home room(s)</li>
17022           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
17023           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
17024         </ul>
17025       </li>
17026       <li>Preferred room(s):
17027         <ul>
17028           <li>For a subject</li>
17029           <li>For an activity tag</li>
17030           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
17031           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
17032         </ul>
17033       </li>
17034
17035       <li>For a set of activities:
17036         <ul>
17037           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
17038         </ul>
17039       </li>
17040     </ul>
17041   </li>
17042 </ul></p>
17043
17044 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
17045 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
17046 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
17047 manually, check it out.
17048
17049 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
17050 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
17051 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
17052 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
17053 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
17054 section</a>.</p>
17055
17056       </div>
17057       <div class="tags">
17058
17059
17060         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/nice free software">nice free software</a>.
17061
17062
17063       </div>
17064     </div>
17065     <div class="padding"></div>
17066
17067     <div class="entry">
17068       <div class="title">
17069         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Can_Zimbra_be_told_to_send_autoreplies_to_the_From__address_.html">Can Zimbra be told to send autoreplies to the From: address?</a>
17070       </div>
17071       <div class="date">
17072          3rd July 2012
17073       </div>
17074       <div class="body">
17075         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
17076 project (Norwegian version of
17077 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
17078 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
17079 a problem with the municipalities using
17080 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
17081 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
17082 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
17083 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
17084 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
17085 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
17086 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
17087 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
17088 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
17089 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
17090 the From: header.</p>
17091
17092 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
17093 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
17094 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
17095 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
17096 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
17097 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
17098 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
17099 behaviour.</p>
17100
17101 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
17102 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
17103 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
17104 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
17105 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
17106 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
17107 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
17108
17109       </div>
17110       <div class="tags">
17111
17112
17113         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
17114
17115
17116       </div>
17117     </div>
17118     <div class="padding"></div>
17119
17120     <div class="entry">
17121       <div class="title">
17122         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jos__Luis_Redrejo_Rodr_guez.html">Debian Edu interview: José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez</a>
17123       </div>
17124       <div class="date">
17125         26th June 2012
17126       </div>
17127       <div class="body">
17128         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
17129 another interview with the people behind
17130 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
17131 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
17132 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
17133 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
17134 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
17135 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
17136 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
17137
17138 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
17139
17140 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
17141 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
17142 ICT in schools</p>
17143
17144 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
17145 project?</strong></p>
17146
17147 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
17148 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
17149 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
17150 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
17151
17152 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
17153 Edu?</strong></p>
17154
17155 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
17156 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
17157 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
17158 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
17159
17160 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
17161 Edu?</strong></p>
17162
17163 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
17164 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
17165 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
17166 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
17167 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
17168 technologies in school.</p>
17169
17170 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
17171
17172 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
17173 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
17174 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
17175
17176 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
17177 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
17178
17179 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
17180 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
17181 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
17182 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
17183
17184 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
17185 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
17186 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
17187
17188 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
17189 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
17190 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
17191 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
17192 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
17193 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
17194 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
17195 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
17196 working there.</p>
17197
17198       </div>
17199       <div class="tags">
17200
17201
17202         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>.
17203
17204
17205       </div>
17206     </div>
17207     <div class="padding"></div>
17208
17209     <div class="entry">
17210       <div class="title">
17211         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
17212       </div>
17213       <div class="date">
17214         24th June 2012
17215       </div>
17216       <div class="body">
17217         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
17218 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
17219 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
17220 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
17221 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
17222 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
17223 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
17224 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
17225 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
17226 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
17227 missing in my book.</p>
17228
17229 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
17230 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
17231 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
17232 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
17233 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
17234 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
17235 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
17236
17237       </div>
17238       <div class="tags">
17239
17240
17241         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</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>.
17242
17243
17244       </div>
17245     </div>
17246     <div class="padding"></div>
17247
17248     <div class="entry">
17249       <div class="title">
17250         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___some_ideas_for_the_future_versions.html">Debian Edu - some ideas for the future versions</a>
17251       </div>
17252       <div class="date">
17253         11th June 2012
17254       </div>
17255       <div class="body">
17256         <p>During my work on
17257 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
17258 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
17259 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
17260 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
17261 explanation.</p>
17262
17263 <p><ul>
17264
17265 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
17266 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
17267 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
17268 system depend on tasksel tasks in
17269 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
17270 installation.</li>
17271
17272 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
17273 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
17274 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
17275 at least try to enable it for these services:
17276 <ul>
17277
17278   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
17279     quotas.</li>
17280   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
17281   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
17282   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
17283   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
17284   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
17285
17286 </ul></li>
17287
17288 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
17289 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
17290 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
17291 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
17292
17293 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
17294 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
17295 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
17296
17297 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
17298 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
17299 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
17300 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
17301 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
17302 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
17303
17304 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
17305 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
17306 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
17307 in Wheezy.
17308
17309 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
17310 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
17311 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
17312
17313 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
17314 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
17315 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
17316 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
17317
17318 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
17319 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
17320 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
17321 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
17322
17323 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
17324 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
17325 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
17326
17327 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
17328 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
17329 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
17330
17331 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
17332 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
17333 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
17334 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
17335 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
17336
17337 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
17338 <ul>
17339
17340 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
17341 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
17342 <li>and probably more?</li>
17343 </ul></li>
17344
17345 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
17346 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
17347 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
17348 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
17349 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
17350 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
17351 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
17352 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
17353
17354
17355 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
17356 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
17357 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
17358 use.</li>
17359
17360 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
17361 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
17362 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
17363 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
17364 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
17365
17366 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
17367 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
17368 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
17369 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
17370 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
17371 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
17372
17373 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
17374 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
17375 There are at least three implementations,
17376 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
17377 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
17378 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
17379 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
17380 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
17381 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
17382 given room.</li>
17383
17384 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
17385 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
17386 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
17387 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
17388 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
17389 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
17390 investigated.</li>
17391
17392 </ul></p>
17393
17394 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
17395 version.</p>
17396
17397       </div>
17398       <div class="tags">
17399
17400
17401         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>.
17402
17403
17404       </div>
17405     </div>
17406     <div class="padding"></div>
17407
17408     <div class="entry">
17409       <div class="title">
17410         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/TV_with_face_recognition__for_improved_viewer_experience.html">TV with face recognition, for improved viewer experience</a>
17411       </div>
17412       <div class="date">
17413          9th June 2012
17414       </div>
17415       <div class="body">
17416         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
17417 <a href="http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/12/06/09/0012247/intel-to-launch-tv-service-with-facial-recognition-by-end-of-the-year">TV
17418 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
17419 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
17420 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
17421 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
17422 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
17423 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
17424 be willing to pay for.</p>
17425
17426 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
17427 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
17428 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
17429 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
17430 Orwell</a>.</p>
17431
17432       </div>
17433       <div class="tags">
17434
17435
17436         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance</a>.
17437
17438
17439       </div>
17440     </div>
17441     <div class="padding"></div>
17442
17443     <div class="entry">
17444       <div class="title">
17445         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Web_service_to_look_up_HP_and_Dell_computer_hardware_support_status.html">Web service to look up HP and Dell computer hardware support status</a>
17446       </div>
17447       <div class="date">
17448          6th June 2012
17449       </div>
17450       <div class="body">
17451         <p>A few days ago
17452 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
17453 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
17454 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
17455 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
17456 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
17457 code for HP, Dell and IBM
17458 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
17459 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
17460 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
17461 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
17462 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
17463
17464 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
17465 output:
17466
17467 <blockquote><pre>
17468 % GET <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/?format=json&vendor=Dell&servicetag=2v1xwn1">https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/?format=json&vendor=Dell&servicetag=2v1xwn1</a>
17469 supportstatus({"servicetag": "2v1xwn1", "warrantyend": "2013-11-24", "shipped": "2010-11-24", "scrapestamputc": "2012-06-06T20:26:56.965847", "scrapedurl": "http://143.166.84.118/services/assetservice.asmx?WSDL", "vendor": "Dell", "productid": ""})
17470 %
17471 </pre></blockquote>
17472
17473 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
17474 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
17475 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
17476
17477       </div>
17478       <div class="tags">
17479
17480
17481         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
17482
17483
17484       </div>
17485     </div>
17486     <div class="padding"></div>
17487
17488     <div class="entry">
17489       <div class="title">
17490         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
17491       </div>
17492       <div class="date">
17493          2nd June 2012
17494       </div>
17495       <div class="body">
17496         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
17497 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
17498 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
17499 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
17500 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
17501 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
17502
17503 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
17504
17505 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
17506 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
17507 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
17508 by Angela).</p>
17509
17510 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
17511 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
17512 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
17513 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
17514 becoming an osteopath.</p>
17515
17516 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
17517 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
17518 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
17519 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
17520 skills with communication skills.</p>
17521
17522 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
17523 project?</strong></p>
17524
17525 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
17526 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
17527 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
17528 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
17529 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
17530
17531 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
17532 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
17533 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
17534 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
17535 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
17536 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
17537 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
17538 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
17539 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
17540
17541 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
17542 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
17543 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
17544
17545 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
17546
17547 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
17548 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
17549 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
17550 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
17551 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
17552 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
17553 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
17554 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
17555 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
17556 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
17557 point.</p>
17558
17559 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
17560 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
17561 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
17562 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
17563 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
17564 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
17565
17566 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
17567 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
17568 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
17569 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
17570 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
17571 spare time.</p>
17572
17573 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
17574 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
17575 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
17576 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
17577 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
17578
17579 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
17580 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
17581 avoidance do exist.</p>
17582
17583 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
17584 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
17585 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
17586 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
17587 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
17588 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
17589 and probably a gain for all.</p>
17590
17591 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
17592 Edu?</strong></p>
17593
17594 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
17595 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
17596 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
17597 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
17598 project communication, honest communication within the group of
17599 developers, etc.</p>
17600
17601 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
17602 Edu?</strong></p>
17603
17604 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
17605
17606 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
17607 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
17608 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
17609 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
17610 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
17611 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
17612 contribute).</p>
17613
17614 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
17615 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
17616 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
17617 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
17618 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
17619 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
17620 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
17621 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
17622 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
17623 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
17624
17625 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
17626
17627 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
17628
17629 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
17630 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
17631 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
17632
17633 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
17634 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
17635 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
17636 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
17637
17638 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
17639 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
17640 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
17641 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
17642 whiteboard.</p>
17643
17644 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
17645
17646 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
17647 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
17648
17649 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
17650 enrol people.</p>
17651
17652       </div>
17653       <div class="tags">
17654
17655
17656         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>.
17657
17658
17659       </div>
17660     </div>
17661     <div class="padding"></div>
17662
17663     <div class="entry">
17664       <div class="title">
17665         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">SOAP based webservice from Dell to check server support status</a>
17666       </div>
17667       <div class="date">
17668          1st June 2012
17669       </div>
17670       <div class="body">
17671         <p>A few years ago I wrote
17672 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
17673 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
17674 I have learned from colleges here at the
17675 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
17676 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
17677 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
17678 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
17679 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
17680
17681 <p><pre>
17682 use strict;
17683 use warnings;
17684 use SOAP::Lite;
17685 use Data::Dumper;
17686 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
17687 my $App = 'test';
17688 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
17689 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
17690 my $s = SOAP::Lite
17691     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
17692     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
17693     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
17694     ;
17695 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
17696     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
17697     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
17698     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
17699 );
17700 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
17701 </pre></p>
17702
17703 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
17704
17705 <p><pre>
17706 $VAR1 = {
17707           'Asset' => {
17708                      'Entitlements' => {
17709                                        'EntitlementData' => [
17710                                                             {
17711                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
17712                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
17713                                                               'Provider' => '',
17714                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
17715                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
17716                                                             },
17717                                                             {
17718                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
17719                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
17720                                                               'Provider' => '',
17721                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
17722                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
17723                                                             },
17724                                                             {
17725                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
17726                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
17727                                                               'Provider' => '',
17728                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
17729                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
17730                                                             }
17731                                                           ]
17732                                      },
17733                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
17734                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
17735                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
17736                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
17737                                           'Buid' => '2323',
17738                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
17739                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
17740                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
17741                                         }
17742                    }
17743         };
17744 </pre></p>
17745
17746 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
17747 service outside the
17748 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
17749 documentation</a>, and according to
17750 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
17751 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
17752 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
17753
17754 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
17755 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
17756
17757       </div>
17758       <div class="tags">
17759
17760
17761         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
17762
17763
17764       </div>
17765     </div>
17766     <div class="padding"></div>
17767
17768     <div class="entry">
17769       <div class="title">
17770         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
17771       </div>
17772       <div class="date">
17773         31st May 2012
17774       </div>
17775       <div class="body">
17776         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
17777 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
17778 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
17779 running Debian Squeeze, where
17780 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
17781 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
17782 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
17783 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
17784 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
17785 another day.</p>
17786
17787 <p>After calibration, I get a
17788 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
17789 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
17790 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
17791 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
17792 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
17793 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
17794 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
17795 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
17796 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
17797 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
17798 and a simple</p>
17799
17800 <p><pre>
17801 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
17802 </pre></p>
17803
17804 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
17805 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
17806 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
17807 enough for now.</p>
17808
17809       </div>
17810       <div class="tags">
17811
17812
17813         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
17814
17815
17816       </div>
17817     </div>
17818     <div class="padding"></div>
17819
17820     <div class="entry">
17821       <div class="title">
17822         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
17823       </div>
17824       <div class="date">
17825         27th May 2012
17826       </div>
17827       <div class="body">
17828         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
17829 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
17830 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
17831 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
17832 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
17833 since then, helping to make sure the
17834 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
17835 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
17836
17837 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
17838
17839 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
17840 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
17841 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
17842 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
17843 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
17844 our computer network.</p>
17845
17846 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
17847 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
17848 (4 months).</p>
17849
17850 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
17851 project?</strong></p>
17852
17853 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
17854 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
17855 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
17856 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
17857 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
17858 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
17859 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
17860 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
17861 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
17862 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
17863 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
17864 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
17865 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
17866 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
17867
17868 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
17869 Edu?</strong></p>
17870
17871 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
17872 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
17873 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
17874 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
17875 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
17876 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
17877 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
17878 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
17879
17880 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
17881 Edu?</strong></p>
17882
17883 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
17884 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
17885 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
17886 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
17887 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
17888 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
17889 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
17890 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
17891 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
17892 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
17893 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
17894 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
17895
17896 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
17897
17898 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
17899 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
17900 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
17901
17902 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
17903 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
17904
17905 <p><ol>
17906
17907 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
17908 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
17909 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
17910 developing.</li>
17911
17912 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
17913 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
17914 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
17915 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
17916 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
17917
17918 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
17919 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
17920 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
17921
17922 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
17923 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
17924 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
17925 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
17926
17927 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
17928 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
17929 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
17930
17931 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
17932
17933 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
17934 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
17935 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
17936 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
17937
17938 </ol></p>
17939
17940       </div>
17941       <div class="tags">
17942
17943
17944         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>.
17945
17946
17947       </div>
17948     </div>
17949     <div class="padding"></div>
17950
17951     <div class="entry">
17952       <div class="title">
17953         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
17954       </div>
17955       <div class="date">
17956         26th May 2012
17957       </div>
17958       <div class="body">
17959         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
17960 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
17961 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
17962 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
17963 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
17964
17965 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
17966 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/does-microsoft-office-lock-in-cost-the-uk-government-500-million/index.htm">http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/does-microsoft-office-lock-in-cost-the-uk-government-500-million/index.htm</a>
17967 comment:</p>
17968
17969 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
17970 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
17971 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
17972 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
17973 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
17974 </blockquote></p>
17975
17976 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
17977 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
17978 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
17979 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
17980 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
17981 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
17982 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
17983 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
17984 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
17985 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
17986 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
17987 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
17988 of wasted effort.</p>
17989
17990 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
17991 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
17992 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
17993
17994 <p>See
17995 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
17996 and
17997 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
17998 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
17999 </blockquote></p>
18000
18001       </div>
18002       <div class="tags">
18003
18004
18005         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</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>.
18006
18007
18008       </div>
18009     </div>
18010     <div class="padding"></div>
18011
18012     <div class="entry">
18013       <div class="title">
18014         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColorHug___USB_and_free_software_based_screen_color_calibration.html">ColorHug - USB and free software based screen color calibration</a>
18015       </div>
18016       <div class="date">
18017         18th May 2012
18018       </div>
18019       <div class="body">
18020         <p>In january, I
18021 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
18022 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
18023 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
18024 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
18025 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
18026 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
18027 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
18028 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
18029 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
18030 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
18031
18032 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
18033 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
18034 drivers. :)</p>
18035
18036       </div>
18037       <div class="tags">
18038
18039
18040         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
18041
18042
18043       </div>
18044     </div>
18045     <div class="padding"></div>
18046
18047     <div class="entry">
18048       <div class="title">
18049         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
18050       </div>
18051       <div class="date">
18052         13th May 2012
18053       </div>
18054       <div class="body">
18055         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
18056 publish another interview with the people behind
18057 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
18058 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
18059 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
18060 details get right before release.
18061
18062 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
18063
18064 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
18065 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
18066 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
18067 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
18068 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
18069 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
18070 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
18071 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
18072
18073 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
18074 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
18075 home since 2006.</p>
18076
18077 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
18078 project?</strong></p>
18079
18080 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
18081 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
18082 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
18083 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
18084 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
18085 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
18086
18087 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
18088 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
18089 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
18090 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
18091 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
18092 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
18093 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
18094 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
18095 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
18096 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
18097 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
18098 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
18099 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
18100 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
18101 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
18102 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
18103
18104 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
18105 Edu?</strong></p>
18106
18107 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
18108 for me as today.</p>
18109
18110 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
18111
18112 <p><ul>
18113
18114 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
18115 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
18116
18117 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
18118 cost.</li>
18119
18120 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
18121 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
18122 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
18123 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
18124 server</li>
18125
18126 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
18127 school.</li>
18128
18129 </ul></p>
18130
18131 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
18132 came up in this way:</p>
18133
18134 <p><ul>
18135
18136 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
18137 now.</li>
18138
18139 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
18140 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
18141 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
18142
18143 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
18144 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
18145 interfaces used in the past.</li>
18146
18147 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
18148 different needs.</li>
18149
18150 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
18151
18152 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
18153 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
18154 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
18155
18156 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
18157 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
18158
18159 </ul></p>
18160
18161 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
18162 Edu?</strong></p>
18163
18164 <p><ul>
18165
18166 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
18167 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
18168 whole municipality areas.</li>
18169
18170 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
18171 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
18172 politicians.</li>
18173
18174 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
18175
18176 </ul></p>
18177
18178 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
18179
18180 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
18181 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
18182 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
18183 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
18184 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
18185 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
18186
18187 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
18188 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
18189 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
18190 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
18191 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
18192
18193 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
18194 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
18195
18196 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
18197 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
18198 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
18199
18200       </div>
18201       <div class="tags">
18202
18203
18204         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>.
18205
18206
18207       </div>
18208     </div>
18209     <div class="padding"></div>
18210
18211     <div class="entry">
18212       <div class="title">
18213         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Cutting_it_short___and_picking_the_right_tool_for_the_job.html">Cutting it short - and picking the right tool for the job</a>
18214       </div>
18215       <div class="date">
18216         30th April 2012
18217       </div>
18218       <div class="body">
18219         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
18220 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
18221
18222 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
18223 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
18224 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
18225 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
18226 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
18227 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
18228 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
18229 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
18230 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
18231 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
18232 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
18233 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
18234 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
18235 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
18236 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
18237 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
18238
18239 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
18240 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
18241 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
18242 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
18243 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
18244 finally found a Danish supplier
18245 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
18246 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
18247 days ago.</p>
18248
18249 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
18250 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
18251 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
18252 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
18253 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
18254 toys.</p>
18255
18256       </div>
18257       <div class="tags">
18258
18259
18260         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
18261
18262
18263       </div>
18264     </div>
18265     <div class="padding"></div>
18266
18267     <div class="entry">
18268       <div class="title">
18269         <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>
18270       </div>
18271       <div class="date">
18272         26th April 2012
18273       </div>
18274       <div class="body">
18275         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
18276 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
18277 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
18278 that the video editor application included with
18279 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
18280 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
18281 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
18282
18283 <p><blockquote>
18284 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
18285 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
18286 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
18287 </blockquote></p>
18288
18289 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
18290
18291 <p><blockquote>
18292 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
18293 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
18294 </blockquote></p>
18295
18296 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
18297 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
18298 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
18299 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
18300 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
18301 video.  AMR is
18302 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
18303 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
18304 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
18305 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
18306 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
18307 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
18308 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
18309
18310 <p>I know why I prefer
18311 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
18312 standards</a> also for video.</p>
18313
18314       </div>
18315       <div class="tags">
18316
18317
18318         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/h264">h264</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>.
18319
18320
18321       </div>
18322     </div>
18323     <div class="padding"></div>
18324
18325     <div class="entry">
18326       <div class="title">
18327         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
18328       </div>
18329       <div class="date">
18330         19th April 2012
18331       </div>
18332       <div class="body">
18333         <p>Here in Norway, the
18334 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
18335 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
18336 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
18337 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
18338 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
18339 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
18340 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
18341 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
18342 on the same level.</p>
18343
18344 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
18345 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
18346 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
18347 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
18348 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
18349 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
18350 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
18351 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
18352 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
18353 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
18354 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
18355 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
18356 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
18357 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
18358 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
18359 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
18360 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
18361 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
18362
18363 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
18364 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
18365 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
18366 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
18367 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
18368 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
18369 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
18370 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
18371
18372 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
18373 from Simon Phipps
18374 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
18375 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
18376
18377 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
18378 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
18379 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
18380 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
18381 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
18382 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
18383 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
18384 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
18385 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
18386
18387       </div>
18388       <div class="tags">
18389
18390
18391         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>.
18392
18393
18394       </div>
18395     </div>
18396     <div class="padding"></div>
18397
18398     <div class="entry">
18399       <div class="title">
18400         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
18401       </div>
18402       <div class="date">
18403         15th April 2012
18404       </div>
18405       <div class="body">
18406         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
18407 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
18408 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
18409 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
18410 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
18411 up in the recently released
18412 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
18413 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
18414
18415 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
18416
18417 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
18418 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
18419 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
18420 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
18421 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
18422 information technology and science/technology.</p>
18423
18424 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
18425 project?</strong></p>
18426
18427 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
18428 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
18429 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
18430 contributing.</p>
18431
18432 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
18433 Edu?</strong></p>
18434
18435 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
18436 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
18437 Debian Project!</p>
18438
18439 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
18440 Edu?</strong></p>
18441
18442 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
18443 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
18444 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
18445 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
18446 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
18447 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
18448 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
18449
18450 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
18451 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
18452
18453 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
18454
18455 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
18456 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
18457 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
18458 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
18459
18460 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
18461 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
18462
18463 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
18464 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
18465 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
18466 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
18467 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
18468 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
18469 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
18470
18471 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
18472 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
18473 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
18474 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
18475 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
18476 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
18477 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
18478 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
18479
18480       </div>
18481       <div class="tags">
18482
18483
18484         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>.
18485
18486
18487       </div>
18488     </div>
18489     <div class="padding"></div>
18490
18491     <div class="entry">
18492       <div class="title">
18493         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
18494       </div>
18495       <div class="date">
18496          8th April 2012
18497       </div>
18498       <div class="body">
18499         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
18500 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
18501 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
18502 contributor to the
18503 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
18504 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
18505
18506 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
18507
18508 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
18509 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
18510
18511 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
18512 project?</strong></p>
18513
18514 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
18515 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
18516 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
18517 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
18518 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
18519 "localisation".</p>
18520
18521 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
18522 Edu?</strong></p>
18523
18524 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
18525 Edu?</strong></p>
18526
18527 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
18528 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
18529 education system.</p>
18530
18531 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
18532 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
18533 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
18534 money on the latest hardware.</p>
18535
18536 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
18537
18538 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
18539 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
18540 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
18541
18542 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
18543 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
18544
18545 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
18546 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
18547 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
18548
18549       </div>
18550       <div class="tags">
18551
18552
18553         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>.
18554
18555
18556       </div>
18557     </div>
18558     <div class="padding"></div>
18559
18560     <div class="entry">
18561       <div class="title">
18562         <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>
18563       </div>
18564       <div class="date">
18565          6th April 2012
18566       </div>
18567       <div class="body">
18568         <p>Recently I have spent time with
18569 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
18570 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
18571 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
18572 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
18573 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
18574 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
18575 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
18576 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
18577
18578 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
18579 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
18580 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
18581 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
18582 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
18583 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
18584 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
18585 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
18586
18587 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
18588 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
18589 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
18590 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
18591 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
18592 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
18593 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
18594 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
18595
18596 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
18597 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
18598 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
18599 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
18600 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
18601 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
18602 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
18603 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
18604 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
18605 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
18606
18607 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
18608 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
18609 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
18610 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
18611
18612 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
18613 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
18614
18615 <p>Update 2015-08-04: The
18616 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/debian-edu/upstream/kde-icon-cache.git/">source
18617 of the scripts and associated Debian package</a> is available from the
18618 Debian Edu github repository.</p>
18619
18620       </div>
18621       <div class="tags">
18622
18623
18624         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>.
18625
18626
18627       </div>
18628     </div>
18629     <div class="padding"></div>
18630
18631     <div class="entry">
18632       <div class="title">
18633         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
18634       </div>
18635       <div class="date">
18636          5th April 2012
18637       </div>
18638       <div class="body">
18639         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
18640 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
18641 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
18642 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
18643 for schools.  Check out his article
18644 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
18645 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
18646
18647       </div>
18648       <div class="tags">
18649
18650
18651         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>.
