1 <?xml version=
"1.0" encoding=
"utf-8"?>
2 <rss version='
2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/
1.0/' xmlns:
atom=
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4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen
</title>
5 <description></description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/
</link>
7 <atom:link href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel=
"self" type=
"application/rss+xml" />
10 <title>Browser plugin for SPICE (spice-xpi) uploaded to Debian
</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html
</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Browser_plugin_for_SPICE__spice_xpi__uploaded_to_Debian.html
</guid>
13 <pubDate>Fri,
1 Nov
2013 11:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
14 <description><p
><a href=
"http://www.spice-space.org/
">The SPICE protocol
</a
> for
15 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
16 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
17 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
18 missing in Debian. The
<a href=
"http://bugs.debian.org/
668284">request
19 for a package
</a
> was from
2012-
04-
10 with no progress since
20 2013-
04-
01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
21 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
22 repository to get a package I could use. I would very much like
23 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
24 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
25 NEW. I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.
</p
>
27 <p
>The source is now available from
28 <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
>
33 <title>Teaching vmdebootstrap to create Raspberry Pi SD card images
</title>
34 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html
</link>
35 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Teaching_vmdebootstrap_to_create_Raspberry_Pi_SD_card_images.html
</guid>
36 <pubDate>Sun,
27 Oct
2013 17:
00:
00 +
0100</pubDate>
37 <description><p
>The
38 <a href=
"http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html
">vmdebootstrap
</a
>
39 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images. It
40 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
41 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
42 stick. Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
43 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi
">Raspberry Pi
</a
>, as part
44 of a plan to simplify the build system for
45 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">the FreedomBox
46 project
</a
>. The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
47 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
48 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
49 Raspberry Pi.
</p
>
51 <p
>Armed with the knowledge on how to build
"foreign
" (aka non-native
52 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
53 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
54 Debian laptop. I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
55 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
56 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html
">Debian
57 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi
</a
>. First, the
58 <tt
>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler
</tt
> option tell vmdebootstrap to
59 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
60 generated chroot before running the second stage. This allow
61 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host. Next I added
62 two new options
<tt
>--bootsize size
</tt
> and
<tt
>--boottype
63 fstype
</tt
> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
64 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
65 partition for the /boot/ stuff. I also added a
<tt
>--variant
66 variant
</tt
> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
67 Debian base system packages installed. Finally, I added an option
68 <tt
>--no-extlinux
</tt
> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
69 as a boot loader. It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
70 most other non-x86 architectures. The changes were accepted by the
71 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
73 <a href=
"http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/
">the
74 upstream project page
</a
>.
</p
>
76 <p
>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
77 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
78 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
83 set -e # Exit on first error
84 rootdir=
"$
1"
85 cd
"$rootdir
"
86 cat
&lt;
&lt;EOF
> etc/apt/sources.list
87 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
89 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi. This
90 # install a kernel somewhere too.
91 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
92 -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
93 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
94 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
95 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
96 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
97 </pre
></p
>
99 <p
>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
100 to build the image:
</p
>
103 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
106 --distribution jessie \
107 --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
116 --root-password raspberry \
117 --hostname raspberrypi \
118 --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
119 --customize `pwd`/customize \
123 --package ca-certificates \
126 </pre
></p
>
128 <p
>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
129 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
130 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
131 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant. I really wish there was a way to
132 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
133 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
134 using a non-free binary blob.
</p
>
136 <p
>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
137 probably a few others installed. I have not checked the complete
138 build dependency list.
</p
>
140 <p
>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
141 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
142 optimized for that use. So the images created will be a bit slower
143 than
<a href=
"http://www.raspbian.org/
">Raspbian
</a
> based images.
</p
>
148 <title>Det er jo makta som er mest sårbar ved massiv overvåkning av Internett
</title>
149 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Det_er_jo_makta_som_er_mest_s_rbar_ved_massiv_overv_kning_av_Internett.html
</link>
150 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Det_er_jo_makta_som_er_mest_s_rbar_ved_massiv_overv_kning_av_Internett.html
</guid>
151 <pubDate>Sat,
26 Oct
2013 20:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
152 <description><p
>De siste måneders eksponering av
153 <a href=
"http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/Her-er-Edvard-Snowdens-mest-omtalte-avsloringer-
7351734.html
">den
154 totale overvåkningen som foregår i den vestlige verden dokumenterer
155 hvor sårbare vi er
</a
>. Men det slår meg at de som er mest sårbare
156 for dette, myndighetspersoner på alle nivåer, neppe har innsett at de
157 selv er de mest interessante personene å lage profiler på, for å kunne
158 påvirke dem.
</p
>
160 <p
>For å ta et lite eksempel: Stortingets nettsted,
161 <a href=
"http://www.stortinget.no/
">www.stortinget.no
</a
> (og
163 <a href=
"http://data.stortinget.no/
">data.stortinget.no
</a
>),
164 inneholder informasjon om det som foregår på Stortinget, og jeg antar
165 de største brukerne av informasjonen der er representanter og
166 rådgivere på Stortinget. Intet overraskende med det. Det som derimot
167 er mer skjult er at Stortingets nettsted bruker
168 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Analytics
">Google
169 Analytics
</a
>, hvilket gjør at enhver som besøker nettsidene der også
170 rapporterer om besøket via Internett-linjer som passerer Sverige,
171 England og videre til USA. Det betyr at informasjon om ethvert besøk
172 på stortingets nettsider kan snappes opp av svensk, britisk og USAs
173 etterretningsvesen. De kan dermed holde