18652
18653
18654       </div>
18655     </div>
18656     <div class="padding"></div>
18657
18658     <div class="entry">
18659       <div class="title">
18660         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
18661       </div>
18662       <div class="date">
18663          1st April 2012
18664       </div>
18665       <div class="body">
18666         <p>Germany is a core area for the
18667 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
18668 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
18669 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
18670
18671 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
18672
18673 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
18674 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
18675 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
18676 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
18677 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
18678 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
18679 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
18680 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
18681
18682 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
18683 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
18684 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
18685 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
18686 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
18687 the end of April this year.</p>
18688
18689 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
18690 project?</strong></p>
18691
18692 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
18693 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
18694 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
18695 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
18696 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
18697 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
18698 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
18699 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
18700 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
18701 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
18702 Skolelinux.</p>
18703
18704 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
18705 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
18706 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
18707 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
18708 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
18709 the admin teachers.</p>
18710
18711 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
18712 Edu?</strong></p>
18713
18714 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
18715 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
18716 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
18717
18718 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
18719 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
18720 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
18721 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
18722 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
18723
18724 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
18725 Edu?</strong></p>
18726
18727 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
18728
18729 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
18730
18731 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
18732 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
18733 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
18734 LibreOffice.</p>
18735
18736 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
18737 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
18738
18739 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
18740 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
18741 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
18742
18743       </div>
18744       <div class="tags">
18745
18746
18747         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>.
18748
18749
18750       </div>
18751     </div>
18752     <div class="padding"></div>
18753
18754     <div class="entry">
18755       <div class="title">
18756         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Checking_email_with_kmail_using_Kerberos_authentication.html">Debian Edu screencast: Checking email with kmail using Kerberos authentication</a>
18757       </div>
18758       <div class="date">
18759         25th March 2012
18760       </div>
18761       <div class="body">
18762         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
18763
18764 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
18765 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
18766 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
18767 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
18768 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
18769 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
18770 and download as a
18771 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
18772 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
18773
18774 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
18775   <source src="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv" type='video/ogg; codecs="theora, vorbis"' />
18776     <p>Download video as
18777       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
18778 </video></p>
18779
18780       </div>
18781       <div class="tags">
18782
18783
18784         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>.
18785
18786
18787       </div>
18788     </div>
18789     <div class="padding"></div>
18790
18791     <div class="entry">
18792       <div class="title">
18793         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
18794       </div>
18795       <div class="date">
18796         19th March 2012
18797       </div>
18798       <div class="body">
18799         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
18800 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
18801 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
18802 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
18803 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
18804
18805 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
18806
18807 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
18808 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
18809 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
18810 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
18811 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
18812 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
18813 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
18814 installations.</p>
18815
18816 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
18817 project?</strong></p>
18818
18819 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
18820 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
18821 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
18822 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
18823 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
18824 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
18825 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
18826 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
18827 these things we decided to try it.</p>
18828
18829 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
18830 Edu?</strong></p>
18831
18832 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
18833 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
18834 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
18835 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
18836 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
18837 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
18838 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
18839 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
18840
18841 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
18842 Edu?</strong></p>
18843
18844 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
18845 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
18846 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
18847 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
18848 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
18849
18850 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
18851
18852 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
18853 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
18854 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
18855 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
18856 that counts...)</p>
18857
18858 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
18859 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
18860
18861 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
18862 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
18863 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
18864 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
18865 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
18866 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
18867 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
18868 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
18869 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
18870 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
18871 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
18872
18873 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
18874 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
18875 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
18876
18877       </div>
18878       <div class="tags">
18879
18880
18881         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>.
18882
18883
18884       </div>
18885     </div>
18886     <div class="padding"></div>
18887
18888     <div class="entry">
18889       <div class="title">
18890         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
18891       </div>
18892       <div class="date">
18893         16th March 2012
18894       </div>
18895       <div class="body">
18896         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
18897 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
18898 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
18899 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
18900
18901 <ol>
18902
18903 <li>The documentation is written in a
18904 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
18905 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
18906 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
18907 docbook XML.</li>
18908
18909 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
18910 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
18911 with the translated text.</li>
18912
18913 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
18914 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
18915 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
18916 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
18917 images.</li>
18918
18919 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
18920 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
18921
18922 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
18923 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
18924
18925 </ol>
18926
18927 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
18928 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
18929 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
18930 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
18931 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
18932
18933 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
18934 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
18935 package</a>.</p>
18936
18937       </div>
18938       <div class="tags">
18939
18940
18941         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>.
18942
18943
18944       </div>
18945     </div>
18946     <div class="padding"></div>
18947
18948     <div class="entry">
18949       <div class="title">
18950         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
18951       </div>
18952       <div class="date">
18953         11th March 2012
18954       </div>
18955       <div class="body">
18956         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
18957 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
18958 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
18959 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
18960 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
18961 you have not done so already.</p>
18962
18963 <p>I plan to present the new version at
18964 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
18965 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
18966 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
18967
18968       </div>
18969       <div class="tags">
18970
18971
18972         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>.
18973
18974
18975       </div>
18976     </div>
18977     <div class="padding"></div>
18978
18979     <div class="entry">
18980       <div class="title">
18981         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
18982       </div>
18983       <div class="date">
18984          9th March 2012
18985       </div>
18986       <div class="body">
18987         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
18988 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
18989 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
18990 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
18991 more international audience.</p>
18992
18993 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
18994 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
18995 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
18996 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
18997 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
18998 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
18999 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
19000
19001
19002 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
19003
19004 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
19005 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
19006 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
19007 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
19008 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
19009 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
19010 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
19011 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
19012 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
19013 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
19014 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
19015
19016 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
19017 project?</strong></p>
19018
19019 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
19020 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
19021 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
19022 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
19023 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
19024 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
19025 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
19026 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
19027 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
19028 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
19029 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
19030 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
19031 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
19032
19033 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
19034 Edu?</strong></p>
19035
19036 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
19037 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
19038 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
19039 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
19040 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
19041 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
19042 Japan.</p>
19043
19044 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
19045 Edu?</strong></p>
19046
19047 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
19048 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
19049 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
19050 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
19051 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
19052 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
19053 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
19054 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
19055 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
19056 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
19057 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
19058 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
19059 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
19060 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
19061 help.</p>
19062
19063 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
19064
19065 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
19066 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
19067 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
19068 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
19069 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
19070 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
19071 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
19072 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
19073 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
19074 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
19075 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
19076
19077 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
19078 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
19079
19080 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
19081 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
19082 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
19083 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
19084 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
19085 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
19086 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
19087 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
19088 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
19089 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
19090 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
19091 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
19092
19093       </div>
19094       <div class="tags">
19095
19096
19097         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>.
19098
19099
19100       </div>
19101     </div>
19102     <div class="padding"></div>
19103
19104     <div class="entry">
19105       <div class="title">
19106         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_screencast__Mass_creation_of_user_accounts_in_Squeeze.html">Debian Edu screencast: Mass creation of user accounts in Squeeze</a>
19107       </div>
19108       <div class="date">
19109          7th March 2012
19110       </div>
19111       <div class="body">
19112         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
19113
19114 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
19115 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
19116 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
19117 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
19118 download as a
19119 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
19120 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
19121
19122 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
19123   <source src="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv" type='video/ogg; codecs="theora, vorbis"' />
19124     <p>Download video as
19125       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
19126 </video></p>
19127
19128       </div>
19129       <div class="tags">
19130
19131
19132         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>.
19133
19134
19135       </div>
19136     </div>
19137     <div class="padding"></div>
19138
19139     <div class="entry">
19140       <div class="title">
19141         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Third release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
19142       </div>
19143       <div class="date">
19144          4th March 2012
19145       </div>
19146       <div class="body">
19147         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
19148 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
19149 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
19150 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
19151 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
19152 need a software solution for your school.</p>
19153
19154       </div>
19155       <div class="tags">
19156
19157
19158         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>.
19159
19160
19161       </div>
19162     </div>
19163     <div class="padding"></div>
19164
19165     <div class="entry">
19166       <div class="title">
19167         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Stopmotion_for_making_stop_motion_animations_on_Linux___reloaded.html">Stopmotion for making stop motion animations on Linux - reloaded</a>
19168       </div>
19169       <div class="date">
19170          3rd March 2012
19171       </div>
19172       <div class="body">
19173         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
19174 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
19175 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
19176 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
19177 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
19178 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
19179 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
19180 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
19181 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
19182 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
19183 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
19184 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
19185 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
19186 year...</p>
19187
19188 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
19189 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
19190 name,
19191 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
19192 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
19193 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
19194 mean). I've been following
19195 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
19196 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
19197 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
19198 Check it out. :)</p>
19199
19200       </div>
19201       <div class="tags">
19202
19203
19204         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/video">video</a>.
19205
19206
19207       </div>
19208     </div>
19209     <div class="padding"></div>
19210
19211     <div class="entry">
19212       <div class="title">
19213         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Second release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
19214       </div>
19215       <div class="date">
19216         27th February 2012
19217       </div>
19218       <div class="body">
19219         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
19220 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
19221 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
19222 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
19223 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
19224 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
19225 need a software solution for your school.</p>
19226
19227       </div>
19228       <div class="tags">
19229
19230
19231         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>.
19232
19233
19234       </div>
19235     </div>
19236     <div class="padding"></div>
19237
19238     <div class="entry">
19239       <div class="title">
19240         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_release_candidate_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">First release candidate of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
19241       </div>
19242       <div class="date">
19243         19th February 2012
19244       </div>
19245       <div class="body">
19246         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
19247 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
19248 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
19249 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
19250 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
19251 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
19252 solution for your school.</p>
19253
19254       </div>
19255       <div class="tags">
19256
19257
19258         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>.
19259
19260
19261       </div>
19262     </div>
19263     <div class="padding"></div>
19264
19265     <div class="entry">
19266       <div class="title">
19267         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_figure_out_which_RAID_disk_to_replace_when_it_fail.html">How to figure out which RAID disk to replace when it fail</a>
19268       </div>
19269       <div class="date">
19270         14th February 2012
19271       </div>
19272       <div class="body">
19273         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
19274 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
19275 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
19276 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
19277 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
19278 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
19279 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
19280 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
19281 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
19282
19283 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
19284 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
19285 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
19286 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
19287 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
19288
19289 <blockquote><pre>
19290 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
19291 do
19292     printf "Failed disk $d: "
19293     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
19294 done
19295 </blockquote></pre>
19296
19297 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
19298 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
19299
19300 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
19301
19302 <blockquote><pre>
19303 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
19304 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
19305 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
19306 </blockquote></pre>
19307
19308 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
19309 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
19310 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
19311 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
19312 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
19313 mounted inside my box.</p>
19314
19315 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
19316 Software RAID in the
19317 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
19318 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
19319 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
19320 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
19321 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
19322 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
19323
19324       </div>
19325       <div class="tags">
19326
19327
19328         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid</a>.
19329
19330
19331       </div>
19332     </div>
19333     <div class="padding"></div>
19334
19335     <div class="entry">
19336       <div class="title">
19337         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
19338       </div>
19339       <div class="date">
19340         13th February 2012
19341       </div>
19342       <div class="body">
19343         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
19344 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
19345 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
19346 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
19347 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
19348 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
19349 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
19350 change the global proxy setting by editing
19351 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
19352 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
19353
19354 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
19355 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
19356 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
19357
19358 <blockquote><pre>
19359 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
19360 {
19361    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
19362        isPlainHostName(host) ||
19363        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
19364       return "DIRECT";
19365    else
19366       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
19367 }
19368 </pre></blockquote>
19369
19370 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
19371
19372 <blockquote><pre>
19373 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
19374 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
19375 </pre></blockquote>
19376
19377 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
19378 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
19379 would be used for
19380 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
19381 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
19382 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
19383 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
19384 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
19385 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
19386 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
19387 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
19388 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
19389 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
19390
19391 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
19392 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
19393 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
19394 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
19395 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
19396 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
19397
19398 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
19399 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
19400 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
19401 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
19402 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
19403 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
19404 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
19405 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
19406 the network setup changes.</p>
19407
19408 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
19409 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
19410 draft</a> and a
19411 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
19412 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
19413
19414       </div>
19415       <div class="tags">
19416
19417
19418         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>.
19419
19420
19421       </div>
19422     </div>
19423     <div class="padding"></div>
19424
19425     <div class="entry">
19426       <div class="title">
19427         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Saving_power_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_using_shutdown_at_night.html">Saving power with Debian Edu / Skolelinux using shutdown-at-night</a>
19428       </div>
19429       <div class="date">
19430          5th February 2012
19431       </div>
19432       <div class="body">
19433         <p>Since the Lenny version of
19434 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
19435 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
19436 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
19437 in the morning.  This is done using the
19438 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
19439
19440 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
19441 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
19442 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
19443 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
19444 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
19445 the
19446 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
19447 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
19448 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
19449 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
19450 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
19451
19452 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
19453 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
19454 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
19455 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
19456 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
19457 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
19458 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
19459
19460 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
19461 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
19462 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
19463 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
19464 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
19465
19466       </div>
19467       <div class="tags">
19468
19469
19470         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>.
19471
19472
19473       </div>
19474     </div>
19475     <div class="padding"></div>
19476
19477     <div class="entry">
19478       <div class="title">
19479         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Third_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Third beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
19480       </div>
19481       <div class="date">
19482          4th February 2012
19483       </div>
19484       <div class="body">
19485         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
19486 publish the third beta version of
19487 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
19488 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
19489 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
19490 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
19491 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
19492 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
19493 on the project announcement list.</p>
19494
19495 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
19496 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
19497
19498 <ul>
19499
19500 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
19501   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
19502   the installation.</li>
19503
19504 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
19505   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
19506
19507 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
19508   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
19509   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
19510
19511 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
19512   for the local system administrator is created during installation
19513   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
19514   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
19515   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
19516   up to date on the system.</li>
19517
19518 </ul>
19519
19520 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
19521 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
19522 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
19523 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
19524
19525 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
19526 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
19527 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
19528 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
19529 will see you there?</p>
19530
19531       </div>
19532       <div class="tags">
19533
19534
19535         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>.
19536
19537
19538       </div>
19539     </div>
19540     <div class="padding"></div>
19541
19542     <div class="entry">
19543       <div class="title">
19544         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Handling_non_free_firmware_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Handling non-free firmware in Debian Edu/Squeeze</a>
19545       </div>
19546       <div class="date">
19547         27th January 2012
19548       </div>
19549       <div class="body">
19550         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
19551 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
19552 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
19553 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
19554 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
19555 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
19556 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
19557
19558 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
19559 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
19560 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
19561 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
19562 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
19563 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
19564 not taken care of by this.</p>
19565
19566 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
19567 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
19568 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
19569 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
19570 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
19571 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
19572 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
19573 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
19574 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
19575 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
19576 firmware packages.</p>
19577
19578 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
19579 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
19580 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
19581 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
19582 initrd with extra firmware, the
19583 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
19584 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
19585 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
19586
19587 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
19588 network cards working.  For this,
19589 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
19590 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
19591 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
19592
19593 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
19594 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
19595 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
19596
19597 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
19598 try.</p>
19599
19600       </div>
19601       <div class="tags">
19602
19603
19604         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>.
19605
19606
19607       </div>
19608     </div>
19609     <div class="padding"></div>
19610
19611     <div class="entry">
19612       <div class="title">
19613         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Setting_up_a_new_school_with_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Setting up a new school with Debian Edu/Squeeze</a>
19614       </div>
19615       <div class="date">
19616         25th January 2012
19617       </div>
19618       <div class="body">
19619         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
19620 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
19621 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
19622 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
19623 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
19624
19625 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
19626 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
19627 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
19628 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
19629 this is done, log on to the central server and run
19630 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
19631 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
19632 will look similar to this:</p>
19633
19634 <p><blockquote><pre>
19635 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
19636 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
19637 info: Create GOsa machine for auto-mac-00-01-02-03-04-06 [10.0.16.20] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:06.
19638
19639 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
19640
19641 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
19642 enter password: *******
19643 %
19644 </pre></blockquote></p>
19645
19646 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
19647 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
19648 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
19649 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
19650 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
19651 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
19652 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
19653 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
19654 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
19655 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
19656 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
19657 automatically.</p>
19658
19659 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
19660 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
19661
19662 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
19663 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
19664 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
19665
19666       </div>
19667       <div class="tags">
19668
19669
19670         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/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
19671
19672
19673       </div>
19674     </div>
19675     <div class="padding"></div>
19676
19677     <div class="entry">
19678       <div class="title">
19679         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Changing_the_default_Iceweasel_start_page_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Changing the default Iceweasel start page in Debian Edu/Squeeze</a>
19680       </div>
19681       <div class="date">
19682         10th January 2012
19683       </div>
19684       <div class="body">
19685         <p>In the Squeeze version of
19686 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
19687 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
19688 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
19689 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
19690 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
19691 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
19692 first time.</p>
19693
19694 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
19695 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
19696 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
19697 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
19698
19699 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
19700 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
19701 new setting.</p>
19702
19703 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
19704 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
19705 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
19706
19707       </div>
19708       <div class="tags">
19709
19710
19711         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/web">web</a>.
19712
19713
19714       </div>
19715     </div>
19716     <div class="padding"></div>
19717
19718     <div class="entry">
19719       <div class="title">
19720         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html">Second beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</a>
19721       </div>
19722       <div class="date">
19723          7th January 2012
19724       </div>
19725       <div class="body">
19726         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
19727 the second beta version of
19728 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
19729 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
19730 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
19731 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
19732 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
19733 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
19734 on the project announcement list.</p>
19735
19736       </div>
19737       <div class="tags">
19738
19739
19740         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>.
19741
19742
19743       </div>
19744     </div>
19745     <div class="padding"></div>
19746
19747     <div class="entry">
19748       <div class="title">
19749         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_an_hanging_debian_installer_for_Debian_Edu.html">Fixing an hanging debian installer for Debian Edu</a>
19750       </div>
19751       <div class="date">
19752          3rd January 2012
19753       </div>
19754       <div class="body">
19755         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
19756 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
19757 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
19758 interesting.</p>
19759
19760 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
19761 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
19762 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
19763 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
19764 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
19765 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
19766 wrap up its tasks.</p>
19767
19768 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
19769 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
19770 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
19771 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
19772 because I was typing.</P>
19773
19774 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
19775 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
19776 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
19777 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
19778 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
19779 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
19780 generate entropy.</p>
19781
19782 <p>The fix is in
19783 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
19784 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
19785 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
19786 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
19787
19788       </div>
19789       <div class="tags">
19790
19791
19792         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>.
19793
19794
19795       </div>
19796     </div>
19797     <div class="padding"></div>
19798
19799     <div class="entry">
19800       <div class="title">
19801         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
19802       </div>
19803       <div class="date">
19804         21st November 2011
19805       </div>
19806       <div class="body">
19807         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
19808 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
19809 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
19810 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
19811 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
19812 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
19813 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
19814 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
19815 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
19816 the tools to do so.</p>
19817
19818 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
19819 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
19820 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
19821 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
19822
19823 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
19824 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
19825 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
19826 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
19827 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
19828 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
19829 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
19830 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
19831
19832 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
19833 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
19834 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
19835
19836 <p><pre>
19837 #!/usr/bin/perl
19838 use strict;
19839 use warnings;
19840 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
19841 BEGIN {
19842     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
19843     my %rhelmodules = (
19844         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
19845         );
19846     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
19847         eval "use $module;";
19848         if ($@) {
19849             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
19850             system("yum install -y $pkg");
19851             eval "use $module;";
19852         }
19853     }
19854 }
19855 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
19856
19857 upgrade_dell();
19858
19859 exit 0;
19860
19861 sub run_firmware_script {
19862     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
19863     unless ($script) {
19864         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
19865         exit 1
19866     }
19867     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
19868
19869     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
19870         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
19871     } else {
19872         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
19873     }
19874 }
19875
19876 sub run_firmware_scripts {
19877     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
19878     # Run firmware packages
19879     for my $dir (@dirs) {
19880         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
19881         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
19882         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
19883             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
19884             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
19885         }
19886         closedir $dh;
19887     }
19888 }
19889
19890 sub download {
19891     my $url = shift;
19892     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
19893     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
19894 }
19895
19896 sub upgrade_dell {
19897     my @dirs;
19898     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
19899     chomp $product;
19900
19901     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
19902
19903         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
19904         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
19905
19906         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
19907             CLEANUP => 1
19908             );
19909         chdir($tmpdir);
19910         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
19911         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
19912         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
19913         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
19914         my $fwopts = "-q";
19915         if (@paths) {
19916             for my $url (@paths) {
19917                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
19918             }
19919             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
19920         } else {
19921             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
19922             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
19923         }
19924         chdir('/');
19925     } else {
19926         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
19927         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
19928     }
19929 }
19930
19931 sub fetch_dell_fw {
19932     my $path = shift;
19933     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
19934     download($url);
19935 }
19936
19937 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
19938 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
19939 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
19940 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
19941     my $filename = shift;
19942
19943     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
19944     chomp $product;
19945     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
19946
19947     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
19948
19949     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
19950     my @paths;
19951     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
19952         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
19953         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
19954         my $oscode;
19955         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
19956             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
19957         } else {
19958             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
19959         }
19960         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
19961         {
19962             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
19963         }
19964     }
19965     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
19966         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
19967
19968         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
19969         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
19970
19971         my $cpath = $component->{path};
19972         for my $path (@paths) {
19973             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
19974                 push(@paths, $cpath);
19975             }
19976         }
19977     }
19978     return @paths;
19979 }
19980 </pre>
19981
19982 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
19983 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
19984 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
19985 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
19986 outdated.</p>
19987
19988       </div>
19989       <div class="tags">
19990
19991
19992         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
19993
19994
19995       </div>
19996     </div>
19997     <div class="padding"></div>
19998
19999     <div class="entry">
20000       <div class="title">
20001         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_e_book_kiosk_for_the_public_libraries_.html">Free e-book kiosk for the public libraries?</a>
20002       </div>
20003       <div class="date">
20004          7th October 2011
20005       </div>
20006       <div class="body">
20007         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
20008 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
20009 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
20010 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
20011 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
20012 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
20013 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
20014 models.</p>
20015
20016 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
20017 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
20018 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
20019 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
20020
20021 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
20022 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
20023 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
20024 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
20025 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
20026 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
20027 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
20028 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
20029 distributed.</p>
20030
20031 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
20032
20033 <ul>
20034
20035 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
20036   other relevant equipment.</li>
20037
20038 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
20039
20040 </ul>
20041
20042 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
20043 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
20044 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
20045 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
20046 books available.</p>
20047
20048 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
20049 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
20050 libraries. :)</p>
20051
20052       </div>
20053       <div class="tags">
20054
20055
20056         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
20057
20058
20059       </div>
20060     </div>
20061     <div class="padding"></div>
20062
20063     <div class="entry">
20064       <div class="title">
20065         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
20066       </div>
20067       <div class="date">
20068         17th September 2011
20069       </div>
20070       <div class="body">
20071         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
20072 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
20073 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
20074 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
20075 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
20076 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
20077 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
20078 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
20079
20080 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
20081
20082 <blockquote><pre>
20083 #!/bin/sh
20084 # apt-get install lsdvd
20085 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
20086 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
20087 </pre></blockquote>
20088
20089 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
20090 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
20091 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
20092 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
20093
20094 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
20095 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
20096 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
20097 back as an ISO.
20098
20099 <blockquote><pre>
20100 #!/bin/sh
20101 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
20102 set -e
20103 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
20104 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
20105 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
20106 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
20107 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
20108 </pre></blockquote>
20109
20110 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
20111
20112 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
20113 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
20114 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
20115 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
20116 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
20117
20118 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
20119 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
20120 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
20121 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
20122 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
20123 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
20124
20125       </div>
20126       <div class="tags">
20127
20128
20129         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
20130
20131
20132       </div>
20133     </div>
20134     <div class="padding"></div>
20135
20136     <div class="entry">
20137       <div class="title">
20138         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_is_booting_into_runlevel_1_different_from_single_user_boots_.html">How is booting into runlevel 1 different from single user boots?</a>
20139       </div>
20140       <div class="date">
20141          4th August 2011
20142       </div>
20143       <div class="body">
20144         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
20145 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
20146 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
20147 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
20148 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
20149 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
20150 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
20151 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
20152 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
20153
20154 <p><blockquote>
20155 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
20156 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
20157 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
20158 </blockquote></p>
20159
20160 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
20161 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
20162 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
20163 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
20164 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
20165 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
20166 hard to explain.</p>
20167
20168 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
20169 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
20170 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
20171 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
20172 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
20173 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
20174 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
20175 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
20176 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
20177 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
20178 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
20179 mode).</p>
20180
20181 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
20182 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
20183 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
20184 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
20185 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
20186 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
20187 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
20188 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
20189 after visiting single user mode.</p>
20190
20191 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
20192 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
20193 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
20194 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
20195 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
20196 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
20197 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
20198 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
20199
20200 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
20201 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
20202 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
20203
20204       </div>
20205       <div class="tags">
20206
20207
20208         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
20209
20210
20211       </div>
20212     </div>
20213     <div class="padding"></div>
20214
20215     <div class="entry">
20216       <div class="title">
20217         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">What should start from /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian? - almost nothing</a>
20218       </div>
20219       <div class="date">
20220         30th July 2011
20221       </div>
20222       <div class="body">
20223         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
20224 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
20225 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
20226 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
20227 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
20228 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
20229 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
20230 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
20231 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
20232 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
20233 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
20234 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
20235 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
20236
20237 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
20238 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
20239 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
20240 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
20241 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
20242 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
20243 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
20244 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
20245 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
20246
20247 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
20248 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
20249 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
20250 is presented.</p>
20251
20252 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
20253 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
20254 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
20255 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
20256 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
20257 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
20258 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
20259 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
20260 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
20261 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
20262 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
20263 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
20264 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
20265 find time to push this forward.</p>
20266
20267       </div>
20268       <div class="tags">
20269
20270
20271         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
20272
20273
20274       </div>
20275     </div>
20276     <div class="padding"></div>
20277
20278     <div class="entry">
20279       <div class="title">
20280         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</a>
20281       </div>
20282       <div class="date">
20283         29th July 2011
20284       </div>
20285       <div class="body">
20286         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
20287 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
20288 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
20289 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
20290 issues.</p>
20291
20292 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
20293 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
20294 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
20295
20296 <ol>
20297
20298 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
20299 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
20300 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
20301 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
20302 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
20303 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
20304 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
20305 Debian.</li>
20306
20307 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
20308 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
20309 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
20310 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
20311 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
20312 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
20313 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
20314 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
20315 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
20316 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
20317 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
20318 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
20319 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
20320
20321 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
20322 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
20323 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
20324 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
20325 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
20326 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
20327 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
20328 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
20329 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
20330 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
20331
20332 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
20333 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
20334 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
20335 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
20336 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
20337 latter behaviour.</li>
20338
20339 </ol>
20340
20341 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
20342 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
20343 it do not matter much.</p>
20344
20345 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
20346 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
20347 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
20348
20349       </div>
20350       <div class="tags">
20351
20352
20353         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
20354
20355
20356       </div>
20357     </div>
20358     <div class="padding"></div>
20359
20360     <div class="entry">
20361       <div class="title">
20362         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_modules_used_by_FixMyStreet_which_are_missing_in_Debian_Squeeze.html">Perl modules used by FixMyStreet which are missing in Debian/Squeeze</a>
20363       </div>
20364       <div class="date">
20365         26th July 2011
20366       </div>
20367       <div class="body">
20368         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
20369 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
20370 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
20371 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
20372 security support for a few years.</p>
20373
20374 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
20375 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
20376 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
20377 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
20378 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
20379 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
20380 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
20381 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
20382 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
20383 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
20384 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
20385 easier in the future.</p>
20386
20387 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
20388 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
20389 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
20390 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
20391 do not have time for.</p>
20392
20393       </div>
20394       <div class="tags">
20395
20396
20397         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>.
20398
20399
20400       </div>
20401     </div>
20402     <div class="padding"></div>
20403
20404     <div class="entry">
20405       <div class="title">
20406         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
20407       </div>
20408       <div class="date">
20409         20th June 2011
20410       </div>
20411       <div class="body">
20412         <p>Reading
20413 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
20414 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
20415 parts of the
20416 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
20417 and
20418 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
20419 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
20420 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
20421 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
20422
20423       </div>
20424       <div class="tags">
20425
20426
20427         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
20428
20429
20430       </div>
20431     </div>
20432     <div class="padding"></div>
20433
20434     <div class="entry">
20435       <div class="title">
20436         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experimental_Open311_API_for_the_mySociety_fixmystreet_system.html">Experimental Open311 API for the mySociety fixmystreet system</a>
20437       </div>
20438       <div class="date">
20439         30th April 2011
20440       </div>
20441       <div class="body">
20442         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
20443 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
20444 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
20445 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
20446 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
20447 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
20448 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
20449 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
20450 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
20451 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
20452
20453 <p>Where is it?  Visit
20454 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
20455 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
20456 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
20457 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
20458
20459       </div>
20460       <div class="tags">
20461
20462
20463         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311</a>.
20464
20465
20466       </div>
20467     </div>
20468     <div class="padding"></div>
20469
20470     <div class="entry">
20471       <div class="title">
20472         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Initial_notes_on_adding_Open311_server_API_on_FixMyStreet.html">Initial notes on adding Open311 server API on FixMyStreet</a>
20473       </div>
20474       <div class="date">
20475         29th April 2011
20476       </div>
20477       <div class="body">
20478         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
20479 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
20480 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
20481 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
20482 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
20483 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
20484 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
20485 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
20486 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
20487 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
20488 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
20489 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
20490 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
20491
20492 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
20493 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
20494 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
20495 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
20496 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
20497 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
20498 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
20499 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
20500 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
20501 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
20502 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
20503 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
20504 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
20505
20506 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
20507 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
20508 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
20509 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
20510 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
20511 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
20512 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
20513 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
20514 it.</p>
20515
20516 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
20517 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
20518 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
20519 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
20520 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
20521 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
20522 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
20523
20524 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
20525 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
20526 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
20527 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
20528 and range= options.</p>
20529
20530 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
20531 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
20532 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
20533 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
20534 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
20535 to best handle this.  I've noticed
20536 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
20537 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
20538 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
20539 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
20540
20541 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
20542 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
20543 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
20544 discussions instead of only
20545 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
20546 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
20547 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
20548 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
20549 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
20550 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
20551
20552       </div>
20553       <div class="tags">
20554
20555
20556         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311</a>.
20557
20558
20559       </div>
20560     </div>
20561     <div class="padding"></div>
20562
20563     <div class="entry">
20564       <div class="title">
20565         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
20566       </div>
20567       <div class="date">
20568          6th April 2011
20569       </div>
20570       <div class="body">
20571         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
20572 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
20573 A few days ago the project
20574 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
20575 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
20576 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
20577 into Gnash.</p>
20578
20579       </div>
20580       <div class="tags">
20581
20582
20583         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/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
20584
20585
20586       </div>
20587     </div>
20588     <div class="padding"></div>
20589
20590     <div class="entry">
20591       <div class="title">
20592         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Norwegian_FixMyStreet_have_kept_me_busy_the_last_few_weeks.html">A Norwegian FixMyStreet have kept me busy the last few weeks</a>
20593       </div>
20594       <div class="date">
20595          3rd April 2011
20596       </div>
20597       <div class="body">
20598         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
20599 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
20600 update in English.</p>
20601
20602 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
20603 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
20604 of the British service
20605 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
20606 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
20607 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
20608 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
20609 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
20610 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
20611 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
20612 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
20613 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
20614 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
20615 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
20616 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
20617 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
20618
20619 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
20620 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
20621 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
20622 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
20623 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
20624 public infrastructure.</p>
20625
20626 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
20627 such service?</p>
20628
20629       </div>
20630       <div class="tags">
20631
20632
20633         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>.
20634
20635
20636       </div>
20637     </div>
20638     <div class="padding"></div>
20639
20640     <div class="entry">
20641       <div class="title">
20642         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_NVD_and_CPE_to_track_CVEs_in_locally_maintained_software.html">Using NVD and CPE to track CVEs in locally maintained software</a>
20643       </div>
20644       <div class="date">
20645         28th January 2011
20646       </div>
20647       <div class="body">
20648         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
20649 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
20650 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
20651 available on the Internet, and check our locally
20652 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
20653 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
20654 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
20655 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
20656 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
20657 out which security holes were present in our free software
20658 collection.</p>
20659
20660 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
20661 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
20662 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
20663 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
20664 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
20665 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
20666 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
20667 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
20668 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
20669 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
20670 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
20671 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
20672 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
20673 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
20674 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
20675 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
20676
20677 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
20678 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
20679 check out, one could look up
20680 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/search?cpe=cpe%3A%2Fa%3Agnu%3Agzip:1.3.3">cpe:/a:gnu:gzip:1.3.3
20681 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
20682 The most recent one is
20683 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
20684 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
20685 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
20686
20687 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
20688 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
20689 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
20690 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
20691 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
20692 security issues out.</p>
20693
20694 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
20695 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
20696 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
20697 RHEL is providing
20698 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
20699 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
20700 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
20701
20702 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
20703 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
20704 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
20705 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
20706 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
20707 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
20708 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
20709 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
20710 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
20711 established soon.</p>
20712
20713 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
20714 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
20715 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
20716 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
20717 for their packages.</p>
20718
20719       </div>
20720       <div class="tags">
20721
20722
20723         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
20724
20725
20726       </div>
20727     </div>
20728     <div class="padding"></div>
20729
20730     <div class="entry">
20731       <div class="title">
20732         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Which_module_is_loaded_for_a_given_PCI_and_USB_device_.html">Which module is loaded for a given PCI and USB device?</a>
20733       </div>
20734       <div class="date">
20735         23rd January 2011
20736       </div>
20737       <div class="body">
20738         <p>In the
20739 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
20740 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
20741 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
20742 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
20743 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
20744 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
20745 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
20746 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
20747 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
20748 one of my machines like this:</p>
20749
20750 <pre>
20751 loaded modules:
20752 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
20753 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
20754 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
20755 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
20756 10de:03ec pata_amd
20757 10de:03f6 sata_nv
20758 1022:1103 k8temp
20759 109e:036e bttv
20760 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
20761 11ab:4364 sky2
20762 </pre>
20763
20764 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
20765 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
20766
20767 <pre>
20768 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
20769     echo loaded pci modules:
20770     (
20771         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
20772         for address in * ; do
20773             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
20774                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
20775                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
20776                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
20777                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
20778                     echo "$id $module"
20779                 fi
20780             fi
20781         done
20782     )
20783     echo
20784 fi
20785 </pre>
20786
20787 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
20788 mappings:</p>
20789
20790 <pre>
20791 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
20792     echo loaded usb modules:
20793     (
20794         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
20795         for address in * ; do
20796             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
20797                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
20798                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
20799                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
20800                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
20801                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
20802                         echo "$id $module"
20803                     fi
20804                 fi
20805             fi
20806         done
20807     )
20808     echo
20809 fi
20810 </pre>
20811
20812 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
20813 well.</p>
20814
20815       </div>
20816       <div class="tags">
20817
20818
20819         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
20820
20821
20822       </div>
20823     </div>
20824     <div class="padding"></div>
20825
20826     <div class="entry">
20827       <div class="title">
20828         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_video_format_most_supported_in_web_browsers_.html">The video format most supported in web browsers?</a>
20829       </div>
20830       <div class="date">
20831         16th January 2011
20832       </div>
20833       <div class="body">
20834         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
20835 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
20836 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
20837 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
20838 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
20839 the Wikipedia article on
20840 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
20841 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
20842 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
20843 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
20844 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
20845 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
20846 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
20847 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
20848 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
20849 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
20850 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
20851 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
20852
20853 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
20854 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
20855 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
20856 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
20857 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
20858 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
20859 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
20860 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
20861 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
20862 from last week</a>.</p>
20863
20864 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
20865 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
20866 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
20867 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
20868 was without royalties and license terms, check out
20869 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
20870 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
20871
20872 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
20873 available from
20874 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
20875 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
20876 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
20877
20878 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
20879 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
20880 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
20881 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
20882
20883       </div>
20884       <div class="tags">
20885
20886
20887         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</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>.
20888
20889
20890       </div>
20891     </div>
20892     <div class="padding"></div>
20893
20894     <div class="entry">
20895       <div class="title">
20896         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Chrome_plan_to_drop_H_264_support_for_HTML5__lt_video_gt_.html">Chrome plan to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt;</a>
20897       </div>
20898       <div class="date">
20899         12th January 2011
20900       </div>
20901       <div class="body">
20902         <p>Today I discovered
20903 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
20904 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
20905 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
20906 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
20907 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
20908 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
20909 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
20910 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
20911 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
20912 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
20913 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
20914 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
20915 on the Google announcement is available from
20916 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
20917 A good read. :)</p>
20918
20919 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
20920 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
20921 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
20922 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
20923 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
20924 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
20925 browsers support H.264, and others support
20926 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
20927 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
20928 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
20929 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
20930 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
20931 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
20932 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
20933 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
20934
20935 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
20936 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
20937 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
20938 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
20939 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
20940 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
20941 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
20942
20943 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
20944 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
20945 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
20946 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
20947 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
20948 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
20949 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
20950
20951 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
20952 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
20953 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
20954 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
20955 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
20956 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
20957 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
20958
20959 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
20960 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
20961 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
20962 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
20963 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
20964 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
20965 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
20966 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
20967 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
20968 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
20969 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
20970 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
20971 I guess time will tell.</p>
20972
20973 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
20974 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
20975 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
20976
20977       </div>
20978       <div class="tags">
20979
20980
20981         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</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>.
20982
20983
20984       </div>
20985     </div>
20986     <div class="padding"></div>
20987
20988     <div class="entry">
20989       <div class="title">
20990         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_standards_are_Free_and_Open_as_defined_by_Digistan_.html">What standards are Free and Open as defined by Digistan?</a>
20991       </div>
20992       <div class="date">
20993         30th December 2010
20994       </div>
20995       <div class="body">
20996         <p>After trying to
20997 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
20998 Ogg Theora</a> to
20999 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
21000 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
21001 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
21002 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
21003 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
21004 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
21005 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
21006
21007 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
21008 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
21009 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
21010 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
21011 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
21012 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
21013 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
21014
21015 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
21016 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
21017
21018       </div>
21019       <div class="tags">
21020
21021
21022         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/standard">standard</a>.
21023
21024
21025       </div>
21026     </div>
21027     <div class="padding"></div>
21028
21029     <div class="entry">
21030       <div class="title">
21031         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
21032       </div>
21033       <div class="date">
21034         27th December 2010
21035       </div>
21036       <div class="body">
21037         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
21038 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
21039 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
21040 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
21041 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
21042 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
21043 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
21044 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
21045
21046 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
21047 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
21048 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
21049 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
21050 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
21051 page</a>.</p>
21052
21053 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
21054 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
21055 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
21056 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
21057 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
21058 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
21059 specification on equal terms.</p>
21060
21061 <blockquote>
21062
21063 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
21064 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
21065 open standard:</p>
21066
21067 <ul>
21068
21069 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
21070 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
21071 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
21072 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
21073
21074 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
21075 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
21076 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
21077 nominal fee.</li>
21078
21079 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
21080 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
21081 free basis.</li>
21082
21083 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
21084
21085 </ul>
21086 </blockquote>
21087
21088 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
21089 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
21090 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
21091 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
21092 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
21093 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
21094 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
21095
21096 <blockquote>
21097
21098 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
21099
21100 <ol>
21101
21102 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
21103 tilgængelig.</li>
21104
21105 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
21106 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
21107
21108 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
21109 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
21110
21111 </ol>
21112
21113 </blockquote>
21114
21115 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
21116 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
21117
21118 <blockquote>
21119
21120 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
21121
21122 <ol>
21123
21124 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
21125 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
21126
21127 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
21128 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
21129 Standard themselves;</li>
21130
21131 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
21132 any party or in any business model;</li>
21133
21134 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
21135 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
21136 parties;</li>
21137
21138 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
21139 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
21140 parties.</li>
21141
21142 </ol>
21143
21144 </blockquote>
21145
21146 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
21147 its
21148 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
21149 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
21150
21151 <blockquote>
21152 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
21153
21154 <ul>
21155
21156 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
21157   democratic:
21158
21159          <ul>
21160
21161          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
21162             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
21163             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
21164             and managed.</li>
21165
21166          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
21167             method, can be changed through input from all
21168             participants.</li>
21169
21170          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
21171             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
21172
21173          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
21174             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
21175
21176          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
21177             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
21178             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
21179
21180          </ul>
21181
21182 </li>
21183
21184 </ul>
21185
21186 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
21187 <ul>
21188
21189 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
21190   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
21191   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
21192   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
21193   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
21194
21195 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
21196   a technical or economic barriers</li>
21197
21198 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
21199   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
21200   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
21201   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
21202   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
21203   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
21204   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
21205   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
21206   intended to function.</li>
21207
21208 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
21209   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
21210   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
21211
21212 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
21213   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
21214   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
21215   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
21216   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
21217   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
21218   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
21219   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
21220
21221       <ul>
21222
21223       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
21224         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
21225         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
21226
21227       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
21228         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
21229         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
21230         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
21231
21232       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
21233         licensor</li>
21234
21235       </ul>
21236 </li>
21237
21238 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
21239   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
21240   or restricted licensing terms</li>
21241
21242 </ul>
21243
21244 </blockquote>
21245
21246 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
21247 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
21248 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
21249 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
21250 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
21251 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
21252 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
21253 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
21254 Standards.</p>
21255
21256       </div>
21257       <div class="tags">
21258
21259
21260         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/standard">standard</a>.
21261
21262
21263       </div>
21264     </div>
21265     <div class="padding"></div>
21266
21267     <div class="entry">
21268       <div class="title">
21269         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">Is Ogg Theora a free and open standard?</a>
21270       </div>
21271       <div class="date">
21272         25th December 2010
21273       </div>
21274       <div class="body">
21275         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
21276 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
21277
21278 <blockquote>
21279
21280 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
21281 as follows:</p>
21282
21283 <ol>
21284
21285 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
21286 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
21287 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
21288
21289 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
21290 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
21291 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
21292 parties.</li>
21293
21294 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
21295 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
21296 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
21297
21298 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
21299 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
21300
21301 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
21302
21303 </ol>
21304
21305 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
21306 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
21307 products based on the standard.</p>
21308 </blockquote>
21309
21310 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
21311 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
21312 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
21313 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
21314 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
21315 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
21316 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
21317 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
21318
21319 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
21320
21321 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
21322 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
21323 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
21324 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
21325 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
21326 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
21327 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
21328 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
21329 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
21330 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
21331 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
21332 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
21333 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
21334 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
21335
21336 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
21337
21338 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
21339 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
21340 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
21341 documentation indicating this.</p>
21342
21343 <p>According to
21344 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
21345 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
21346 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
21347 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
21348 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
21349 report is correct.</p>
21350
21351 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
21352
21353 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
21354 container format</a> and both the
21355 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
21356 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
21357 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
21358
21359 <blockquote>
21360
21361 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
21362 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
21363 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
21364 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
21365 specification compliance.
21366
21367 </blockquote>
21368
21369 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
21370 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
21371 this is the term:<p>
21372
21373 <blockquote>
21374
21375 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
21376 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
21377 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
21378 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
21379 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
21380 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
21381 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
21382 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
21383 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
21384 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
21385 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
21386 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
21387
21388 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
21389 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
21390 </blockquote>
21391
21392 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
21393 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
21394 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
21395 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
21396 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
21397
21398 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
21399
21400 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
21401 Theora format.
21402 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
21403 and
21404 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
21405 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
21406 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
21407 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
21408 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
21409 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
21410 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
21411 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
21412
21413 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
21414
21415 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
21416
21417 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
21418
21419 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
21420 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
21421 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
21422 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
21423 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
21424 this.</p>
21425
21426 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
21427 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
21428
21429       </div>
21430       <div class="tags">
21431
21432
21433         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/h264">h264</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>.
21434
21435
21436       </div>
21437     </div>
21438     <div class="padding"></div>
21439
21440     <div class="entry">
21441       <div class="title">
21442         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_reply_from_Edgar_Villanueva_to_Microsoft_in_Peru.html">The reply from Edgar Villanueva to Microsoft in Peru</a>
21443       </div>
21444       <div class="date">
21445         25th December 2010
21446       </div>
21447       <div class="body">
21448         <p>A few days ago
21449 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
21450 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
21451 2.0 of
21452 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
21453 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
21454 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
21455 Nothing very surprising there, given
21456 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
21457 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
21458 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
21459 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
21460 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
21461 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
21462 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
21463 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
21464 standard definition from its content.</p>
21465
21466 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
21467 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
21468 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
21469 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
21470 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
21471 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
21472 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
21473 background information about that story is available in
21474 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
21475 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
21476
21477 <blockquote>
21478 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
21479 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
21480 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
21481
21482 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
21483
21484 <p>First of all, I thank you for your letter of March 25, 2002 in which you state the official position of Microsoft relative to Bill Number 1609, Free Software in Public Administration, which is indubitably inspired by the desire for Peru to find a suitable place in the global technological context. In the same spirit, and convinced that we will find the best solutions through an exchange of clear and open ideas, I will take this opportunity to reply to the commentaries included in your letter.</p>
21485
21486 <p>While acknowledging that opinions such as yours constitute a significant contribution, it would have been even more worthwhile for me if, rather than formulating objections of a general nature (which we will analyze in detail later) you had gathered solid arguments for the advantages that proprietary software could bring to the Peruvian State, and to its citizens in general, since this would have allowed a more enlightening exchange in respect of each of our positions.</p>
21487
21488 <p>With the aim of creating an orderly debate, we will assume that what you call "open source software" is what the Bill defines as "free software", since there exists software for which the source code is distributed together with the program, but which does not fall within the definition established by the Bill; and that what you call "commercial software" is what the Bill defines as "proprietary" or "unfree", given that there exists free software which is sold in the market for a price like any other good or service.</p>
21489
21490 <p>It is also necessary to make it clear that the aim of the Bill we are discussing is not directly related to the amount of direct savings that can by made by using free software in state institutions. That is in any case a marginal aggregate value, but in no way is it the chief focus of the Bill. The basic principles which inspire the Bill are linked to the basic guarantees of a state of law, such as:</p>
21491
21492 <p>
21493 <ul>
21494 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
21495 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
21496 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
21497 </ul>
21498 </p>
21499
21500 <p>To guarantee the free access of citizens to public information, it is indispensable that the encoding of data is not tied to a single provider. The use of standard and open formats gives a guarantee of this free access, if necessary through the creation of compatible free software.</p>
21501
21502 <p>To guarantee the permanence of public data, it is necessary that the usability and maintenance of the software does not depend on the goodwill of the suppliers, or on the monopoly conditions imposed by them. For this reason the State needs systems the development of which can be guaranteed due to the availability of the source code.</p>
21503
21504 <p>To guarantee national security or the security of the State, it is indispensable to be able to rely on systems without elements which allow control from a distance or the undesired transmission of information to third parties. Systems with source code freely accessible to the public are required to allow their inspection by the State itself, by the citizens, and by a large number of independent experts throughout the world. Our proposal brings further security, since the knowledge of the source code will eliminate the growing number of programs with *spy code*. </p>
21505
21506 <p>In the same way, our proposal strengthens the security of the citizens, both in their role as legitimate owners of information managed by the state, and in their role as consumers. In this second case, by allowing the growth of a widespread availability of free software not containing *spy code* able to put at risk privacy and individual freedoms.</p>
21507
21508 <p>In this sense, the Bill is limited to establishing the conditions under which the state bodies will obtain software in the future, that is, in a way compatible with these basic principles.</p>
21509
21510
21511 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
21512 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
21513 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
21514 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
21515 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
21516 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
21517
21518 </p>
21519
21520 <p>What the Bill does express clearly, is that, for software to be acceptable for the state it is not enough that it is technically capable of fulfilling a task, but that further the contractual conditions must satisfy a series of requirements regarding the license, without which the State cannot guarantee the citizen adequate processing of his data, watching over its integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility throughout time, as these are very critical aspects for its normal functioning.</p>
21521
21522 <p>We agree, Mr. Gonzalez, that information and communication technology have a significant impact on the quality of life of the citizens (whether it be positive or negative). We surely also agree that the basic values I have pointed out above are fundamental in a democratic state like Peru. So we are very interested to know of any other way of guaranteeing these principles, other than through the use of free software in the terms defined by the Bill.</p>
21523
21524 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
21525
21526 <p>Firstly, you point out that: "1. The bill makes it compulsory for all public bodies to use only free software, that is to say open source software, which breaches the principles of equality before the law, that of non-discrimination and the right of free private enterprise, freedom of industry and of contract, protected by the constitution."</p>
21527
21528 <p>This understanding is in error. The Bill in no way affects the rights you list; it limits itself entirely to establishing conditions for the use of software on the part of state institutions, without in any way meddling in private sector transactions. It is a well established principle that the State does not enjoy the wide spectrum of contractual freedom of the private sector, as it is limited in its actions precisely by the requirement for transparency of public acts; and in this sense, the preservation of the greater common interest must prevail when legislating on the matter.</p>
21529
21530 <p>The Bill protects equality under the law, since no natural or legal person is excluded from the right of offering these goods to the State under the conditions defined in the Bill and without more limitations than those established by the Law of State Contracts and Purchasing (T.U.O. by Supreme Decree No. 012-2001-PCM).</p>
21531
21532 <p>The Bill does not introduce any discrimination whatever, since it only establishes *how* the goods have to be provided (which is a state power) and not *who* has to provide them (which would effectively be discriminatory, if restrictions based on national origin, race religion, ideology, sexual preference etc. were imposed). On the contrary, the Bill is decidedly antidiscriminatory. This is so because by defining with no room for doubt the conditions for the provision of software, it prevents state bodies from using software which has a license including discriminatory conditions.</p>
21533
21534 <p>It should be obvious from the preceding two paragraphs that the Bill does not harm free private enterprise, since the latter can always choose under what conditions it will produce software; some of these will be acceptable to the State, and others will not be since they contradict the guarantee of the basic principles listed above. This free initiative is of course compatible with the freedom of industry and freedom of contract (in the limited form in which the State can exercise the latter). Any private subject can produce software under the conditions which the State requires, or can refrain from doing so. Nobody is forced to adopt a model of production, but if they wish to provide software to the State, they must provide the mechanisms which guarantee the basic principles, and which are those described in the Bill.</p>
21535
21536 <p>By way of an example: nothing in the text of the Bill would prevent your company offering the State bodies an office "suite", under the conditions defined in the Bill and setting the price that you consider satisfactory. If you did not, it would not be due to restrictions imposed by the law, but to business decisions relative to the method of commercializing your products, decisions with which the State is not involved.</p>
21537
21538 <p>To continue; you note that:" 2. The bill, by making the use of open source software compulsory, would establish discriminatory and non competitive practices in the contracting and purchasing by public bodies..."</p>
21539
21540 <p>This statement is just a reiteration of the previous one, and so the response can be found above. However, let us concern ourselves for a moment with your comment regarding "non-competitive ... practices."</p>
21541
21542 <p>Of course, in defining any kind of purchase, the buyer sets conditions which relate to the proposed use of the good or service. From the start, this excludes certain manufacturers from the possibility of competing, but does not exclude them "a priori", but rather based on a series of principles determined by the autonomous will of the purchaser, and so the process takes place in conformance with the law. And in the Bill it is established that *no one* is excluded from competing as far as he guarantees the fulfillment of the basic principles.</p>
21543
21544 <p>Furthermore, the Bill *stimulates* competition, since it tends to generate a supply of software with better conditions of usability, and to better existing work, in a model of continuous improvement.</p>
21545
21546 <p>On the other hand, the central aspect of competivity is the chance to provide better choices to the consumer. Now, it is impossible to ignore the fact that marketing does not play a neutral role when the product is offered on the market (since accepting the opposite would lead one to suppose that firms' expenses in marketing lack any sense), and that therefore a significant expense under this heading can influence the decisions of the purchaser. This influence of marketing is in large measure reduced by the bill that we are backing, since the choice within the framework proposed is based on the *technical merits* of the product and not on the effort put into commercialization by the producer; in this sense, competitiveness is increased, since the smallest software producer can compete on equal terms with the most powerful corporations.</p>
21547
21548 <p>It is necessary to stress that there is no position more anti-competitive than that of the big software producers, which frequently abuse their dominant position, since in innumerable cases they propose as a solution to problems raised by users: "update your software to the new version" (at the user's expense, naturally); furthermore, it is common to find arbitrary cessation of technical help for products, which, in the provider's judgment alone, are "old"; and so, to receive any kind of technical assistance, the user finds himself forced to migrate to new versions (with non-trivial costs, especially as changes in hardware platform are often involved). And as the whole infrastructure is based on proprietary data formats, the user stays "trapped" in the need to continue using products from the same supplier, or to make the huge effort to change to another environment (probably also proprietary).</p>
21549
21550 <p>You add: "3. So, by compelling the State to favor a business model based entirely on open source, the bill would only discourage the local and international manufacturing companies, which are the ones which really undertake important expenditures, create a significant number of direct and indirect jobs, as well as contributing to the GNP, as opposed to a model of open source software which tends to have an ever weaker economic impact, since it mainly creates jobs in the service sector."</p>
21551
21552 <p>I do not agree with your statement. Partly because of what you yourself point out in paragraph 6 of your letter, regarding the relative weight of services in the context of software use. This contradiction alone would invalidate your position. The service model, adopted by a large number of companies in the software industry, is much larger in economic terms, and with a tendency to increase, than the licensing of programs.</p>
21553
21554 <p>On the other hand, the private sector of the economy has the widest possible freedom to choose the economic model which best suits its interests, even if this freedom of choice is often obscured subliminally by the disproportionate expenditure on marketing by the producers of proprietary software.</p>
21555
21556 <p>In addition, a reading of your opinion would lead to the conclusion that the State market is crucial and essential for the proprietary software industry, to such a point that the choice made by the State in this bill would completely eliminate the market for these firms. If that is true, we can deduce that the State must be subsidizing the proprietary software industry. In the unlikely event that this were true, the State would have the right to apply the subsidies in the area it considered of greatest social value; it is undeniable, in this improbable hypothesis, that if the State decided to subsidize software, it would have to do so choosing the free over the proprietary, considering its social effect and the rational use of taxpayers money.</p>
21557
21558 <p>In respect of the jobs generated by proprietary software in countries like ours, these mainly concern technical tasks of little aggregate value; at the local level, the technicians who provide support for proprietary software produced by transnational companies do not have the possibility of fixing bugs, not necessarily for lack of technical capability or of talent, but because they do not have access to the source code to fix it. With free software one creates more technically qualified employment and a framework of free competence where success is only tied to the ability to offer good technical support and quality of service, one stimulates the market, and one increases the shared fund of knowledge, opening up alternatives to generate services of greater total value and a higher quality level, to the benefit of all involved: producers, service organizations, and consumers.</p>
21559
21560 <p>It is a common phenomenon in developing countries that local software industries obtain the majority of their takings in the service sector, or in the creation of "ad hoc" software. Therefore, any negative impact that the application of the Bill might have in this sector will be more than compensated by a growth in demand for services (as long as these are carried out to high quality standards). If the transnational software companies decide not to compete under these new rules of the game, it is likely that they will undergo some decrease in takings in terms of payment for licenses; however, considering that these firms continue to allege that much of the software used by the State has been illegally copied, one can see that the impact will not be very serious. Certainly, in any case their fortune will be determined by market laws, changes in which cannot be avoided; many firms traditionally associated with proprietary software have already set out on the road (supported by copious expense) of providing services associated with free software, which shows that the models are not mutually exclusive.</p>
21561
21562 <p>With this bill the State is deciding that it needs to preserve certain fundamental values. And it is deciding this based on its sovereign power, without affecting any of the constitutional guarantees. If these values could be guaranteed without having to choose a particular economic model, the effects of the law would be even more beneficial. In any case, it should be clear that the State does not choose an economic model; if it happens that there only exists one economic model capable of providing software which provides the basic guarantee of these principles, this is because of historical circumstances, not because of an arbitrary choice of a given model.</p>
21563
21564 <p>Your letter continues: "4. The bill imposes the use of open source software without considering the dangers that this can bring from the point of view of security, guarantee, and possible violation of the intellectual property rights of third parties."</p>
21565
21566 <p>Alluding in an abstract way to "the dangers this can bring", without specifically mentioning a single one of these supposed dangers, shows at the least some lack of knowledge of the topic. So, allow me to enlighten you on these points.</p>
21567
21568 <p>On security:</p>
21569
21570 <p>National security has already been mentioned in general terms in the initial discussion of the basic principles of the bill. In more specific terms, relative to the security of the software itself, it is well known that all software (whether proprietary or free) contains errors or "bugs" (in programmers' slang). But it is also well known that the bugs in free software are fewer, and are fixed much more quickly, than in proprietary software. It is not in vain that numerous public bodies responsible for the IT security of state systems in developed countries require the use of free software for the same conditions of security and efficiency.</p>
21571
21572 <p>What is impossible to prove is that proprietary software is more secure than free, without the public and open inspection of the scientific community and users in general. This demonstration is impossible because the model of proprietary software itself prevents this analysis, so that any guarantee of security is based only on promises of good intentions (biased, by any reckoning) made by the producer itself, or its contractors.</p>
21573
21574 <p>It should be remembered that in many cases, the licensing conditions include Non-Disclosure clauses which prevent the user from publicly revealing security flaws found in the licensed proprietary product.</p>
21575
21576 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
21577
21578 <p>As you know perfectly well, or could find out by reading the "End User License Agreement" of the products you license, in the great majority of cases the guarantees are limited to replacement of the storage medium in case of defects, but in no case is compensation given for direct or indirect damages, loss of profits, etc... If as a result of a security bug in one of your products, not fixed in time by yourselves, an attacker managed to compromise crucial State systems, what guarantees, reparations and compensation would your company make in accordance with your licensing conditions? The guarantees of proprietary software, inasmuch as programs are delivered ``AS IS'', that is, in the state in which they are, with no additional responsibility of the provider in respect of function, in no way differ from those normal with free software.</p>
21579
21580 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
21581
21582 <p>Questions of intellectual property fall outside the scope of this bill, since they are covered by specific other laws. The model of free software in no way implies ignorance of these laws, and in fact the great majority of free software is covered by copyright. In reality, the inclusion of this question in your observations shows your confusion in respect of the legal framework in which free software is developed. The inclusion of the intellectual property of others in works claimed as one's own is not a practice that has been noted in the free software community; whereas, unfortunately, it has been in the area of proprietary software. As an example, the condemnation by the Commercial Court of Nanterre, France, on 27th September 2001 of Microsoft Corp. to a penalty of 3 million francs in damages and interest, for violation of intellectual property (piracy, to use the unfortunate term that your firm commonly uses in its publicity).</p>
21583
21584 <p>You go on to say that: "The bill uses the concept of open source software incorrectly, since it does not necessarily imply that the software is free or of zero cost, and so arrives at mistaken conclusions regarding State savings, with no cost-benefit analysis to validate its position."</p>
21585
21586 <p>This observation is wrong; in principle, freedom and lack of cost are orthogonal concepts: there is software which is proprietary and charged for (for example, MS Office), software which is proprietary and free of charge (MS Internet Explorer), software which is free and charged for (Red Hat, SuSE etc GNU/Linux distributions), software which is free and not charged for (Apache, Open Office, Mozilla), and even software which can be licensed in a range of combinations (MySQL).</p>
21587
21588 <p>Certainly free software is not necessarily free of charge. And the text of the bill does not state that it has to be so, as you will have noted after reading it. The definitions included in the Bill state clearly *what* should be considered free software, at no point referring to freedom from charges. Although the possibility of savings in payments for proprietary software licenses are mentioned, the foundations of the bill clearly refer to the fundamental guarantees to be preserved and to the stimulus to local technological development. Given that a democratic State must support these principles, it has no other choice than to use software with publicly available source code, and to exchange information only in standard formats.</p>
21589
21590 <p>If the State does not use software with these characteristics, it will be weakening basic republican principles. Luckily, free software also implies lower total costs; however, even given the hypothesis (easily disproved) that it was more expensive than proprietary software, the simple existence of an effective free software tool for a particular IT function would oblige the State to use it; not by command of this Bill, but because of the basic principles we enumerated at the start, and which arise from the very essence of the lawful democratic State.</p>
21591
21592 <p>You continue: "6. It is wrong to think that Open Source Software is free of charge. Research by the Gartner Group (an important investigator of the technological market recognized at world level) has shown that the cost of purchase of software (operating system and applications) is only 8% of the total cost which firms and institutions take on for a rational and truly beneficial use of the technology. The other 92% consists of: installation costs, enabling, support, maintenance, administration, and down-time."</p>
21593
21594 <p>This argument repeats that already given in paragraph 5 and partly contradicts paragraph 3. For the sake of brevity we refer to the comments on those paragraphs. However, allow me to point out that your conclusion is logically false: even if according to Gartner Group the cost of software is on average only 8% of the total cost of use, this does not in any way deny the existence of software which is free of charge, that is, with a licensing cost of zero.</p>
21595
21596 <p>In addition, in this paragraph you correctly point out that the service components and losses due to down-time make up the largest part of the total cost of software use, which, as you will note, contradicts your statement regarding the small value of services suggested in paragraph 3. Now the use of free software contributes significantly to reduce the remaining life-cycle costs. This reduction in the costs of installation, support etc. can be noted in several areas: in the first place, the competitive service model of free software, support and maintenance for which can be freely contracted out to a range of suppliers competing on the grounds of quality and low cost. This is true for installation, enabling, and support, and in large part for maintenance. In the second place, due to the reproductive characteristics of the model, maintenance carried out for an application is easily replicable, without incurring large costs (that is, without paying more than once for the same thing) since modifications, if one wishes, can be incorporated in the common fund of knowledge. Thirdly, the huge costs caused by non-functioning software ("blue screens of death", malicious code such as virus, worms, and trojans, exceptions, general protection faults and other well-known problems) are reduced considerably by using more stable software; and it is well known that one of the most notable virtues of free software is its stability.</p>
21597
21598 <p>You further state that: "7. One of the arguments behind the bill is the supposed freedom from costs of open-source software, compared with the costs of commercial software, without taking into account the fact that there exist types of volume licensing which can be highly advantageous for the State, as has happened in other countries."</p>
21599
21600 <p>I have already pointed out that what is in question is not the cost of the software but the principles of freedom of information, accessibility, and security. These arguments have been covered extensively in the preceding paragraphs to which I would refer you.</p>
21601
21602 <p>On the other hand, there certainly exist types of volume licensing (although unfortunately proprietary software does not satisfy the basic principles). But as you correctly pointed out in the immediately preceding paragraph of your letter, they only manage to reduce the impact of a component which makes up no more than 8% of the total.</p>
21603
21604 <p>You continue: "8. In addition, the alternative adopted by the bill (I) is clearly more expensive, due to the high costs of software migration, and (II) puts at risk compatibility and interoperability of the IT platforms within the State, and between the State and the private sector, given the hundreds of versions of open source software on the market."</p>
21605
21606 <p>Let us analyze your statement in two parts. Your first argument, that migration implies high costs, is in reality an argument in favor of the Bill. Because the more time goes by, the more difficult migration to another technology will become; and at the same time, the security risks associated with proprietary software will continue to increase. In this way, the use of proprietary systems and formats will make the State ever more dependent on specific suppliers. Once a policy of using free software has been established (which certainly, does imply some cost) then on the contrary migration from one system to another becomes very simple, since all data is stored in open formats. On the other hand, migration to an open software context implies no more costs than migration between two different proprietary software contexts, which invalidates your argument completely.</p>
21607
21608 <p>The second argument refers to "problems in interoperability of the IT platforms within the State, and between the State and the private sector" This statement implies a certain lack of knowledge of the way in which free software is built, which does not maximize the dependence of the user on a particular platform, as normally happens in the realm of proprietary software. Even when there are multiple free software distributions, and numerous programs which can be used for the same function, interoperability is guaranteed as much by the use of standard formats, as required by the bill, as by the possibility of creating interoperable software given the availability of the source code.</p>
21609
21610 <p>You then say that: "9. The majority of open source code does not offer adequate levels of service nor the guarantee from recognized manufacturers of high productivity on the part of the users, which has led various public organizations to retract their decision to go with an open source software solution and to use commercial software in its place."</p>
21611
21612 <p>This observation is without foundation. In respect of the guarantee, your argument was rebutted in the response to paragraph 4. In respect of support services, it is possible to use free software without them (just as also happens with proprietary software), but anyone who does need them can obtain support separately, whether from local firms or from international corporations, again just as in the case of proprietary software.</p>
21613
21614 <p>On the other hand, it would contribute greatly to our analysis if you could inform us about free software projects *established* in public bodies which have already been abandoned in favor of proprietary software. We know of a good number of cases where the opposite has taken place, but not know of any where what you describe has taken place.</p>
21615
21616 <p>You continue by observing that: "10. The bill discourages the creativity of the Peruvian software industry, which invoices 40 million US$/year, exports 4 million US$ (10th in ranking among non-traditional exports, more than handicrafts) and is a source of highly qualified employment. With a law that encourages the use of open source, software programmers lose their intellectual property rights and their main source of payment."</p>
21617
21618 <p>It is clear enough that nobody is forced to commercialize their code as free software. The only thing to take into account is that if it is not free software, it cannot be sold to the public sector. This is not in any case the main market for the national software industry. We covered some questions referring to the influence of the Bill on the generation of employment which would be both highly technically qualified and in better conditions for competition above, so it seems unnecessary to insist on this point.</p>
21619
21620 <p>What follows in your statement is incorrect. On the one hand, no author of free software loses his intellectual property rights, unless he expressly wishes to place his work in the public domain. The free software movement has always been very respectful of intellectual property, and has generated widespread public recognition of its authors. Names like those of Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum, Larry Wall, Miguel de Icaza, Andrew Tridgell, Theo de Raadt, Andrea Arcangeli, Bruce Perens, Darren Reed, Alan Cox, Eric Raymond, and many others, are recognized world-wide for their contributions to the development of software that is used today by millions of people throughout the world. On the other hand, to say that the rewards for authors rights make up the main source of payment of Peruvian programmers is in any case a guess, in particular since there is no proof to this effect, nor a demonstration of how the use of free software by the State would influence these payments.</p>
21621
21622 <p>You go on to say that: "11. Open source software, since it can be distributed without charge, does not allow the generation of income for its developers through exports. In this way, the multiplier effect of the sale of software to other countries is weakened, and so in turn is the growth of the industry, while Government rules ought on the contrary to stimulate local industry."</p>
21623
21624 <p>This statement shows once again complete ignorance of the mechanisms of and market for free software. It tries to claim that the market of sale of non- exclusive rights for use (sale of licenses) is the only possible one for the software industry, when you yourself pointed out several paragraphs above that it is not even the most important one. The incentives that the bill offers for the growth of a supply of better qualified professionals, together with the increase in experience that working on a large scale with free software within the State will bring for Peruvian technicians, will place them in a highly competitive position to offer their services abroad.</p>
21625
21626 <p>You then state that: "12. In the Forum, the use of open source software in education was discussed, without mentioning the complete collapse of this initiative in a country like Mexico, where precisely the State employees who founded the project now state that open source software did not make it possible to offer a learning experience to pupils in the schools, did not take into account the capability at a national level to give adequate support to the platform, and that the software did not and does not allow for the levels of platform integration that now exist in schools."</p>
21627
21628 <p>In fact Mexico has gone into reverse with the Red Escolar (Schools Network) project. This is due precisely to the fact that the driving forces behind the Mexican project used license costs as their main argument, instead of the other reasons specified in our project, which are far more essential. Because of this conceptual mistake, and as a result of the lack of effective support from the SEP (Secretary of State for Public Education), the assumption was made that to implant free software in schools it would be enough to drop their software budget and send them a CD ROM with Gnu/Linux instead. Of course this failed, and it couldn't have been otherwise, just as school laboratories fail when they use proprietary software and have no budget for implementation and maintenance. That's exactly why our bill is not limited to making the use of free software mandatory, but recognizes the need to create a viable migration plan, in which the State undertakes the technical transition in an orderly way in order to then enjoy the advantages of free software.</p>
21629
21630 <p>You end with a rhetorical question: "13. If open source software satisfies all the requirements of State bodies, why do you need a law to adopt it? Shouldn't it be the market which decides freely which products give most benefits or value?"</p>
21631
21632 <p>We agree that in the private sector of the economy, it must be the market that decides which products to use, and no state interference is permissible there. However, in the case of the public sector, the reasoning is not the same: as we have already established, the state archives, handles, and transmits information which does not belong to it, but which is entrusted to it by citizens, who have no alternative under the rule of law. As a counterpart to this legal requirement, the State must take extreme measures to safeguard the integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility of this information. The use of proprietary software raises serious doubts as to whether these requirements can be fulfilled, lacks conclusive evidence in this respect, and so is not suitable for use in the public sector.</p>
21633
21634 <p>The need for a law is based, firstly, on the realization of the fundamental principles listed above in the specific area of software; secondly, on the fact that the State is not an ideal homogeneous entity, but made up of multiple bodies with varying degrees of autonomy in decision making. Given that it is inappropriate to use proprietary software, the fact of establishing these rules in law will prevent the personal discretion of any state employee from putting at risk the information which belongs to citizens. And above all, because it constitutes an up-to-date reaffirmation in relation to the means of management and communication of information used today, it is based on the republican principle of openness to the public.</p>
21635
21636 <p>In conformance with this universally accepted principle, the citizen has the right to know all information held by the State and not covered by well- founded declarations of secrecy based on law. Now, software deals with information and is itself information. Information in a special form, capable of being interpreted by a machine in order to execute actions, but crucial information all the same because the citizen has a legitimate right to know, for example, how his vote is computed or his taxes calculated. And for that he must have free access to the source code and be able to prove to his satisfaction the programs used for electoral computations or calculation of his taxes.</p>
21637
21638 <p>I wish you the greatest respect, and would like to repeat that my office will always be open for you to expound your point of view to whatever level of detail you consider suitable.</p>
21639
21640 <p>Cordially,<br>
21641 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
21642 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
21643 </blockquote>
21644
21645       </div>
21646       <div class="tags">
21647
21648
21649         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/standard">standard</a>.
21650
21651
21652       </div>
21653     </div>
21654     <div class="padding"></div>
21655
21656     <div class="entry">
21657       <div class="title">
21658         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
21659       </div>
21660       <div class="date">
21661         25th December 2010
21662       </div>
21663       <div class="body">
21664         <p>Half a year ago I
21665 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
21666 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
21667 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
21668 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
21669
21670 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
21671 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
21672 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
21673 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
21674 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
21675 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
21676 got such a great test tool available.</p>
21677
21678       </div>
21679       <div class="tags">
21680
21681
21682         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
21683
21684
21685       </div>
21686     </div>
21687     <div class="padding"></div>
21688
21689     <div class="entry">
21690       <div class="title">
21691         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_if_a_laptop_is_working_with_Linux.html">How to test if a laptop is working with Linux</a>
21692       </div>
21693       <div class="date">
21694         22nd December 2010
21695       </div>
21696       <div class="body">
21697         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
21698 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
21699 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
21700 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
21701 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
21702 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
21703 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
21704 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
21705 university.</p>
21706
21707 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
21708 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
21709 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
21710 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
21711 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
21712 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
21713 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
21714 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
21715
21716 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
21717 I perform on a new model.</p>
21718
21719 <ul>
21720
21721 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
21722 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
21723 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
21724
21725 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
21726 installation, X.org is working.</li>
21727
21728 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
21729 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
21730 reported by the program.</li>
21731
21732 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
21733 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
21734 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
21735 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
21736 normally test this by playing
21737 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
21738 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
21739
21740 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
21741 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
21742
21743 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
21744 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
21745
21746 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
21747 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
21748
21749 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
21750 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
21751 few.</li>
21752
21753 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
21754 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
21755 notice this.</li>
21756
21757 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
21758 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
21759 resume.</li>
21760
21761 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
21762 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
21763 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
21764 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
21765 not.</li>
21766
21767 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
21768 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
21769 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
21770 existence.</li>
21771
21772 </ul>
21773
21774 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
21775 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
21776 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
21777 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
21778 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
21779 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
21780 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
21781 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
21782
21783       </div>
21784       <div class="tags">
21785
21786
21787         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
21788
21789
21790       </div>
21791     </div>
21792     <div class="padding"></div>
21793
21794     <div class="entry">
21795       <div class="title">
21796         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
21797       </div>
21798       <div class="date">
21799         11th December 2010
21800       </div>
21801       <div class="body">
21802         <p>As I continue to explore
21803 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
21804 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
21805 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
21806
21807 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
21808 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
21809 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
21810 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
21811 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
21812 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
21813 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
21814 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
21815 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
21816 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
21817 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
21818 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
21819 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
21820 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
21821 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
21822 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
21823 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
21824 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
21825 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
21826 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
21827
21828 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
21829 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
21830 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
21831 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
21832 If the Skolelinux foundation
21833 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
21834 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
21835 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
21836 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
21837 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
21838 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
21839 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
21840 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
21841
21842 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
21843 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
21844 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
21845 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
21846 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
21847 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
21848 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
21849 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
21850 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
21851 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
21852 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
21853 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
21854 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
21855 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
21856 currencies.</p>
21857
21858 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
21859 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
21860 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
21861 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
21862 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
21863 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
21864 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
21865 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
21866 BitCoins.  Check out
21867 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
21868 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
21869 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
21870 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
21871 yet.</p>
21872
21873 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
21874 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
21875 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
21876 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
21877 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
21878
21879       </div>
21880       <div class="tags">
21881
21882
21883         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
21884
21885
21886       </div>
21887     </div>
21888     <div class="padding"></div>
21889
21890     <div class="entry">
21891       <div class="title">
21892         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">Now accepting bitcoins - anonymous and distributed p2p crypto-money</a>
21893       </div>
21894       <div class="date">
21895         10th December 2010
21896       </div>
21897       <div class="body">
21898         <p>With this weeks lawless
21899 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
21900 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
21901 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
21902 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
21903 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
21904 A blog post from
21905 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
21906 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
21907 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
21908 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
21909 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
21910 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
21911 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
21912
21913 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
21914 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
21915 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
21916 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
21917 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
21918 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
21919 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
21920 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
21921 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
21922 Debian</a> soon.</p>
21923
21924 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
21925 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
21926 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
21927 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
21928 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
21929 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
21930 you can even get
21931 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
21932 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
21933 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
21934 on the current exchange rates.</p>
21935
21936 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
21937 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
21938 donations to the address
21939 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
21940
21941       </div>
21942       <div class="tags">
21943
21944
21945         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
21946
21947
21948       </div>
21949     </div>
21950     <div class="padding"></div>
21951
21952     <div class="entry">
21953       <div class="title">
21954         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Student_group_continue_the_work_on_my_Reprap_3D_printer.html">Student group continue the work on my Reprap 3D printer</a>
21955       </div>
21956       <div class="date">
21957          9th December 2010
21958       </div>
21959       <div class="body">
21960         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
21961 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
21962 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
21963 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
21964 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
21965 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
21966 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
21967 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
21968 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
21969 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
21970 operational.</p>
21971
21972 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
21973 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
21974 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
21975 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
21976 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
21977 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
21978 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
21979
21980       </div>
21981       <div class="tags">
21982
21983
21984         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap</a>.
21985
21986
21987       </div>
21988     </div>
21989     <div class="padding"></div>
21990
21991     <div class="entry">
21992       <div class="title">
21993         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_development_gathering_and_General_Assembly_for_FRiSK.html">Debian Edu development gathering and General Assembly for FRiSK</a>
21994       </div>
21995       <div class="date">
21996         29th November 2010
21997       </div>
21998       <div class="body">
21999         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
22000 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
22001 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
22002 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
22003 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
22004 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
22005
22006 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
22007 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
22008 will hold its
22009 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
22010 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
22011 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
22012 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
22013 vote this year.</p>
22014
22015       </div>
22016       <div class="tags">
22017
22018
22019         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
22020
22021
22022       </div>
22023     </div>
22024     <div class="padding"></div>
22025
22026     <div class="entry">
22027       <div class="title">
22028         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
22029       </div>
22030       <div class="date">
22031         27th November 2010
22032       </div>
22033       <div class="body">
22034         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
22035 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
22036 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
22037 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
22038 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
22039 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
22040 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
22041 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
22042
22043 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
22044 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
22045 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
22046 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
22047 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
22048 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
22049 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
22050 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
22051 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
22052 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
22053 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
22054
22055 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
22056 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
22057 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
22058 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
22059 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
22060 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
22061 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
22062 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
22063 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
22064 what is going on.</p>
22065
22066       </div>
22067       <div class="tags">
22068
22069
22070         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/multimedia">multimedia</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>.
22071
22072
22073       </div>
22074     </div>
22075     <div class="padding"></div>
22076
22077     <div class="entry">
22078       <div class="title">
22079         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades_of_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop__now_with_apt_get_autoremove.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades of the Gnome and KDE desktop, now with apt-get autoremove</a>
22080       </div>
22081       <div class="date">
22082         22nd November 2010
22083       </div>
22084       <div class="body">
22085         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
22086 upgrade testing of the
22087 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
22088 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
22089 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
22090 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
22091
22092 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
22093
22094 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
22095
22096 <blockquote><p>
22097   apache2.2-bin
22098   aptdaemon
22099   baobab
22100   binfmt-support
22101   browser-plugin-gnash
22102   cheese-common
22103   cli-common
22104   cups-pk-helper
22105   dmz-cursor-theme
22106   empathy
22107   empathy-common
22108   freedesktop-sound-theme
22109   freeglut3
22110   gconf-defaults-service
22111   gdm-themes
22112   gedit-plugins
22113   geoclue
22114   geoclue-hostip
22115   geoclue-localnet
22116   geoclue-manual
22117   geoclue-yahoo
22118   gnash
22119   gnash-common
22120   gnome
22121   gnome-backgrounds
22122   gnome-cards-data
22123   gnome-codec-install
22124   gnome-core
22125   gnome-desktop-environment
22126   gnome-disk-utility
22127   gnome-screenshot
22128   gnome-search-tool
22129   gnome-session-canberra
22130   gnome-system-log
22131   gnome-themes-extras
22132   gnome-themes-more
22133   gnome-user-share
22134   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
22135   gstreamer0.10-tools
22136   gtk2-engines
22137   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
22138   gtk2-engines-smooth
22139   hamster-applet
22140   libapache2-mod-dnssd
22141   libapr1
22142   libaprutil1
22143   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
22144   libaprutil1-ldap
22145   libart2.0-cil
22146   libboost-date-time1.42.0
22147   libboost-python1.42.0
22148   libboost-thread1.42.0
22149   libchamplain-0.4-0
22150   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
22151   libcheese-gtk18
22152   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
22153   libcryptui0
22154   libdiscid0
22155   libelf1
22156   libepc-1.0-2
22157   libepc-common
22158   libepc-ui-1.0-2
22159   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
22160   libfreerdp0
22161   libgconf2.0-cil
22162   libgdata-common
22163   libgdata7
22164   libgdu-gtk0
22165   libgee2
22166   libgeoclue0
22167   libgexiv2-0
22168   libgif4
22169   libglade2.0-cil
22170   libglib2.0-cil
22171   libgmime2.4-cil
22172   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
22173   libgnome2.24-cil
22174   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
22175   libgpod-common
22176   libgpod4
22177   libgtk2.0-cil
22178   libgtkglext1
22179   libgtksourceview2.0-common
22180   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
22181   libmono-addins0.2-cil
22182   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
22183   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
22184   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
22185   libmono-posix2.0-cil
22186   libmono-security2.0-cil
22187   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
22188   libmono-system2.0-cil
22189   libmtp8
22190   libmusicbrainz3-6
22191   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
22192   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
22193   libopal3.6.8
22194   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
22195   libpt2.6.7
22196   libpython2.6
22197   librpm1
22198   librpmio1
22199   libsdl1.2debian
22200   libsrtp0
22201   libssh-4
22202   libtelepathy-farsight0
22203   libtelepathy-glib0
22204   libtidy-0.99-0
22205   media-player-info
22206   mesa-utils
22207   mono-2.0-gac
22208   mono-gac
22209   mono-runtime
22210   nautilus-sendto
22211   nautilus-sendto-empathy
22212   p7zip-full
22213   pkg-config
22214   python-aptdaemon
22215   python-aptdaemon-gtk
22216   python-axiom
22217   python-beautifulsoup
22218   python-bugbuddy
22219   python-clientform
22220   python-coherence
22221   python-configobj
22222   python-crypto
22223   python-cupshelpers
22224   python-elementtree
22225   python-epsilon
22226   python-evolution
22227   python-feedparser
22228   python-gdata
22229   python-gdbm
22230   python-gst0.10
22231   python-gtkglext1
22232   python-gtksourceview2
22233   python-httplib2
22234   python-louie
22235   python-mako
22236   python-markupsafe
22237   python-mechanize
22238   python-nevow
22239   python-notify
22240   python-opengl
22241   python-openssl
22242   python-pam
22243   python-pkg-resources
22244   python-pyasn1
22245   python-pysqlite2
22246   python-rdflib
22247   python-serial
22248   python-tagpy
22249   python-twisted-bin
22250   python-twisted-conch
22251   python-twisted-core
22252   python-twisted-web
22253   python-utidylib
22254   python-webkit
22255   python-xdg
22256   python-zope.interface
22257   remmina
22258   remmina-plugin-data
22259   remmina-plugin-rdp
22260   remmina-plugin-vnc
22261   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
22262   rhythmbox-plugins
22263   rpm-common
22264   rpm2cpio
22265   seahorse-plugins
22266   shotwell
22267   software-center
22268   system-config-printer-udev
22269   telepathy-gabble
22270   telepathy-mission-control-5
22271   telepathy-salut
22272   tomboy
22273   totem
22274   totem-coherence
22275   totem-mozilla
22276   totem-plugins
22277   transmission-common
22278   xdg-user-dirs
22279   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
22280   xserver-xephyr
22281 </p></blockquote>
22282
22283 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
22284
22285 <blockquote><p>
22286   cheese
22287   ekiga
22288   eog
22289   epiphany-extensions
22290   evolution-exchange
22291   fast-user-switch-applet
22292   file-roller
22293   gcalctool
22294   gconf-editor
22295   gdm
22296   gedit
22297   gedit-common
22298   gnome-games
22299   gnome-games-data
22300   gnome-nettool
22301   gnome-system-tools
22302   gnome-themes
22303   gnuchess
22304   gucharmap
22305   guile-1.8-libs
22306   libavahi-ui0
22307   libdmx1
22308   libgalago3
22309   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
22310   libgtksourceview2.0-0
22311   liblircclient0
22312   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
22313   libspeexdsp1
22314   libsvga1
22315   rhythmbox
22316   seahorse
22317   sound-juicer
22318   system-config-printer
22319   totem-common
22320   transmission-gtk
22321   vinagre
22322   vino
22323 </p></blockquote>
22324
22325 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
22326
22327 <blockquote><p>
22328   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
22329 </p></blockquote>
22330
22331 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
22332
22333 <blockquote><p>
22334 [nothing]
22335 </p></blockquote>
22336
22337 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
22338
22339 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
22340
22341 <blockquote><p>
22342   ksmserver
22343 </p></blockquote>
22344
22345 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
22346
22347 <blockquote><p>
22348   kwin
22349   network-manager-kde
22350 </p></blockquote>
22351
22352 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
22353
22354 <blockquote><p>
22355   arts
22356   dolphin
22357   freespacenotifier
22358   google-gadgets-gst
22359   google-gadgets-xul
22360   kappfinder
22361   kcalc
22362   kcharselect
22363   kde-core
22364   kde-plasma-desktop
22365   kde-standard
22366   kde-window-manager
22367   kdeartwork
22368   kdeartwork-emoticons
22369   kdeartwork-style
22370   kdeartwork-theme-icon
22371   kdebase
22372   kdebase-apps
22373   kdebase-workspace
22374   kdebase-workspace-bin
22375   kdebase-workspace-data
22376   kdeeject
22377   kdelibs
22378   kdeplasma-addons
22379   kdeutils
22380   kdewallpapers
22381   kdf
22382   kfloppy
22383   kgpg
22384   khelpcenter4
22385   kinfocenter
22386   konq-plugins-l10n
22387   konqueror-nsplugins
22388   kscreensaver
22389   kscreensaver-xsavers
22390   ktimer
22391   kwrite
22392   libgle3
22393   libkde4-ruby1.8
22394   libkonq5
22395   libkonq5-templates
22396   libnetpbm10
22397   libplasma-ruby
22398   libplasma-ruby1.8
22399   libqt4-ruby1.8
22400   marble-data
22401   marble-plugins
22402   netpbm
22403   nuvola-icon-theme
22404   plasma-dataengines-workspace
22405   plasma-desktop
22406   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
22407   plasma-runners-addons
22408   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
22409   plasma-scriptengine-python
22410   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
22411   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
22412   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
22413   plasma-scriptengines
22414   plasma-wallpapers-addons
22415   plasma-widget-folderview
22416   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
22417   ruby
22418   sweeper
22419   update-notifier-kde
22420   xscreensaver-data-extra
22421   xscreensaver-gl
22422   xscreensaver-gl-extra
22423   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
22424 </p></blockquote>
22425
22426 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
22427
22428 <blockquote><p>
22429   ark
22430   google-gadgets-common
22431   google-gadgets-qt
22432   htdig
22433   kate
22434   kdebase-bin
22435   kdebase-data
22436   kdepasswd
22437   kfind
22438   klipper
22439   konq-plugins
22440   konqueror
22441   ksysguard
22442   ksysguardd
22443   libarchive1
22444   libcln6
22445   libeet1
22446   libeina-svn-06
22447   libggadget-1.0-0b
22448   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
22449   libgps19
22450   libkdecorations4
22451   libkephal4
22452   libkonq4
22453   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
22454   libkscreensaver5
22455   libksgrd4
22456   libksignalplotter4
22457   libkunitconversion4
22458   libkwineffects1a
22459   libmarblewidget4
22460   libntrack-qt4-1
22461   libntrack0
22462   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
22463   libplasmaclock4a
22464   libplasmagenericshell4
22465   libprocesscore4a
22466   libprocessui4a
22467   libqalculate5
22468   libqedje0a
22469   libqtruby4shared2
22470   libqzion0a
22471   libruby1.8
22472   libscim8c2a
22473   libsmokekdecore4-3
22474   libsmokekdeui4-3
22475   libsmokekfile3
22476   libsmokekhtml3
22477   libsmokekio3
22478   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
22479   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
22480   libsmokekparts3
22481   libsmokektexteditor3
22482   libsmokekutils3
22483   libsmokenepomuk3
22484   libsmokephonon3
22485   libsmokeplasma3
22486   libsmokeqtcore4-3
22487   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
22488   libsmokeqtgui4-3
22489   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
22490   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
22491   libsmokeqtscript4-3
22492   libsmokeqtsql4-3
22493   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
22494   libsmokeqttest4-3
22495   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
22496   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
22497   libsmokeqtxml4-3
22498   libsmokesolid3
22499   libsmokesoprano3
22500   libtaskmanager4a
22501   libtidy-0.99-0
22502   libweather-ion4a
22503   libxklavier16
22504   libxxf86misc1
22505   okteta
22506   oxygencursors
22507   plasma-dataengines-addons
22508   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
22509   plasma-widget-lancelot
22510   plasma-widgets-addons
22511   plasma-widgets-workspace
22512   polkit-kde-1
22513   ruby1.8
22514   systemsettings
22515   update-notifier-common
22516 </p></blockquote>
22517
22518 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
22519 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
22520 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
22521 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
22522
22523       </div>
22524       <div class="tags">
22525
22526
22527         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
22528
22529
22530       </div>
22531     </div>
22532     <div class="padding"></div>
22533
22534     <div class="entry">
22535       <div class="title">
22536         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Migrating_Xen_virtual_machines_using_LVM_to_KVM_using_disk_images.html">Migrating Xen virtual machines using LVM to KVM using disk images</a>
22537       </div>
22538       <div class="date">
22539         22nd November 2010
22540       </div>
22541       <div class="body">
22542         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
22543 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
22544 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
22545 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
22546 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
22547 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
22548 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
22549 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
22550 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
22551
22552 <p>I found
22553 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
22554 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
22555 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
22556 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
22557 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
22558 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
22559
22560 <pre>
22561 #!/bin/sh
22562
22563 # Based on
22564 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
22565
22566 set -e
22567 set -x
22568
22569 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
22570     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
22571     exit 1
22572 else
22573     host="$1"
22574 fi
22575
22576 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
22577     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
22578     exit 1
22579 fi
22580
22581 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
22582 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
22583 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
22584 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
22585
22586 img=$host.img
22587 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
22588 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
22589
22590 parted $img mklabel msdos
22591 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
22592 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
22593 parted $img set 1 boot on
22594
22595 modprobe dm-mod
22596 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
22597 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
22598
22599 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
22600 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
22601 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
22602
22603 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
22604 losetup -d /dev/loop0
22605 </pre>
22606
22607 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
22608 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
22609
22610 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
22611 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
22612 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
22613 seem to work just fine.</p>
22614
22615       </div>
22616       <div class="tags">
22617
22618
22619         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
22620
22621
22622       </div>
22623     </div>
22624     <div class="padding"></div>
22625
22626     <div class="entry">
22627       <div class="title">
22628         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_and_KDE_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome and KDE desktop</a>
22629       </div>
22630       <div class="date">
22631         20th November 2010
22632       </div>
22633       <div class="body">
22634         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
22635 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
22636 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
22637 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
22638
22639 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
22640 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
22641 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
22642
22643 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
22644
22645 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
22646
22647 <blockquote><p>
22648   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
22649   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
22650   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
22651   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
22652   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
22653   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
22654   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
22655   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
22656   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
22657   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
22658   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
22659   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
22660   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
22661   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
22662   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
22663   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
22664   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
22665   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
22666   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
22667   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
22668   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
22669   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
22670   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
22671   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
22672   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
22673   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
22674   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
22675   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
22676   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
22677   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
22678   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
22679   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
22680   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
22681   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
22682   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
22683   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
22684   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
22685   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
22686   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
22687   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
22688   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
22689   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
22690   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
22691   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
22692   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
22693   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
22694   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
22695   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
22696   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
22697   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
22698   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
22699   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
22700   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
22701   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
22702   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
22703   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
22704   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
22705   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
22706   zip
22707 </p></blockquote>
22708
22709 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
22710
22711 <blockquote><p>
22712   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
22713   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
22714   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
22715   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
22716   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
22717   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
22718   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
22719   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
22720   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
22721   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
22722   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
22723   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
22724   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
22725   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
22726   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
22727   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
22728   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
22729   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
22730   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
22731   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
22732   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
22733   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
22734   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
22735   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
22736   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
22737   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
22738   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
22739   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
22740   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
22741 </p></blockquote>
22742
22743 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
22744
22745 <blockquote><p>
22746   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
22747 </p></blockquote>
22748
22749 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
22750
22751 <blockquote><p>
22752 [nothing]
22753 </p></blockquote>
22754
22755 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
22756
22757 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
22758
22759 <blockquote><p>
22760   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
22761   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
22762   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
22763   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
22764   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
22765   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
22766   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
22767   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
22768   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
22769   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
22770   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
22771   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
22772   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
22773   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
22774   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
22775   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
22776   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
22777   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
22778   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
22779   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
22780   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
22781   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
22782   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
22783   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
22784   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
22785   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
22786   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
22787   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
22788   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
22789   ttf-sazanami-gothic
22790 </p></blockquote>
22791
22792 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
22793
22794 <blockquote><p>
22795   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
22796   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
22797   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
22798   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
22799   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
22800   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
22801   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
22802   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
22803   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
22804   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
22805   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
22806   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
22807   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
22808   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
22809   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
22810   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
22811   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
22812   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
22813   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
22814   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
22815   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
22816   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
22817   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
22818   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
22819   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
22820   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
22821   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
22822   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
22823   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
22824   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
22825   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
22826   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
22827   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
22828 </p></blockquote>
22829
22830 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
22831
22832 <blockquote><p>
22833   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
22834   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
22835   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
22836   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
22837   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
22838   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
22839   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
22840 </p></blockquote>
22841
22842 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
22843
22844 <blockquote><p>
22845   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
22846 </p></blockquote>
22847
22848       </div>
22849       <div class="tags">
22850
22851
22852         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
22853
22854
22855       </div>
22856     </div>
22857     <div class="padding"></div>
22858
22859     <div class="entry">
22860       <div class="title">
22861         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
22862       </div>
22863       <div class="date">
22864         20th November 2010
22865       </div>
22866       <div class="body">
22867         <p>Answering
22868 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
22869 call from the Gnash project</a> for
22870 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
22871 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
22872 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
22873 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
22874 releases out more often.</p>
22875
22876 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
22877 I have considered setting up a <a
22878 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
22879 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
22880 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
22881 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
22882 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
22883 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
22884 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
22885 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
22886 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
22887 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
22888 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
22889 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
22890
22891       </div>
22892       <div class="tags">
22893
22894
22895         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/nuug">nuug</a>.
22896
22897
22898       </div>
22899     </div>
22900     <div class="padding"></div>
22901
22902     <div class="entry">
22903       <div class="title">
22904         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
22905       </div>
22906       <div class="date">
22907          9th November 2010
22908       </div>
22909       <div class="body">
22910         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
22911
22912 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
22913 3D linked in from
22914 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
22915 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
22916
22917       </div>
22918       <div class="tags">
22919
22920
22921         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
22922
22923
22924       </div>
22925     </div>
22926     <div class="padding"></div>
22927
22928     <div class="entry">
22929       <div class="title">
22930         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_room_on_the_Debian_Edu_Sqeeze_DVD.html">Making room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD</a>
22931       </div>
22932       <div class="date">
22933          7th November 2010
22934       </div>
22935       <div class="body">
22936         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
22937 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
22938 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
22939 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
22940 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
22941 working using this DVD.</p>
22942
22943 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
22944 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
22945 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
22946 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
22947 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
22948 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
22949 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
22950
22951 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
22952 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
22953 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
22954 Debian archive.</p>
22955
22956 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
22957 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
22958 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
22959 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
22960 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
22961 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
22962 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
22963 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
22964 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
22965 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
22966 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
22967 free X driver should work.</p>
22968
22969 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
22970 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
22971 DVD more useful again.</p>
22972
22973       </div>
22974       <div class="tags">
22975
22976
22977         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
22978
22979
22980       </div>
22981     </div>
22982     <div class="padding"></div>
22983
22984     <div class="entry">
22985       <div class="title">
22986         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
22987       </div>
22988       <div class="date">
22989         24th October 2010
22990       </div>
22991       <div class="body">
22992         <p>Some updates.</p>
22993
22994 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
22995 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
22996 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
22997 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
22998 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
22999 :)</p>
23000
23001 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
23002 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
23003 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
23004 It is called
23005 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
23006 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
23007 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
23008 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
23009 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
23010 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
23011
23012 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
23013 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
23014 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
23015 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
23016 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
23017 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
23018 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
23019 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
23020 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
23021 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
23022
23023       </div>
23024       <div class="tags">
23025
23026
23027         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/multimedia">multimedia</a>.
23028
23029
23030       </div>
23031     </div>
23032     <div class="padding"></div>
23033
23034     <div class="entry">
23035       <div class="title">
23036         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pledge_for_funding_to_the_Gnash_project_to_get_AVM2_support.html">Pledge for funding to the Gnash project to get AVM2 support</a>
23037       </div>
23038       <div class="date">
23039         19th October 2010
23040       </div>
23041       <div class="body">
23042         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
23043 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
23044 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
23045 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
23046 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
23047 AVM2 flash files.</p>
23048
23049 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
23050 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
23051 following text:</P>
23052
23053 <p><blockquote>
23054
23055   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
23056   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
23057
23058   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
23059
23060   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
23061
23062   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
23063   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
23064   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
23065   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
23066   days. The project web page is available from
23067   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
23068   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
23069   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
23070
23071   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
23072   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
23073   to get this to happen.</p>
23074
23075   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
23076   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
23077
23078 </blockquote></p>
23079
23080 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
23081 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
23082 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
23083 :)</p>
23084
23085       </div>
23086       <div class="tags">
23087
23088
23089         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/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
23090
23091
23092       </div>
23093     </div>
23094     <div class="padding"></div>
23095
23096     <div class="entry">
23097       <div class="title">
23098         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_version_of_a_Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot.html">First version of a Perl library to control the Spykee robot</a>
23099       </div>
23100       <div class="date">
23101          9th October 2010
23102       </div>
23103       <div class="body">
23104         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
23105 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
23106 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
23107 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
23108 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
23109 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
23110 robots.</p>
23111
23112 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
23113 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
23114 a few less important features too.</p>
23115
23116 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
23117 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
23118 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
23119 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
23120
23121 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
23122 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
23123 source or binary package:</p>
23124
23125 <p><ul>
23126 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian/packages/lenny/libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1.tar.gz">libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1.tar.gz</a></li>
23127 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian/packages/lenny/libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1.dsc">libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1.dsc</a></li>
23128 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian/packages/lenny/libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1_all.deb">libspykee-perl_0.0.20101009-1_all.deb</a></li>
23129 </ul></p>
23130
23131 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
23132 please let me know.</p>
23133
23134       </div>
23135       <div class="tags">
23136
23137
23138         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
23139
23140
23141       </div>
23142     </div>
23143     <div class="padding"></div>
23144
23145     <div class="entry">
23146       <div class="title">
23147         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
23148       </div>
23149       <div class="date">
23150          3rd October 2010
23151       </div>
23152       <div class="body">
23153         <p><ul>
23154
23155 <li><a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/09/there-is-no-plan-b-why-the-ipv4-to-ipv6-transition-will-be-ugly.ars">There
23156 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
23157
23158 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
23159 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
23160 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
23161
23162 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
23163 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
23164 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
23165 simple setup.
23166
23167 </ul></p>
23168
23169       </div>
23170       <div class="tags">
23171
23172
23173         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
23174
23175
23176       </div>
23177     </div>
23178     <div class="padding"></div>
23179
23180     <div class="entry">
23181       <div class="title">
23182         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">Terms of use for video produced by a Canon IXUS 130 digital camera</a>
23183       </div>
23184       <div class="date">
23185          9th September 2010
23186       </div>
23187       <div class="body">
23188         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
23189 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
23190 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
23191 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
23192 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
23193 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
23194 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
23195 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
23196 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
23197
23198 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
23199 written:</p>
23200
23201 <blockquote>
23202 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
23203 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
23204 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
23205 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
23206 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
23207
23208 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
23209 standard.</p>
23210 </blockquote>
23211
23212 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
23213 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
23214 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
23215 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
23216
23217 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
23218 read
23219 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
23220 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
23221 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
23222 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
23223 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
23224 the issue.  The solution is to support the
23225 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
23226 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
23227 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
23228
23229       </div>
23230       <div class="tags">
23231
23232
23233         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/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</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/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</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>.
23234
23235
23236       </div>
23237     </div>
23238     <div class="padding"></div>
23239
23240     <div class="entry">
23241       <div class="title">
23242         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html">Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</a>
23243       </div>
23244       <div class="date">
23245          4th September 2010
23246       </div>
23247       <div class="body">
23248         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
23249 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
23250 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
23251 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
23252 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
23253 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
23254 installed.</p>
23255
23256 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
23257 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
23258 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
23259 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
23260 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
23261 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
23262 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
23263 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
23264 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
23265
23266 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
23267 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
23268 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
23269 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
23270 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
23271 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
23272 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
23273 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
23274 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
23275 pages they want to visit.</p>
23276
23277 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
23278 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
23279 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
23280 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
23281 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
23282 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
23283 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
23284 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
23285 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
23286 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
23287 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
23288
23289       </div>
23290       <div class="tags">
23291
23292
23293         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/multimedia">multimedia</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>.
23294
23295
23296       </div>
23297     </div>
23298     <div class="padding"></div>
23299
23300     <div class="entry">
23301       <div class="title">
23302         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_first_perl_GUI_application___controlling_a_Spykee_robot.html">My first perl GUI application - controlling a Spykee robot</a>
23303       </div>
23304       <div class="date">
23305          1st September 2010
23306       </div>
23307       <div class="body">
23308         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
23309 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
23310 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
23311 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
23312 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
23313 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
23314 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
23315 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
23316 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
23317 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
23318 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
23319 drive around.</p>
23320
23321 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
23322 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
23323
23324 <p><pre>
23325 use Spykee;
23326 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
23327 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
23328 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
23329 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
23330 $spykee->left();
23331 sleep 2;
23332 $spykee->right();
23333 sleep 2;
23334 $spykee->forward();
23335 sleep 2;
23336 $spykee->back();
23337 sleep 2;
23338 $spykee->stop();
23339 </pre></p>
23340
23341 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
23342 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
23343 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
23344 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
23345 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
23346 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
23347 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
23348 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
23349 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
23350 going. :).</p>
23351
23352 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
23353 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
23354 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
23355 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
23356
23357       </div>
23358       <div class="tags">
23359
23360
23361         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot</a>.
23362
23363
23364       </div>
23365     </div>
23366     <div class="padding"></div>
23367
23368     <div class="entry">
23369       <div class="title">
23370         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
23371       </div>
23372       <div class="date">
23373         30th August 2010
23374       </div>
23375       <div class="body">
23376         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
23377 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
23378 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
23379 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
23380 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
23381 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
23382 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
23383
23384 <pre>
23385 % ln foo bar
23386 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
23387 %
23388 </pre>
23389
23390 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
23391 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
23392 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
23393 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
23394 nevertheless. :)</p>
23395
23396 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
23397 git from
23398 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
23399
23400       </div>
23401       <div class="tags">
23402
23403
23404         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
23405
23406
23407       </div>
23408     </div>
23409     <div class="padding"></div>
23410
23411     <div class="entry">
23412       <div class="title">
23413         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
23414       </div>
23415       <div class="date">
23416         26th August 2010
23417       </div>
23418       <div class="body">
23419         <p>My file system sematics program
23420 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
23421 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
23422 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
23423 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
23424 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
23425 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
23426 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
23427 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
23428 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
23429 script:</p>
23430
23431 <pre>
23432 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
23433   mode_t retval = 0;
23434   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
23435   if (-1 != fd) {
23436     unlink(name);
23437     struct stat statbuf;
23438     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
23439       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
23440     }
23441     close(fd);
23442   }
23443   return retval;
23444 }
23445
23446 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
23447 int test_umask(void) {
23448   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
23449
23450   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
23451   mode_t newmode;
23452   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
23453     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
23454            newmode);
23455   }
23456   umask(007);
23457   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
23458     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
23459            newmode);
23460   }
23461
23462   umask (orig_umask);
23463   return 0;
23464 }
23465
23466 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
23467   [...]
23468   test_umask();
23469   return 0;
23470 }
23471 </pre>
23472
23473 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
23474
23475 <pre>
23476 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
23477 info: testing symlink creation
23478 info: testing subdirectory creation
23479 info: testing fcntl locking
23480   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
23481   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
23482   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
23483   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
23484   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
23485   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
23486 info: testing umask effect on file creation
23487 </pre>
23488
23489 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
23490 result:</p>
23491
23492 <pre>
23493 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
23494 info: testing symlink creation
23495 info: testing subdirectory creation
23496 info: testing fcntl locking
23497   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
23498   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
23499   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
23500   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
23501   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
23502   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
23503 info: testing umask effect on file creation
23504   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
23505   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
23506 </pre>
23507
23508 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
23509 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
23510 directory.</p>
23511
23512 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
23513 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
23514
23515 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
23516 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
23517 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
23518
23519       </div>
23520       <div class="tags">
23521
23522
23523         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
23524
23525
23526       </div>
23527     </div>
23528     <div class="padding"></div>
23529
23530     <div class="entry">
23531       <div class="title">
23532         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
23533       </div>
23534       <div class="date">
23535         15th August 2010
23536       </div>
23537       <div class="body">
23538         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
23539 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
23540 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
23541 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
23542 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
23543 long time.</p>
23544
23545       </div>
23546       <div class="tags">
23547
23548
23549         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
23550
23551
23552       </div>
23553     </div>
23554     <div class="padding"></div>
23555
23556     <div class="entry">
23557       <div class="title">
23558         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
23559       </div>
23560       <div class="date">
23561          9th August 2010
23562       </div>
23563       <div class="body">
23564         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
23565 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
23566 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
23567 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
23568 generated configuration.</p>
23569
23570 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
23571 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
23572 without any manual configuration.</p>
23573
23574 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
23575 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
23576 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
23577 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
23578 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
23579 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
23580 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
23581 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
23582 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
23583 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
23584 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
23585 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
23586 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
23587 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
23588 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
23589 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
23590 use.</p>
23591
23592 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
23593 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
23594 working properly out of the box:</p>
23595
23596 <ul>
23597 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
23598 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
23599 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
23600 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
23601 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
23602 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
23603 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
23604 </ul>
23605
23606 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
23607
23608 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
23609 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
23610 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
23611 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
23612 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
23613
23614 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
23615 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
23616 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
23617 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
23618 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
23619 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
23620 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
23621 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
23622
23623 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
23624 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
23625 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
23626 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
23627 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
23628 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
23629 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
23630 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
23631 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
23632 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
23633 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
23634 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
23635 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
23636 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
23637 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
23638 current DNS domain is used.</p>
23639
23640 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
23641 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
23642 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
23643 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
23644 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
23645 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
23646 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
23647 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
23648 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
23649 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
23650 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
23651 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
23652 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
23653
23654 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
23655 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
23656 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
23657 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
23658 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
23659 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
23660 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
23661 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
23662 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
23663 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
23664 do for now. :)</p>
23665
23666 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
23667 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
23668 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
23669 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
23670 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
23671 yet.</p>
23672
23673 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
23674 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
23675
23676 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
23677 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
23678 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
23679 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
23680
23681       </div>
23682       <div class="tags">
23683
23684
23685         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
23686
23687
23688       </div>
23689     </div>
23690     <div class="padding"></div>
23691
23692     <div class="entry">
23693       <div class="title">
23694         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">Testing if a file system can be used for home directories...</a>
23695       </div>
23696       <div class="date">
23697          8th August 2010
23698       </div>
23699       <div class="body">
23700         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
23701 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
23702 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
23703 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
23704 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
23705 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
23706 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
23707
23708 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
23709 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
23710 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
23711 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
23712 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
23713 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
23714 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
23715
23716 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
23717 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
23718 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
23719 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
23720 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
23721
23722 <pre>
23723 /*
23724  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
23725  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
23726  * directory.
23727  * License: GPL v2 or later
23728  *
23729  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
23730  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
23731 */
23732
23733 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
23734 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
23735 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
23736
23737 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
23738
23739 #include &lt;errno.h>
23740 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
23741 #include &lt;stdio.h>
23742 #include &lt;string.h>
23743 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
23744 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
23745 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
23746 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
23747 #include &lt;unistd.h>
23748
23749 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
23750 /*
23751  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
23752  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
23753  * below.
23754  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
23755  */
23756 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
23757 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
23758   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
23759 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
23760   char *zErrMsg;
23761   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
23762   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
23763   unlink(name);
23764   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
23765   if( rc ){
23766     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
23767     sqlite3_close(db);
23768     return -1;
23769   }
23770
23771   /* create tables */
23772   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
23773   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
23774     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
23775     sqlite3_close(db);
23776     return -1;
23777   }
23778   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
23779   sqlite3_close(db);
23780   return 0;
23781 }
23782 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
23783
23784 /*
23785  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
23786  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
23787  * done in the sqlite3 library.
23788  * See also
23789  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
23790  * POSIX specification
23791  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
23792  */
23793 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
23794   struct flock fl;
23795   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
23796   unlink(name);
23797   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
23798   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
23799
23800   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
23801   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
23802   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
23803   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
23804   fl.l_len    = 1;
23805   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
23806   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
23807
23808   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
23809   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
23810   fl.l_len    = 510;
23811   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
23812   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
23813
23814   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
23815   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
23816   fl.l_len    = 1;
23817   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
23818   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
23819
23820   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
23821   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
23822   fl.l_len    = 1;
23823   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
23824   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
23825
23826   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
23827   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
23828   fl.l_len    = 510;
23829   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
23830
23831   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
23832   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
23833   fl.l_len    = 2;
23834   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
23835   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
23836
23837   close(fd);
23838   return 0;
23839 }
23840
23841 /*
23842  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
23843  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
23844  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
23845  * slowing down file operations.
23846  */
23847 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
23848 #define LEVELS 5
23849   char *path = strdup("test");
23850   char *dirs[LEVELS];
23851   int level;
23852   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
23853   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
23854     char *newpath = NULL;
23855     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
23856       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
23857              path, strerror(errno));
23858       break;
23859     }
23860     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
23861     free(path);
23862     path = newpath;
23863   }
23864   return 0;
23865 }
23866
23867 /*
23868  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
23869  * KDE.
23870  */
23871 int test_symlinks(void) {
23872   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
23873   unlink("symlink");
23874   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
23875     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
23876   return 0;
23877 }
23878
23879 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
23880   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
23881   test_symlinks();
23882   test_subdirectory_creation();
23883 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
23884   test_sqlite_open();
23885 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
23886   test_gcompris_locking();
23887   return 0;
23888 }
23889 </pre>
23890
23891 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
23892 this:</p>
23893
23894 <pre>
23895 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
23896 info: testing symlink creation
23897 info: testing subdirectory creation
23898 info: sqlite worked
23899 info: testing fcntl locking
23900   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
23901   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
23902   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
23903   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
23904   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
23905   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
23906 </pre>
23907
23908 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
23909 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
23910 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
23911 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
23912 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
23913 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
23914 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
23915 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
23916
23917 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
23918 it. :)</p>
23919
23920 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
23921 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
23922 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
23923
23924       </div>
23925       <div class="tags">
23926
23927
23928         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
23929
23930
23931       </div>
23932     </div>
23933     <div class="padding"></div>
23934
23935     <div class="entry">
23936       <div class="title">
23937         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Autodetecting_Client_setup_for_roaming_workstations_in_Debian_Edu.html">Autodetecting Client setup for roaming workstations in Debian Edu</a>
23938       </div>
23939       <div class="date">
23940          7th August 2010
23941       </div>
23942       <div class="body">
23943         <p>A few days ago, I
23944 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
23945 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
23946 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
23947 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
23948 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
23949 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
23950 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
23951 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
23952 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
23953
23954 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
23955 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
23956 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
23957 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
23958 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
23959 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
23960 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
23961 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
23962 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
23963 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
23964 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
23965 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
23966 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
23967 gave it a IP address.</p>
23968
23969 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
23970 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
23971 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
23972 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
23973 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
23974 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
23975 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
23976 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
23977
23978 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
23979 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
23980 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
23981 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
23982 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
23983 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
23984
23985 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
23986 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
23987 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
23988 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
23989 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
23990 with UID and GID values.</p>
23991
23992 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
23993 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
23994
23995       </div>
23996       <div class="tags">
23997
23998
23999         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
24000
24001
24002       </div>
24003     </div>
24004     <div class="padding"></div>
24005
24006     <div class="entry">
24007       <div class="title">
24008         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">Debian Edu roaming workstation - at the university of Oslo</a>
24009       </div>
24010       <div class="date">
24011          3rd August 2010
24012       </div>
24013       <div class="body">
24014         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
24015 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
24016 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
24017 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
24018 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
24019 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
24020 servers.</p>
24021
24022 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
24023 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
24024 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
24025 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
24026 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
24027 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
24028 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
24029 .uio.no.</p>
24030
24031 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
24032 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
24033 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
24034 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
24035 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
24036 university servers.</p>
24037
24038 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
24039 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
24040 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
24041 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
24042 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
24043 uses.</p>
24044
24045       </div>
24046       <div class="tags">
24047
24048
24049         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
24050
24051
24052       </div>
24053     </div>
24054     <div class="padding"></div>
24055
24056     <div class="entry">
24057       <div class="title">
24058         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
24059       </div>
24060       <div class="date">
24061         27th July 2010
24062       </div>
24063       <div class="body">
24064         <p>I discovered this while doing
24065 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
24066 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
24067 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
24068 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
24069 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
24070
24071 <p>An example is from todays
24072 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
24073 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
24074 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
24075 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
24076 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
24077 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
24078 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
24079
24080 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
24081
24082 <blockquote><pre>
24083 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
24084  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
24085   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
24086 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
24087  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
24088 </pre></blockquote>
24089
24090 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
24091 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
24092 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
24093 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
24094 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
24095 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
24096 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
24097 of dependency loops.</p>
24098
24099 <p>Thanks to
24100 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
24101 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
24102 dependencies
24103 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
24104 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
24105
24106 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
24107 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
24108 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
24109 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
24110 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
24111 it.</p>
24112
24113       </div>
24114       <div class="tags">
24115
24116
24117         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
24118
24119
24120       </div>
24121     </div>
24122     <div class="padding"></div>
24123
24124     <div class="entry">
24125       <div class="title">
24126         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Debian_Edu_test_release__alpha0__based_on_Squeeze_is_released.html">First Debian Edu test release (alpha0) based on Squeeze is released</a>
24127       </div>
24128       <div class="date">
24129         27th July 2010
24130       </div>
24131       <div class="body">
24132         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
24133 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
24134 completed.</p>
24135
24136 <blockquote>
24137 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
24138 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
24139 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
24140 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
24141 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
24142 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
24143 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
24144 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
24145
24146 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
24147 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
24148 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
24149
24150 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
24151 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
24152 much.</p>
24153
24154 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
24155
24156 <ul>
24157 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
24158 <ul>
24159   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
24160          combination with some new artwork
24161   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
24162   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
24163   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
24164   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
24165   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
24166   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
24167   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
24168   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
24169   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
24170 </ul></li>
24171 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
24172     Enabled for:
24173 <ul>
24174   <li>PAM
24175   <li>LDAP
24176   <li>IMAP
24177   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
24178 </ul>
24179 </li>
24180 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
24181 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
24182     fetched from LDAP.</li>
24183 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
24184 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
24185 </ul>
24186 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
24187
24188 <ul>
24189 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
24190     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
24191     for testing.</li>
24192 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
24193     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
24194     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
24195 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
24196 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
24197 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
24198 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
24199     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
24200 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
24201     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
24202     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
24203 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
24204     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
24205     and help out with translations.</li>
24206 </ul>
24207
24208 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
24209
24210 <ul>
24211 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</a></li>
24212 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</a></li>
24213 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
24214 </ul>
24215 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
24216
24217 <ul>
24218 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</a></li>
24219 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</a></li>
24220 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
24221 </ul>
24222
24223 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
24224 get closer to the final release.</p>
24225
24226 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
24227
24228 <ul>
24229 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
24230 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
24231 </ul>
24232
24233 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
24234 <ul>
24235 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
24236 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
24237 </ul>
24238 <p>How to report bugs:
24239 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
24240
24241 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
24242 </blockquote>
24243
24244       </div>
24245       <div class="tags">
24246
24247
24248         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
24249
24250
24251       </div>
24252     </div>
24253     <div class="padding"></div>
24254
24255     <div class="entry">
24256       <div class="title">
24257         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/One_step_closer_to_single_signon_in_Debian_Edu.html">One step closer to single signon in Debian Edu</a>
24258       </div>
24259       <div class="date">
24260         25th July 2010
24261       </div>
24262       <div class="body">
24263         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
24264 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
24265 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
24266 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
24267 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
24268
24269 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
24270 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
24271 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
24272 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
24273 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
24274 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
24275 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
24276
24277 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
24278 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
24279 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
24280 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
24281 up. :)</p>
24282
24283 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
24284 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
24285 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
24286
24287 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
24288 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
24289 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
24290 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
24291 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
24292 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
24293 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
24294 release another day.</p>
24295
24296 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
24297 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
24298
24299       </div>
24300       <div class="tags">
24301
24302
24303         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/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
24304
24305
24306       </div>
24307     </div>
24308     <div class="padding"></div>
24309
24310     <div class="entry">
24311       <div class="title">
24312         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenStreetmap_one_step_closer_to_having_routing_on_its_front_page.html">OpenStreetmap one step closer to having routing on its front page</a>
24313       </div>
24314       <div class="date">
24315         18th July 2010
24316       </div>
24317       <div class="body">
24318         <p>Thanks to
24319 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
24320 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
24321 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
24322 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
24323 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
24324 only available from the development server, until more experience is
24325 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
24326
24327 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
24328 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
24329 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
24330 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
24331 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
24332 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
24333 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
24334
24335       </div>
24336       <div class="tags">
24337
24338
24339         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
24340
24341
24342       </div>
24343     </div>
24344     <div class="padding"></div>
24345
24346     <div class="entry">
24347       <div class="title">
24348         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_are_they_searching_for___PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_in_LDAP.html">What are they searching for - PowerDNS and ISC DHCP in LDAP</a>
24349       </div>
24350       <div class="date">
24351         17th July 2010
24352       </div>
24353       <div class="body">
24354         <p>This is a
24355 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
24356 on my
24357 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">previous
24358 work</a> on
24359 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
24360 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
24361
24362 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
24363 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
24364 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
24365 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
24366
24367 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
24368 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
24369 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
24370
24371 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
24372
24373 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
24374 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
24375 the web.
24376
24377 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
24378 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
24379 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
24380 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
24381 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
24382 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
24383
24384 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
24385 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
24386 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
24387 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
24388 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
24389 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
24390 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
24391 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
24392 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
24393 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
24394 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
24395 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
24396 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
24397 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
24398 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
24399 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
24400
24401 <blockquote><pre>
24402 ldapsearch -h ldap \
24403   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
24404   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
24405   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
24406   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
24407   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
24408   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
24409
24410 ldapsearch -h ldap \
24411   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
24412   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
24413   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
24414   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
24415   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
24416 </pre></blockquote>
24417
24418 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
24419 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
24420 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
24421 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
24422 also exist.</p>
24423
24424 <blockquote><pre>
24425 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
24426 objectclass: top
24427 objectclass: dnsdomain
24428 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
24429 dc: tjener
24430 arecord: 10.0.2.2
24431 associateddomain: tjener.intern
24432
24433 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
24434 objectclass: top
24435 objectclass: dnsdomain2
24436 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
24437 dc: 2
24438 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
24439 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
24440 </pre></blockquote>
24441
24442 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
24443 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
24444 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
24445 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
24446 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
24447 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
24448 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
24449 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
24450 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
24451 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
24452 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
24453 instead.</p>
24454
24455 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
24456 like this:</p>
24457
24458 <blockquote><pre>
24459 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
24460   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
24461   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
24462   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
24463   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
24464   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
24465
24466 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
24467   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
24468 </pre></blockquote>
24469
24470 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
24471 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
24472 reverse lookups.</p>
24473
24474 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
24475 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
24476 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
24477 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
24478
24479 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
24480 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
24481 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
24482
24483 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
24484 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
24485 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
24486 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
24487 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
24488
24489 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
24490 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
24491 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
24492 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
24493 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
24494
24495 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
24496 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
24497 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
24498 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
24499 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
24500 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
24501
24502 <blockquote><pre>
24503 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
24504     SUP top
24505     AUXILIARY
24506     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
24507           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
24508           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
24509           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
24510           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
24511     ))
24512 </pre></blockquote>
24513
24514 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
24515 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
24516 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
24517 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
24518 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
24519 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
24520
24521 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
24522
24523 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
24524 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
24525 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
24526 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
24527 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
24528
24529 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
24530 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
24531 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
24532 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
24533
24534 <blockquote><pre>
24535 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
24536 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
24537 </pre></blockquote>
24538
24539 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
24540 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
24541 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
24542 search result is this entry:</p>
24543
24544 <blockquote><pre>
24545 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
24546 cn: dhcp
24547 objectClass: top
24548 objectClass: dhcpServer
24549 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
24550 </pre></blockquote>
24551
24552 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
24553 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
24554 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
24555 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
24556 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
24557 The search result is this entry:</p>
24558
24559 <blockquote><pre>
24560 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
24561 cn: DHCP Config
24562 objectClass: top
24563 objectClass: dhcpService
24564 objectClass: dhcpOptions
24565 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
24566 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
24567 dhcpStatements: authoritative
24568 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
24569 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
24570 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
24571 </pre></blockquote>
24572
24573 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
24574 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
24575 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
24576 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
24577 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
24578 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
24579 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
24580 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
24581 related computer objects.</p>
24582
24583 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
24584 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
24585 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
24586 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
24587 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
24588 like:</p>
24589
24590 <blockquote><pre>
24591 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
24592 cn: hostname
24593 objectClass: top
24594 objectClass: dhcpHost
24595 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
24596 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
24597 </pre></blockquote>
24598
24599 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
24600 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
24601 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
24602 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
24603 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
24604 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
24605 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
24606 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
24607 structural object class.
24608
24609 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
24610
24611 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
24612 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
24613 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
24614 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
24615 in the configuration.</p>
24616
24617 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
24618 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
24619 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
24620 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
24621 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
24622 structure.</p>
24623
24624 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
24625 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
24626
24627 <blockquote><pre>
24628 ou=services
24629   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
24630     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
24631     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
24632       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
24633         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
24634     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
24635       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
24636         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
24637     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
24638       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
24639 </pre></blockquote>
24640
24641 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
24642 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
24643 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
24644 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
24645
24646 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
24647 like this:</p>
24648
24649 <blockquote><pre>
24650 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
24651 dc: hostname
24652 objectClass: top
24653 objectClass: dhcpHost
24654 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
24655 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
24656 associateddomain: hostname.intern
24657 arecord: 10.11.12.13
24658 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
24659 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
24660 </pre></blockquote>
24661
24662 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
24663 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
24664 auxiliary object class.</p>
24665
24666       </div>
24667       <div class="tags">
24668
24669
24670         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
24671
24672
24673       </div>
24674     </div>
24675     <div class="padding"></div>
24676
24677     <div class="entry">
24678       <div class="title">
24679         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
24680       </div>
24681       <div class="date">
24682         14th July 2010
24683       </div>
24684       <div class="body">
24685         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
24686 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
24687 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
24688 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
24689 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
24690
24691 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
24692 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
24693
24694 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
24695 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
24696 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
24697 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
24698 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
24699 to a slave DNS server.</p>
24700
24701 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
24702 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
24703 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
24704 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
24705 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
24706 seem to work.</p>
24707
24708 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
24709 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
24710 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
24711 this:</p>
24712
24713 <blockquote><pre>
24714   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
24715   cn: hostname
24716   objectClass: dhcphost
24717   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
24718   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
24719   associateddomain: hostname.intern
24720   arecord: 10.11.12.13
24721   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
24722   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
24723   ldapconfigsound: Y
24724 </pre></blockquote>
24725
24726 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
24727 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
24728 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
24729 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
24730
24731 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
24732 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
24733 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
24734 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
24735 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
24736 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
24737 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
24738 might be a good place to put it.</p>
24739
24740 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
24741 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
24742
24743       </div>
24744       <div class="tags">
24745
24746
24747         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
24748
24749
24750       </div>
24751     </div>
24752     <div class="padding"></div>
24753
24754     <div class="entry">
24755       <div class="title">
24756         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
24757       </div>
24758       <div class="date">
24759         11th July 2010
24760       </div>
24761       <div class="body">
24762         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
24763 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
24764 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
24765 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
24766
24767 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
24768 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
24769 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
24770 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
24771 LTSP clients.</p>
24772
24773 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
24774 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
24775 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
24776
24777 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
24778 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
24779 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
24780
24781 <blockquote><pre>
24782 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
24783 #
24784 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
24785 #
24786 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
24787 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
24788 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
24789 #
24790 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
24791 # existence of attribute names.
24792 #
24793 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
24794 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
24795 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
24796 #
24797 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
24798 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
24799 #
24800 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
24801 #     SUP top
24802 #     AUXILIARY
24803 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
24804
24805 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
24806 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
24807     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
24808     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
24809         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
24810         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
24811             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
24812             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
24813             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
24814             # bass value on to clients
24815             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
24816         done
24817     done
24818 fi
24819 </pre></blockquote>
24820
24821 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
24822 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
24823 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
24824 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
24825 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
24826
24827 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
24828 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
24829
24830 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
24831 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
24832 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
24833 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
24834 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
24835 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
24836
24837       </div>
24838       <div class="tags">
24839
24840
24841         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
24842
24843
24844       </div>
24845     </div>
24846     <div class="padding"></div>
24847
24848     <div class="entry">
24849       <div class="title">
24850         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
24851       </div>
24852       <div class="date">
24853          9th July 2010
24854       </div>
24855       <div class="body">
24856         <p>Since
24857 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
24858 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
24859 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
24860 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
24861 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
24862 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
24863 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
24864 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
24865 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
24866 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
24867 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
24868 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
24869 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
24870
24871       </div>
24872       <div class="tags">
24873
24874
24875         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
24876
24877
24878       </div>
24879     </div>
24880     <div class="padding"></div>
24881
24882     <div class="entry">
24883       <div class="title">
24884         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__apt_vs_aptitude_with_the_Gnome_desktop.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, apt vs aptitude with the Gnome desktop</a>
24885       </div>
24886       <div class="date">
24887          3rd July 2010
24888       </div>
24889       <div class="body">
24890         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
24891 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
24892 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
24893 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
24894 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
24895 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
24896 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
24897 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
24898
24899 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
24900 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
24901 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
24902 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
24903 publish the difference.</p>
24904
24905 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
24906
24907 <blockquote><p>
24908   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
24909   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
24910   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
24911   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
24912   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
24913   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
24914   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
24915   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
24916 </p></blockquote>
24917
24918 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
24919
24920 <blockquote><p>
24921   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
24922   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
24923   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
24924   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
24925   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
24926   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
24927   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
24928   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
24929   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
24930   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
24931   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
24932   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
24933   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
24934   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
24935   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
24936   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
24937   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
24938   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
24939   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
24940   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
24941 </p></blockquote>
24942
24943 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
24944
24945 <blockquote><p>
24946   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
24947   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
24948   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
24949   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
24950   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
24951   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
24952   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
24953   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
24954   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
24955   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
24956   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
24957   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
24958   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
24959   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
24960   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
24961   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
24962   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
24963   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
24964   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
24965   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
24966   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
24967 </p></blockquote>
24968
24969 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
24970
24971 <blockquote><p>
24972   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
24973   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
24974   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
24975 </p></blockquote>
24976
24977 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
24978 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
24979 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
24980 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
24981 the difference somewhat.
24982
24983       </div>
24984       <div class="tags">
24985
24986
24987         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
24988
24989
24990       </div>
24991     </div>
24992     <div class="padding"></div>
24993
24994     <div class="entry">
24995       <div class="title">
24996         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Caching_password__user_and_group_on_a_roaming_Debian_laptop.html">Caching password, user and group on a roaming Debian laptop</a>
24997       </div>
24998       <div class="date">
24999          1st July 2010
25000       </div>
25001       <div class="body">
25002         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
25003 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
25004 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
25005 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
25006 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
25007 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
25008 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
25009 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
25010 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
25011
25012 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
25013
25014 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
25015 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
25016 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
25017 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
25018 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
25019 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
25020 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
25021 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
25022 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
25023 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
25024 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
25025 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
25026 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
25027 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
25028 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
25029
25030 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
25031
25032 <blockquote><pre>
25033 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
25034 </pre></blockquote>
25035
25036 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
25037 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
25038 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
25039 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
25040 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
25041 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
25042 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
25043 on how to get this working.</p>
25044
25045 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
25046 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
25047 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
25048 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
25049 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
25050 instructions I found in the
25051 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
25052 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
25053
25054 <blockquote><pre>
25055         debug-level             0
25056         reload-count            unlimited
25057         paranoia                no
25058
25059         enable-cache            passwd          yes
25060         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
25061         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
25062         suggested-size          passwd          211
25063         check-files             passwd          yes
25064         persistent              passwd          yes
25065         shared                  passwd          yes
25066         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
25067         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
25068
25069         enable-cache            group           yes
25070         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
25071         negative-time-to-live   group           20
25072         suggested-size          group           211
25073         check-files             group           yes
25074         persistent              group           yes
25075         shared                  group           yes
25076         max-db-size             group           33554432
25077         auto-propagate          group           yes
25078
25079         enable-cache            hosts           no
25080         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
25081         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
25082         suggested-size          hosts           211
25083         check-files             hosts           yes
25084         persistent              hosts           yes
25085         shared                  hosts           yes
25086         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
25087
25088         enable-cache            services        yes
25089         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
25090         negative-time-to-live   services        20
25091         suggested-size          services        211
25092         check-files             services        yes
25093         persistent              services        yes
25094         shared                  services        yes
25095         max-db-size             services        33554432
25096 </pre></blockquote>
25097
25098 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
25099 automatically like the one provided in
25100 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
25101 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
25102 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
25103 look like this:</p>
25104
25105 <blockquote><pre>
25106 passwd:         files ldap
25107 group:          files ldap
25108 shadow:         files ldap
25109 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
25110 networks:       files
25111 protocols:      files
25112 services:       files
25113 ethers:         files
25114 rpc:            files
25115 netgroup:       files ldap
25116 </pre></blockquote>
25117
25118 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
25119 shadow and netgroup.</p>
25120
25121 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
25122 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
25123 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
25124 attributes cached.
25125
25126 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
25127   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
25128
25129 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
25130 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
25131 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
25132 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
25133 discovered sssd.</p>
25134
25135 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
25136
25137 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
25138 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
25139 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
25140 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
25141 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
25142 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
25143 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
25144 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
25145 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
25146 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
25147 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
25148 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
25149 version 1.2 is now in testing.
25150
25151 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
25152 roaming setup I want</p>
25153
25154 <blockquote><pre>
25155 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
25156 </pre></blockquote>
25157
25158 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
25159 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
25160
25161 <blockquote><pre>
25162 [sssd]
25163 config_file_version = 2
25164 reconnection_retries = 3
25165 sbus_timeout = 30
25166 services = nss, pam
25167 domains = INTERN
25168
25169 [nss]
25170 filter_groups = root
25171 filter_users = root
25172 reconnection_retries = 3
25173
25174 [pam]
25175 reconnection_retries = 3
25176
25177 [domain/INTERN]
25178 enumerate = false
25179 cache_credentials = true
25180
25181 id_provider = ldap
25182 auth_provider = ldap
25183 chpass_provider = ldap
25184
25185 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
25186 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
25187 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
25188 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
25189 </pre></blockquote>
25190
25191 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
25192 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
25193
25194 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
25195 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
25196 modify it manually.</p>
25197
25198 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
25199 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
25200
25201       </div>
25202       <div class="tags">
25203
25204
25205         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/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
25206
25207
25208       </div>
25209     </div>
25210     <div class="padding"></div>
25211
25212     <div class="entry">
25213       <div class="title">
25214         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
25215       </div>
25216       <div class="date">
25217         28th June 2010
25218       </div>
25219       <div class="body">
25220         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
25221 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
25222 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
25223 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
25224 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
25225 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
25226 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
25227 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
25228 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
25229 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
25230
25231 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
25232 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
25233 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
25234 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
25235 released.</p>
25236
25237 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
25238 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
25239 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
25240 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
25241
25242 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
25243 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
25244
25245 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
25246 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
25247 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
25248 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
25249 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
25250
25251       </div>
25252       <div class="tags">
25253
25254
25255         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
25256
25257
25258       </div>
25259     </div>
25260     <div class="padding"></div>
25261
25262     <div class="entry">
25263       <div class="title">
25264         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_a_change_to_LDAP_schemas_allowing_DNS_and_DHCP_info_to_be_combined_into_one_object.html">Idea for a change to LDAP schemas allowing DNS and DHCP info to be combined into one object</a>
25265       </div>
25266       <div class="date">
25267         24th June 2010
25268       </div>
25269       <div class="body">
25270         <p>A while back, I
25271 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
25272 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
25273 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
25274 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
25275
25276 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
25277 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
25278 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
25279 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
25280
25281 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
25282 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
25283 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
25284 Debian Edu.</p>
25285
25286 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
25287 the
25288 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
25289 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
25290 available today from IETF.</p>
25291
25292 <pre>
25293 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
25294 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
25295 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
25296  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
25297         NAME 'dhcpHost'
25298         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
25299 -       SUP top
25300 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
25301         MUST cn
25302         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
25303         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
25304 </pre>
25305
25306 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
25307 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
25308 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
25309
25310 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
25311 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
25312
25313       </div>
25314       <div class="tags">
25315
25316
25317         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
25318
25319
25320       </div>
25321     </div>
25322     <div class="padding"></div>
25323
25324     <div class="entry">
25325       <div class="title">
25326         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Calling_tasksel_like_the_installer__while_still_getting_useful_output.html">Calling tasksel like the installer, while still getting useful output</a>
25327       </div>
25328       <div class="date">
25329         16th June 2010
25330       </div>
25331       <div class="body">
25332         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
25333 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
25334 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
25335 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
25336 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
25337 this:
25338
25339 <blockquote><pre>
25340 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
25341 tasksel --new-install
25342 </pre></blockquote>
25343
25344 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
25345 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
25346 any output what so ever.
25347
25348 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
25349 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
25350 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
25351 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
25352 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
25353 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
25354 code like this:
25355
25356 <blockquote><pre>
25357 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
25358 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
25359 $cmd
25360 </pre></blockquote>
25361
25362 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
25363 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
25364 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
25365 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
25366 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
25367 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
25368 installation.</p>
25369
25370 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
25371 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
25372 like this.</p>
25373
25374       </div>
25375       <div class="tags">
25376
25377
25378         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
25379
25380
25381       </div>
25382     </div>
25383     <div class="padding"></div>
25384
25385     <div class="entry">
25386       <div class="title">
25387         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
25388       </div>
25389       <div class="date">
25390         13th June 2010
25391       </div>
25392       <div class="body">
25393         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
25394 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
25395 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
25396 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
25397 pages.</p>
25398
25399 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
25400 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
25401 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
25402 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
25403 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
25404 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
25405 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
25406 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
25407 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
25408 see how the project is doing.</p>
25409
25410 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
25411 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
25412 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
25413 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
25414 Windows.  This is great.</p>
25415
25416       </div>
25417       <div class="tags">
25418
25419
25420         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.
25421
25422
25423       </div>
25424     </div>
25425     <div class="padding"></div>
25426
25427     <div class="entry">
25428       <div class="title">
25429         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lenny__Squeeze_upgrades__removals_by_apt_and_aptitude.html">Lenny->Squeeze upgrades, removals by apt and aptitude</a>
25430       </div>
25431       <div class="date">
25432         13th June 2010
25433       </div>
25434       <div class="body">
25435         <p>My
25436 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
25437 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
25438 finally made the upgrade logs available from
25439 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
25440 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
25441 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
25442 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
25443
25444 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
25445 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
25446 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
25447 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
25448 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
25449 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
25450 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
25451 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
25452
25453 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
25454 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
25455 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
25456 too surprising.</p>
25457
25458 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
25459 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
25460 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
25461 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
25462 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
25463 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
25464 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
25465 continue.</p>
25466
25467 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
25468 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
25469   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
25470   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
25471   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
25472   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
25473   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
25474   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
25475   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
25476   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
25477   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
25478   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
25479   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
25480   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
25481   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
25482   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
25483   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
25484   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
25485   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
25486   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
25487   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
25488   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
25489   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
25490   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
25491   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
25492   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
25493   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
25494   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
25495   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
25496   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
25497
25498 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
25499
25500 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
25501   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
25502   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
25503   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
25504   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
25505   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
25506   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
25507   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
25508   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
25509   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
25510   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
25511   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
25512   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
25513   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
25514   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
25515   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
25516   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
25517   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
25518   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
25519   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
25520   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
25521   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
25522   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
25523   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
25524   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
25525   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
25526   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
25527   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
25528   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
25529   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
25530   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
25531   zip</p>
25532
25533 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
25534
25535 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
25536   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
25537   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
25538   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
25539   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
25540   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
25541   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
25542   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
25543   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
25544   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
25545   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
25546   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
25547   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
25548   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
25549   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
25550   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
25551   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
25552   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
25553   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
25554   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
25555   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
25556   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
25557   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
25558   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
25559   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
25560   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
25561   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
25562   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
25563
25564 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
25565 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
25566   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
25567   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
25568   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
25569   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
25570   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
25571   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
25572   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
25573   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
25574   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
25575   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
25576   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
25577   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
25578   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
25579   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
25580   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
25581   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
25582   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
25583   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
25584   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
25585   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
25586   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
25587   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
25588   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
25589   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
25590   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
25591   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
25592   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
25593   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
25594   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
25595   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
25596   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
25597   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
25598   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
25599   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
25600   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
25601   xulrunner-1.9</p>
25602
25603
25604       </div>
25605       <div class="tags">
25606
25607
25608         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
25609
25610
25611       </div>
25612     </div>
25613     <div class="padding"></div>
25614
25615     <div class="entry">
25616       <div class="title">
25617         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
25618       </div>
25619       <div class="date">
25620         11th June 2010
25621       </div>
25622       <div class="body">
25623         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
25624 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
25625 have been discovered and reported in the process
25626 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
25627 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
25628 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
25629 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
25630 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
25631
25632 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
25633 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
25634 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
25635 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
25636 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
25637 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
25638
25639 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
25640 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
25641 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
25642 is created.  The bug report
25643 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
25644 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
25645 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
25646 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
25647 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
25648 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
25649 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
25650 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
25651 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
25652 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
25653 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
25654 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
25655 Debian Squeeze.</p>
25656
25657 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
25658 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
25659 trick:</p>
25660
25661 <blockquote><pre>
25662 #!/bin/sh
25663 set -ex
25664
25665 if [ "$1" ] ; then
25666     desktop=$1
25667 else
25668     desktop=gnome
25669 fi
25670
25671 from=lenny
25672 to=squeeze
25673
25674 exec &lt; /dev/null
25675 unset LANG
25676 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
25677 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
25678 fuser -mv .
25679 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
25680 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
25681 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
25682 #!/bin/sh
25683 exit 101
25684 EOF
25685 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
25686 exit_cleanup() {
25687     umount $tmpdir/proc
25688 }
25689 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
25690 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
25691 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
25692
25693 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
25694
25695 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
25696 # to return the correct answers.
25697 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
25698     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
25699
25700 # Include the desktop and laptop task
25701 for test in desktop laptop ; do
25702     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
25703 #!/bin/sh
25704 exit 2
25705 EOF
25706     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
25707 done
25708
25709 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
25710 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
25711 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
25712 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
25713
25714 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
25715 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
25716 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
25717 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
25718 fuser -mv
25719 </pre></blockquote>
25720
25721 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
25722 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
25723 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
25724 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
25725 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
25726 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
25727
25728 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
25729 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
25730 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
25731 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
25732 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
25733 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
25734 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
25735
25736 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
25737 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
25738 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
25739 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
25740 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
25741 packages.</p>
25742
25743       </div>
25744       <div class="tags">
25745
25746
25747         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
25748
25749
25750       </div>
25751     </div>
25752     <div class="padding"></div>
25753
25754     <div class="entry">
25755       <div class="title">
25756         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Upstart_or_sysvinit___as_init_d_scripts_see_it.html">Upstart or sysvinit - as init.d scripts see it</a>
25757       </div>
25758       <div class="date">
25759          6th June 2010
25760       </div>
25761       <div class="body">
25762         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
25763 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
25764 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
25765 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
25766 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
25767 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
25768 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
25769
25770 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
25771 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
25772 COLUMNS):</p>
25773
25774 <blockquote><pre>
25775 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
25776 previous=N
25777 PREVLEVEL=
25778 RUNLEVEL=
25779 runlevel=S
25780 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
25781 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
25782 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
25783 </pre></blockquote>
25784
25785 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
25786 script.</p>
25787
25788 <blockquote><pre>
25789 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
25790 previous=N
25791 PREVLEVEL=N
25792 RUNLEVEL=S
25793 runlevel=S
25794 </pre></blockquote>
25795
25796 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
25797 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
25798 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
25799
25800 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
25801 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
25802 choice.</p>
25803
25804       </div>
25805       <div class="tags">
25806
25807
25808         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
25809
25810
25811       </div>
25812     </div>
25813     <div class="padding"></div>
25814
25815     <div class="entry">
25816       <div class="title">
25817         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
25818       </div>
25819       <div class="date">
25820          6th June 2010
25821       </div>
25822       <div class="body">
25823         <p>Via the
25824 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
25825 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
25826 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
25827 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
25828 following the standards wars of today.</p>
25829
25830       </div>
25831       <div class="tags">
25832
25833
25834         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/standard">standard</a>.
25835
25836
25837       </div>
25838     </div>
25839     <div class="padding"></div>
25840
25841     <div class="entry">
25842       <div class="title">
25843         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_computer_hardware_models_used_at_site.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing computer hardware models used at site</a>
25844       </div>
25845       <div class="date">
25846          3rd June 2010
25847       </div>
25848       <div class="body">
25849         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
25850 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
25851 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
25852 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
25853 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
25854
25855 <blockquote><pre>
25856 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
25857   vendor                    count
25858   Dell Computer Corporation     1
25859     PowerEdge 1750              1
25860   IBM                           1
25861     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
25862   Intel                         2
25863   [no-dmi-info]                 3
25864 maintainer:~#
25865 </pre></blockquote>
25866
25867 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
25868 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
25869 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
25870 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
25871 option to list the individual machines.</p>
25872
25873 <p>A larger list is
25874 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
25875 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
25876 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
25877 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
25878 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
25879 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
25880 collector.</p>
25881
25882       </div>
25883       <div class="tags">
25884
25885
25886         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
25887
25888
25889       </div>
25890     </div>
25891     <div class="padding"></div>
25892
25893     <div class="entry">
25894       <div class="title">
25895         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/KDM_fail_at_boot_with_NVidia_cards___and_no_one_try_to_fix_it_.html">KDM fail at boot with NVidia cards - and no one try to fix it?</a>
25896       </div>
25897       <div class="date">
25898          1st June 2010
25899       </div>
25900       <div class="body">
25901         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
25902 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
25903 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
25904 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
25905 wait.</p>
25906
25907 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
25908 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
25909 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
25910 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
25911 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
25912 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
25913
25914 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
25915 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
25916 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
25917 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
25918 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
25919 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
25920 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
25921 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
25922
25923 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
25924
25925       </div>
25926       <div class="tags">
25927
25928
25929         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
25930
25931
25932       </div>
25933     </div>
25934     <div class="padding"></div>
25935
25936     <div class="entry">
25937       <div class="title">
25938         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_seem_to_hold_up_well_in_Debian_testing.html">Parallellized boot seem to hold up well in Debian/testing</a>
25939       </div>
25940       <div class="date">
25941         27th May 2010
25942       </div>
25943       <div class="body">
25944         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
25945 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
25946 issues are known and should be solved:
25947
25948 <p><ul>
25949
25950 <li>The wicd package seen to
25951 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
25952 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
25953 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
25954 seem to be on the case.</li>
25955
25956 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
25957 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
25958 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
25959 maintainer is on the case.</li>
25960
25961 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
25962 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
25963 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
25964 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
25965 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
25966 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
25967 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
25968 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
25969
25970 </ul></p>
25971
25972 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
25973 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
25974 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
25975 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
25976
25977 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
25978 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
25979 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
25980 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
25981
25982 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
25983
25984       </div>
25985       <div class="tags">
25986
25987
25988         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
25989
25990
25991       </div>
25992     </div>
25993     <div class="padding"></div>
25994
25995     <div class="entry">
25996       <div class="title">
25997         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
25998       </div>
25999       <div class="date">
26000         22nd May 2010
26001       </div>
26002       <div class="body">
26003         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
26004 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
26005 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
26006 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
26007
26008 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
26009 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
26010 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
26011 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
26012 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
26013 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
26014 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
26015 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
26016 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
26017 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
26018 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
26019 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
26020 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
26021 going to work.</p>
26022
26023 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
26024 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
26025 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
26026 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
26027 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
26028 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
26029 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
26030 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
26031 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
26032 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
26033 Edu.</p>
26034
26035 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
26036 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
26037 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
26038 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
26039 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
26040 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
26041
26042 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
26043 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
26044
26045       </div>
26046       <div class="tags">
26047
26048
26049         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
26050
26051
26052       </div>
26053     </div>
26054     <div class="padding"></div>
26055
26056     <div class="entry">
26057       <div class="title">
26058         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pieces_of_the_roaming_laptop_puzzle_in_Debian.html">Pieces of the roaming laptop puzzle in Debian</a>
26059       </div>
26060       <div class="date">
26061         19th May 2010
26062       </div>
26063       <div class="body">
26064         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
26065 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
26066 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
26067 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
26068 into unstable.  The
26069 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
26070 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
26071 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
26072 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
26073 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
26074 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
26075 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
26076
26077 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
26078 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
26079 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
26080 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
26081 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
26082 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
26083 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
26084 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
26085
26086 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
26087 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
26088 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
26089 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
26090 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
26091 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
26092 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
26093
26094 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
26095 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
26096 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
26097 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
26098 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
26099 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
26100 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
26101 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
26102 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
26103 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
26104 on the home directory servers.</p>
26105
26106 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
26107 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
26108 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
26109 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
26110 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
26111 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
26112
26113 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
26114 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
26115
26116       </div>
26117       <div class="tags">
26118
26119
26120         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
26121
26122
26123       </div>
26124     </div>
26125     <div class="padding"></div>
26126
26127     <div class="entry">
26128       <div class="title">
26129         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellized_boot_is_now_the_default_in_Debian_unstable.html">Parallellized boot is now the default in Debian/unstable</a>
26130       </div>
26131       <div class="date">
26132         14th May 2010
26133       </div>
26134       <div class="body">
26135         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
26136 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
26137 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
26138 expected, if I am to believe the
26139 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
26140 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
26141 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
26142 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
26143 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
26144 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
26145 version.</p>
26146
26147 More information about
26148 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
26149 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
26150 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
26151 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
26152
26153 <blockquote><pre>
26154 CONCURRENCY=none
26155 </pre></blockquote>
26156
26157 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
26158 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
26159 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
26160 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
26161
26162       </div>
26163       <div class="tags">
26164
26165
26166         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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>.
26167
26168
26169       </div>
26170     </div>
26171     <div class="padding"></div>
26172
26173     <div class="entry">
26174       <div class="title">
26175         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sitesummary_tip__Listing_MAC_address_of_all_clients.html">Sitesummary tip: Listing MAC address of all clients</a>
26176       </div>
26177       <div class="date">
26178         14th May 2010
26179       </div>
26180       <div class="body">
26181         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
26182 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
26183 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
26184 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
26185 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
26186 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
26187 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
26188 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
26189
26190 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
26191 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
26192 this on the collector host:</p>
26193
26194 <blockquote><pre>
26195 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
26196 </pre></blockquote>
26197
26198 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
26199 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
26200
26201 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
26202 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
26203 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
26204 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
26205 written yet.</p>
26206
26207       </div>
26208       <div class="tags">
26209
26210
26211         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
26212
26213
26214       </div>
26215     </div>
26216     <div class="padding"></div>
26217
26218     <div class="entry">
26219       <div class="title">
26220         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
26221       </div>
26222       <div class="date">
26223         13th May 2010
26224       </div>
26225       <div class="body">
26226         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
26227 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
26228 has been
26229 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
26230
26231 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
26232 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
26233 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
26234 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
26235 based boot system.  Tollef is
26236 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
26237 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
26238 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
26239 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
26240 at the moment do not.</p>
26241
26242 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
26243 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
26244 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
26245 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
26246 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
26247 way forward.</p>
26248
26249 <p>In the mean time, based on the
26250 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
26251 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
26252 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
26253 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
26254 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
26255 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
26256 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
26257 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
26258
26259       </div>
26260       <div class="tags">
26261
26262
26263         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
26264
26265
26266       </div>
26267     </div>
26268     <div class="padding"></div>
26269
26270     <div class="entry">
26271       <div class="title">
26272         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Parallellizing_the_boot_in_Debian_Squeeze___ready_for_wider_testing.html">Parallellizing the boot in Debian Squeeze - ready for wider testing</a>
26273       </div>
26274       <div class="date">
26275          6th May 2010
26276       </div>
26277       <div class="body">
26278         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
26279 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
26280 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
26281 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
26282 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
26283 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
26284 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
26285
26286 <blockquote><pre>
26287 CONCURRENCY=makefile
26288 </pre></blockquote>
26289
26290 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
26291 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
26292 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
26293 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
26294 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
26295 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
26296 make this happen.</p>
26297
26298 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
26299 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
26300 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
26301 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
26302 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
26303
26304 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
26305 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
26306 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
26307 fix the remaining issues.</p>
26308
26309 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
26310 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
26311 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
26312 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
26313
26314       </div>
26315       <div class="tags">
26316
26317
26318         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
26319
26320
26321       </div>
26322     </div>
26323     <div class="padding"></div>
26324
26325     <div class="entry">
26326       <div class="title">
26327         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Forcing_new_users_to_change_their_password_on_first_login.html">Forcing new users to change their password on first login</a>
26328       </div>
26329       <div class="date">
26330          2nd May 2010
26331       </div>
26332       <div class="body">
26333         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
26334 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
26335 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
26336
26337 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
26338 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
26339 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
26340 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
26341 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
26342
26343 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
26344 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
26345
26346 <blockquote><pre>
26347 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
26348 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
26349 Password expires                                        : never
26350 Password inactive                                       : never
26351 Account expires                                         : never
26352 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
26353 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
26354 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
26355 root@tjener:~#
26356 </pre></blockquote>
26357
26358 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
26359 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
26360 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
26361 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
26362 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
26363 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
26364
26365 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
26366 intended:</p>
26367
26368 <blockquote><pre>
26369 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
26370 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
26371 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
26372 Password expires                                        : never
26373 Password inactive                                       : never
26374 Account expires                                         : never
26375 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
26376 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
26377 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
26378 root@tjener:~#
26379 </pre></blockquote>
26380
26381 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
26382 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
26383 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
26384
26385 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
26386 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
26387
26388 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
26389 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
26390
26391 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
26392 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
26393 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
26394 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
26395 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
26396 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
26397 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
26398
26399 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
26400 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
26401 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
26402 change.</p>
26403
26404       </div>
26405       <div class="tags">
26406
26407
26408         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/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>.
26409
26410
26411       </div>
26412     </div>
26413     <div class="padding"></div>
26414
26415     <div class="entry">
26416       <div class="title">
26417         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thoughts_on_roaming_laptop_setup_for_Debian_Edu.html">Thoughts on roaming laptop setup for Debian Edu</a>
26418       </div>
26419       <div class="date">
26420         28th April 2010
26421       </div>
26422       <div class="body">
26423         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
26424 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
26425 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
26426 and go.</p>
26427
26428 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
26429 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
26430 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
26431 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
26432
26433 <ul>
26434
26435  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
26436    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
26437    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
26438    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
26439    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
26440    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
26441    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
26442    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
26443    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
26444    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
26445    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
26446    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
26447
26448  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
26449    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
26450    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
26451    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
26452    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
26453    or the Fedora developed
26454    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
26455    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
26456
26457  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
26458    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
26459    directory, using unison.</li>
26460
26461  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
26462    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
26463    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
26464    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
26465    implemented.</li>
26466
26467  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
26468    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
26469
26470  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
26471    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
26472    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
26473
26474 </ul>
26475
26476 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
26477 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
26478 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
26479 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
26480 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
26481 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
26482 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
26483 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
26484 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
26485
26486 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
26487 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
26488
26489       </div>
26490       <div class="tags">
26491
26492
26493         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
26494
26495
26496       </div>
26497     </div>
26498     <div class="padding"></div>
26499
26500     <div class="entry">
26501       <div class="title">
26502         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Great_book___Content__Selected_Essays_on_Technology__Creativity__Copyright__and_the_Future_of_the_Future_.html">Great book: "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future"</a>
26503       </div>
26504       <div class="date">
26505         19th April 2010
26506       </div>
26507       <div class="body">
26508         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
26509 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
26510 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
26511 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
26512 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
26513 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
26514 restrictions on the web, for example from
26515 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
26516 epub-version from
26517 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
26518 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
26519 strongly recommend this book.</p>
26520
26521       </div>
26522       <div class="tags">
26523
26524
26525         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
26526
26527
26528       </div>
26529     </div>
26530     <div class="padding"></div>
26531
26532     <div class="entry">
26533       <div class="title">
26534         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
26535       </div>
26536       <div class="date">
26537         14th April 2010
26538       </div>
26539       <div class="body">
26540         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
26541 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
26542 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
26543 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
26544 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
26545 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
26546 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
26547 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
26548 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
26549
26550 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
26551 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
26552 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
26553 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
26554 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
26555
26556 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
26557 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
26558
26559 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
26560 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
26561 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
26562 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
26563 to work properly.</p>
26564
26565 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
26566 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
26567 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
26568 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
26569 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
26570 time.</p>
26571
26572 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
26573 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
26574 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
26575 up in a few days.</p>
26576
26577       </div>
26578       <div class="tags">
26579
26580
26581         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
26582
26583
26584       </div>
26585     </div>
26586     <div class="padding"></div>
26587
26588     <div class="entry">
26589       <div class="title">
26590         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/After_6_years_of_waiting__the_Xreset_d_feature_is_implemented.html">After 6 years of waiting, the Xreset.d feature is implemented</a>
26591       </div>
26592       <div class="date">
26593          6th March 2010
26594       </div>
26595       <div class="body">
26596         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
26597 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
26598 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
26599 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
26600 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
26601 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
26602
26603 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
26604 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
26605 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
26606 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
26607
26608 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
26609 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
26610 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
26611 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
26612 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
26613 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
26614
26615       </div>
26616       <div class="tags">
26617
26618
26619         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
26620
26621
26622       </div>
26623     </div>
26624     <div class="padding"></div>
26625
26626     <div class="entry">
26627       <div class="title">
26628         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Lenny_released__work_continues.html">Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Lenny released, work continues</a>
26629       </div>
26630       <div class="date">
26631         11th February 2010
26632       </div>
26633       <div class="body">
26634         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
26635 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
26636 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
26637 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
26638 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
26639 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
26640 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
26641
26642 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
26643
26644 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
26645 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
26646 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
26647 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
26648
26649       </div>
26650       <div class="tags">
26651
26652
26653         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/nuug">nuug</a>.
26654
26655
26656       </div>
26657     </div>
26658     <div class="padding"></div>
26659
26660     <div class="entry">
26661       <div class="title">
26662         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
26663       </div>
26664       <div class="date">
26665         27th January 2010
26666       </div>
26667       <div class="body">
26668         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
26669 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
26670 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
26671 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
26672 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
26673 further.</p>
26674
26675 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
26676 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
26677 configured to be a server for the
26678 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
26679 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
26680 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
26681 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
26682 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
26683 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
26684 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
26685 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
26686 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
26687 and Nagios configuration.</p>
26688
26689 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
26690 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
26691 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
26692 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
26693
26694 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
26695 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
26696 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
26697 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
26698 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
26699 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
26700 the machine.</p>
26701
26702 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
26703 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
26704 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
26705 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
26706
26707 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
26708 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
26709 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
26710 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
26711 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
26712 everything is taken care of.</p>
26713
26714       </div>
26715       <div class="tags">
26716
26717
26718         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/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary</a>.
26719
26720
26721       </div>
26722     </div>
26723     <div class="padding"></div>
26724
26725     <div class="entry">
26726       <div class="title">
26727         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Relative_popularity_of_document_formats__MS_Office_vs__ODF_.html">Relative popularity of document formats (MS Office vs. ODF)</a>
26728       </div>
26729       <div class="date">
26730         12th August 2009
26731       </div>
26732       <div class="body">
26733         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
26734 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
26735 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
26736 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
26737
26738 <table>
26739 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
26740 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
26741 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
26742 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
26743 </table>
26744
26745 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
26746 got these numbers:</p>
26747
26748 <table>
26749 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
26750 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
26751 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
26752 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
26753 </table>
26754
26755 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
26756
26757 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
26758 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
26759 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
26760 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
26761 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
26762
26763
26764 <table>
26765 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
26766 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
26767 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
26768 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
26769 </table>
26770
26771 <p>And with 'site:no':
26772
26773 <table>
26774 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
26775 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
26776 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
26777 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
26778 </table>
26779
26780 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
26781 numbers.</p>
26782
26783       </div>
26784       <div class="tags">
26785
26786
26787         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</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/web">web</a>.
26788
26789
26790       </div>
26791     </div>
26792     <div class="padding"></div>
26793
26794     <div class="entry">
26795       <div class="title">
26796         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
26797       </div>
26798       <div class="date">
26799          8th August 2009
26800       </div>
26801       <div class="body">
26802         <p>According to <a
26803 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
26804 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
26805 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
26806 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
26807 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
26808 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
26809 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
26810 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
26811 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
26812 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
26813
26814 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
26815 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
26816 seminar this autumn.</p>
26817
26818       </div>
26819       <div class="tags">
26820
26821
26822         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</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>.
26823
26824
26825       </div>
26826     </div>
26827     <div class="padding"></div>
26828
26829     <div class="entry">
26830       <div class="title">
26831         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_has_switched_to_dependency_based_boot_sequencing.html">Debian has switched to dependency based boot sequencing</a>
26832       </div>
26833       <div class="date">
26834         27th July 2009
26835       </div>
26836       <div class="body">
26837         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
26838 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
26839 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
26840 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
26841 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
26842 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
26843 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
26844
26845 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
26846 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
26847 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
26848
26849       </div>
26850       <div class="tags">
26851
26852
26853         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
26854
26855
26856       </div>
26857     </div>
26858     <div class="padding"></div>
26859
26860     <div class="entry">
26861       <div class="title">
26862         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
26863       </div>
26864       <div class="date">
26865         22nd July 2009
26866       </div>
26867       <div class="body">
26868         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
26869 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
26870 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
26871 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
26872 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
26873 the package up to date.</p>
26874
26875 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
26876 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
26877 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
26878 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
26879 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
26880 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
26881 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
26882 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
26883 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
26884 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
26885 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
26886 working on the future release.</p>
26887
26888 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
26889 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
26890
26891       </div>
26892       <div class="tags">
26893
26894
26895         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
26896
26897
26898       </div>
26899     </div>
26900     <div class="padding"></div>
26901
26902     <div class="entry">
26903       <div class="title">
26904         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
26905       </div>
26906       <div class="date">
26907         24th June 2009
26908       </div>
26909       <div class="body">
26910         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
26911 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
26912 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
26913 funded
26914 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
26915 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
26916 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
26917 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
26918 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
26919 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
26920
26921 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
26922 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
26923 boot:</p>
26924
26925 <ul>
26926
26927 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
26928
26929 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
26930    clock is in UTC.</li>
26931
26932 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
26933    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
26934    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
26935
26936 </ul>
26937
26938 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
26939 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
26940 Villegas</a>.
26941
26942 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
26943 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
26944 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
26945 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
26946 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
26947 using this.</p>
26948
26949 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
26950 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
26951 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
26952 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
26953 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
26954 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
26955 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
26956
26957       </div>
26958       <div class="tags">
26959
26960
26961         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
26962
26963
26964       </div>
26965     </div>
26966     <div class="padding"></div>
26967
26968     <div class="entry">
26969       <div class="title">
26970         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Two_projects_that_have_improved_the_quality_of_free_software_a_lot.html">Two projects that have improved the quality of free software a lot</a>
26971       </div>
26972       <div class="date">
26973          2nd May 2009
26974       </div>
26975       <div class="body">
26976         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
26977 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
26978 do not yet know them.</p>
26979
26980 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
26981 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
26982 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
26983 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
26984 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
26985 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
26986 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
26987 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
26988 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
26989 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
26990 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
26991
26992 <p>The second one is
26993 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
26994 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
26995 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
26996 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
26997 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
26998 and the company behind it is running
26999 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
27000 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
27001 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
27002 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
27003 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
27004 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
27005 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
27006 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
27007
27008 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
27009 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
27010 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
27011 surrounded by today.</p>
27012
27013       </div>
27014       <div class="tags">
27015
27016
27017         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
27018
27019
27020       </div>
27021     </div>
27022     <div class="padding"></div>
27023
27024     <div class="entry">
27025       <div class="title">
27026         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_patch_is_not_better_than_a_useless_patch.html">No patch is not better than a useless patch</a>
27027       </div>
27028       <div class="date">
27029         28th April 2009
27030       </div>
27031       <div class="body">
27032         <p>Julien Blache
27033 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
27034 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
27035 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
27036 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
27037 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
27038 properties.</p>
27039
27040       </div>
27041       <div class="tags">
27042
27043
27044         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
27045
27046
27047       </div>
27048     </div>
27049     <div class="padding"></div>
27050
27051     <div class="entry">
27052       <div class="title">
27053         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
27054       </div>
27055       <div class="date">
27056          5th April 2009
27057       </div>
27058       <div class="body">
27059         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
27060 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
27061 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
27062 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
27063 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
27064 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
27065 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
27066 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
27067
27068 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
27069 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
27070 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
27071   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
27072   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
27073
27074 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
27075 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
27076 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
27077 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
27078
27079 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
27080 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
27081 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
27082 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
27083
27084 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
27085 set -e
27086 URL="$1"
27087 SAVEFILE="$2"
27088 DURATION="$3"
27089 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
27090   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
27091   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
27092 pid=$!
27093 sleep $DURATION
27094 kill $pid
27095 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
27096
27097       </div>
27098       <div class="tags">
27099
27100
27101         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
27102
27103
27104       </div>
27105     </div>
27106     <div class="padding"></div>
27107
27108     <div class="entry">
27109       <div class="title">
27110         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Standardize_on_protocols_and_formats__not_vendors_and_applications.html">Standardize on protocols and formats, not vendors and applications</a>
27111       </div>
27112       <div class="date">
27113         30th March 2009
27114       </div>
27115       <div class="body">
27116         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
27117 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
27118 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
27119 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
27120 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
27121 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
27122 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
27123 application.</p>
27124
27125 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
27126 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
27127 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
27128 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
27129 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
27130 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
27131 blocked from doing so.</p>
27132
27133 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
27134 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
27135 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
27136 requirements change.</p>
27137
27138 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
27139 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
27140 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
27141
27142       </div>
27143       <div class="tags">
27144
27145
27146         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</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>.
27147
27148
27149       </div>
27150     </div>
27151     <div class="padding"></div>
27152
27153     <div class="entry">
27154       <div class="title">
27155         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
27156       </div>
27157       <div class="date">
27158         29th March 2009
27159       </div>
27160       <div class="body">
27161         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
27162 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
27163 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
27164 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
27165 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
27166 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
27167 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
27168 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
27169 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
27170 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
27171 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
27172 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
27173 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
27174 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
27175 now. :)</p>
27176
27177       </div>
27178       <div class="tags">
27179
27180
27181         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/nuug">nuug</a>.
27182
27183
27184       </div>
27185     </div>
27186     <div class="padding"></div>
27187
27188     <div class="entry">
27189       <div class="title">
27190         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">Time for new  LDAP schemas replacing RFC 2307?</a>
27191       </div>
27192       <div class="date">
27193         29th March 2009
27194       </div>
27195       <div class="body">
27196         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
27197 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
27198 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
27199 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
27200 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
27201 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
27202
27203 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
27204 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
27205 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
27206 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
27207 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
27208 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
27209 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
27210 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
27211 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
27212 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
27213 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
27214 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
27215 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
27216
27217 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
27218 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
27219 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
27220 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
27221
27222 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
27223 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
27224
27225 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
27226 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
27227 new IETF work group?</p>
27228
27229       </div>
27230       <div class="tags">
27231
27232
27233         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/ldap">ldap</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
27234
27235
27236       </div>
27237     </div>
27238     <div class="padding"></div>
27239
27240     <div class="entry">
27241       <div class="title">
27242         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">Checking server hardware support status for Dell, HP and IBM servers</a>
27243       </div>
27244       <div class="date">
27245         28th February 2009
27246       </div>
27247       <div class="body">
27248         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
27249 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
27250 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
27251 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
27252 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
27253 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
27254 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
27255 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
27256 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
27257 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
27258 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
27259 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
27260 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
27261 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
27262 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
27263 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
27264 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
27265 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
27266 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
27267 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
27268 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
27269 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
27270 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
27271 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
27272 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
27273 machine.</p>
27274
27275 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
27276 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
27277 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
27278 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
27279 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
27280 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
27281 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
27282
27283 <pre>
27284 use LWP::Simple;
27285 use POSIX;
27286 use WWW::Mechanize;
27287 use Date::Parse;
27288 [...]
27289 sub get_support_info {
27290     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
27291     my $str;
27292
27293     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
27294         # fetch website from Dell support
27295         my $url = "http://support.euro.dell.com/support/topics/topic.aspx/emea/shared/support/my_systems_info/no/details?c=no&amp;cs=nodhs1&amp;l=no&amp;s=dhs&amp;ServiceTag=$serial";
27296         my $webpage = get($url);
27297         return undef unless ($webpage);
27298
27299         my $daysleft = -1;
27300         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
27301         foreach my $line (@lines) {
27302             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
27303             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
27304             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
27305
27306             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
27307             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
27308             my $lastend = "";
27309             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
27310                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
27311
27312                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
27313                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
27314                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
27315                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
27316                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
27317                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
27318                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
27319             }
27320             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
27321             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
27322                 if ($lastend lt $today);
27323         }
27324     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
27325         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
27326         my $url =
27327             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
27328         $mech->get($url);
27329         my $fields = {
27330             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
27331             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
27332             'country' => 'NO',
27333             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
27334             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
27335         };
27336         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
27337                             fields      => $fields );
27338         # Next step is screen scraping
27339         my $content = $mech->content();
27340
27341         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
27342         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
27343         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
27344         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
27345
27346         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
27347
27348         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
27349             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
27350                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
27351             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
27352             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
27353                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
27354             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
27355                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
27356
27357             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
27358
27359             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
27360                 if ($end lt $today);
27361         }
27362     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
27363         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
27364         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
27365         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
27366             my $content =
27367                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
27368             if ($content) {
27369                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
27370                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
27371                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
27372                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
27373
27374                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
27375                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
27376
27377                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
27378
27379                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
27380                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
27381                     if ($end lt $today);
27382             }
27383         }
27384     }
27385     return $str;
27386 }
27387 </pre>
27388
27389 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
27390 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
27391 from dmidecode.</p>
27392
27393 <pre>
27394 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
27395                        "447707-B21");
27396 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
27397 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
27398                        "1234567");
27399 </pre>
27400
27401 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
27402 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
27403
27404 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
27405 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
27406 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
27407 do so.</p>
27408
27409       </div>
27410       <div class="tags">
27411
27412
27413         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
27414
27415
27416       </div>
27417     </div>
27418     <div class="padding"></div>
27419
27420     <div class="entry">
27421       <div class="title">
27422         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
27423       </div>
27424       <div class="date">
27425         20th February 2009
27426       </div>
27427       <div class="body">
27428         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
27429 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
27430 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
27431 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
27432 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
27433 the "missing" computer.</p>
27434
27435 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
27436 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
27437 code blocks as defined in the
27438 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
27439 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
27440 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
27441 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
27442 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
27443 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
27444 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
27445 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
27446 codes.</p>
27447
27448 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
27449 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
27450 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
27451 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
27452 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
27453 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
27454
27455 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
27456 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
27457 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
27458 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
27459 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
27460 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
27461 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
27462 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
27463 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
27464 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
27465
27466 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
27467 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
27468 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
27469
27470       </div>
27471       <div class="tags">
27472
27473
27474         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>.
27475
27476
27477       </div>
27478     </div>
27479     <div class="padding"></div>
27480
27481     <div class="entry">
27482       <div class="title">
27483         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_web_browser_developers_make_a_video_player___.html">When web browser developers make a video player...</a>
27484       </div>
27485       <div class="date">
27486         17th January 2009
27487       </div>
27488       <div class="body">
27489         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
27490 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
27491 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
27492 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
27493 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
27494 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
27495 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
27496 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
27497 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
27498 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
27499 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
27500 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
27501 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
27502 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
27503
27504 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
27505 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
27506 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
27507 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
27508 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
27509 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
27510 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
27511 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
27512 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
27513 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
27514 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
27515 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
27516 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
27517 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
27518 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
27519 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
27520 playing when the download is done.</p>
27521
27522 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
27523 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
27524 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
27525 too.</p>
27526
27527 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
27528 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
27529 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
27530 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
27531
27532       </div>
27533       <div class="tags">
27534
27535
27536         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264</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/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
27537
27538
27539       </div>
27540     </div>
27541     <div class="padding"></div>
27542
27543     <div class="entry">
27544       <div class="title">
27545         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
27546       </div>
27547       <div class="date">
27548         28th December 2008
27549       </div>
27550       <div class="body">
27551         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
27552 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
27553 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
27554 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
27555 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
27556 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
27557 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
27558 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
27559 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
27560 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
27561 source, sink and mixer applications and
27562 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
27563 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
27564 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
27565 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
27566 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
27567 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
27568 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
27569 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
27570 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
27571
27572 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
27573 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
27574 larger stick as well.</p>
27575
27576       </div>
27577       <div class="tags">
27578
27579
27580         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
27581
27582
27583       </div>
27584     </div>
27585     <div class="padding"></div>
27586
27587     <div class="entry">
27588       <div class="title">
27589         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Devcamp_brought_us_closer_to_the_Lenny_based_Debian_Edu_release.html">Devcamp brought us closer to the Lenny based Debian Edu release</a>
27590       </div>
27591       <div class="date">
27592          7th December 2008
27593       </div>
27594       <div class="body">
27595         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
27596 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
27597 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
27598 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
27599 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
27600 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
27601 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
27602 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
27603
27604 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
27605 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
27606 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
27607 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
27608 of these cards.</p>
27609
27610       </div>
27611       <div class="tags">
27612
27613
27614         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/ltsp">ltsp</a>.
27615
27616
27617       </div>
27618     </div>
27619     <div class="padding"></div>
27620
27621     <div class="entry">
27622       <div class="title">
27623         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html">The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</a>
27624       </div>
27625       <div class="date">
27626         25th November 2008
27627       </div>
27628       <div class="body">
27629         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
27630 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
27631 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
27632 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
27633 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
27634 notes are available on
27635 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
27636 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
27637 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
27638 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
27639 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
27640 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
27641 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
27642 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
27643 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
27644
27645 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
27646 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
27647
27648       </div>
27649       <div class="tags">
27650
27651
27652         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian</a>, <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/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
27653
27654
27655       </div>
27656     </div>
27657     <div class="padding"></div>
27658
27659     <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="english.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14" /></a></p>
27660     <div id="sidebar">
27661
27662
27663
27664 <h2>Archive</h2>
27665 <ul>
27666
27667 <li>2017
27668 <ul>
27669
27670 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/01/">January (4)</a></li>
27671
27672 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2017/02/">February (1)</a></li>
27673
27674 </ul></li>
27675
27676 <li>2016
27677 <ul>
27678
27679 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/01/">January (3)</a></li>
27680
27681 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/02/">February (2)</a></li>
27682
27683 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/03/">March (3)</a></li>
27684
27685 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/04/">April (8)</a></li>
27686
27687 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/05/">May (8)</a></li>
27688
27689 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/06/">June (2)</a></li>
27690
27691 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/07/">July (2)</a></li>
27692
27693 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/08/">August (5)</a></li>
27694
27695 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/09/">September (2)</a></li>
27696
27697 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/10/">October (3)</a></li>
27698
27699 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/11/">November (8)</a></li>
27700
27701 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2016/12/">December (5)</a></li>
27702
27703 </ul></li>
27704
27705 <li>2015
27706 <ul>
27707
27708 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/01/">January (7)</a></li>
27709
27710 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/02/">February (6)</a></li>
27711
27712 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/03/">March (1)</a></li>
27713
27714 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/04/">April (4)</a></li>
27715
27716 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/05/">May (3)</a></li>
27717
27718 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/06/">June (4)</a></li>
27719
27720 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/07/">July (6)</a></li>
27721
27722 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/08/">August (2)</a></li>
27723
27724 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/09/">September (2)</a></li>
27725
27726 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/10/">October (9)</a></li>
27727
27728 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/11/">November (6)</a></li>
27729
27730 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2015/12/">December (3)</a></li>
27731
27732 </ul></li>
27733
27734 <li>2014
27735 <ul>
27736
27737 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
27738
27739 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
27740
27741 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
27742
27743 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
27744
27745 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
27746
27747 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
27748
27749 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
27750
27751 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (2)</a></li>
27752
27753 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/09/">September (5)</a></li>
27754
27755 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/10/">October (6)</a></li>
27756
27757 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/11/">November (3)</a></li>
27758
27759 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/12/">December (5)</a></li>
27760
27761 </ul></li>
27762
27763 <li>2013
27764 <ul>
27765
27766 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
27767
27768 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
27769
27770 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
27771
27772 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
27773
27774 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
27775
27776 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
27777
27778 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
27779
27780 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
27781
27782 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
27783
27784 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
27785
27786 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
27787
27788 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
27789
27790 </ul></li>
27791
27792 <li>2012
27793 <ul>
27794
27795 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
27796
27797 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
27798
27799 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
27800
27801 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
27802
27803 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
27804
27805 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
27806
27807 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
27808
27809 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
27810
27811 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
27812
27813 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
27814
27815 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
27816
27817 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
27818
27819 </ul></li>
27820
27821 <li>2011
27822 <ul>
27823
27824 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
27825
27826 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
27827
27828 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
27829
27830 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
27831
27832 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
27833
27834 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
27835
27836 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
27837
27838 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
27839
27840 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
27841
27842 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
27843
27844 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
27845
27846 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
27847
27848 </ul></li>
27849
27850 <li>2010
27851 <ul>
27852
27853 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
27854
27855 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
27856
27857 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
27858
27859 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
27860
27861 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
27862
27863 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
27864
27865 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
27866
27867 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
27868
27869 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
27870
27871 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
27872
27873 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
27874
27875 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
27876
27877 </ul></li>
27878
27879 <li>2009
27880 <ul>
27881
27882 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
27883
27884 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
27885
27886 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
27887
27888 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
27889
27890 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
27891
27892 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
27893
27894 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
27895
27896 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
27897
27898 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
27899
27900 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
27901
27902 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
27903
27904 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
27905
27906 </ul></li>
27907
27908 <li>2008
27909 <ul>
27910
27911 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
27912
27913 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
27914
27915 </ul></li>
27916
27917 </ul>
27918
27919
27920
27921 <h2>Tags</h2>
27922 <ul>
27923
27924  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
27925
27926  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
27927
27928  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
27929
27930  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
27931
27932  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (9)</a></li>
27933
27934  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (16)</a></li>
27935
27936  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
27937
27938  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
27939
27940  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (145)</a></li>
27941
27942  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (158)</a></li>
27943
27944  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
27945
27946  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (16)</a></li>
27947
27948  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (23)</a></li>
27949
27950  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
27951
27952  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (339)</a></li>
27953
27954  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (23)</a></li>
27955
27956  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
27957
27958  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (29)</a></li>
27959
27960  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (9)</a></li>
27961
27962  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (18)</a></li>
27963
27964  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/h264">h264 (20)</a></li>
27965
27966  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (42)</a></li>
27967
27968  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (15)</a></li>
27969
27970  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (20)</a></li>
27971
27972  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
27973
27974  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
27975
27976  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lsdvd">lsdvd (2)</a></li>
27977
27978  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
27979
27980  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
27981
27982  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (39)</a></li>
27983
27984  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nice free software">nice free software (9)</a></li>
27985
27986  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (287)</a></li>
27987
27988  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (185)</a></li>
27989
27990  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (27)</a></li>
27991
27992  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
27993
27994  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (63)</a></li>
27995
27996  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (99)</a></li>
27997
27998  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
27999
28000  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
28001
28002  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
28003
28004  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (3)</a></li>
28005
28006  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (10)</a></li>
28007
28008  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
28009
28010  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (5)</a></li>
28011
28012  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
28013
28014  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (52)</a></li>
28015
28016  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
28017
28018  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (5)</a></li>
28019
28020  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (50)</a></li>
28021
28022  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (5)</a></li>
28023
28024  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (11)</a></li>
28025
28026  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (47)</a></li>
28027
28028  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (2)</a></li>
28029
28030  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/usenix">usenix (2)</a></li>
28031
28032  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
28033
28034  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (59)</a></li>
28035
28036  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
28037
28038  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (40)</a></li>
28039
28040 </ul>
28041
28042
28043     </div>
28044     <p style="text-align: right">
28045  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
28046 </p>
28047
28048   </body>
28049 </html>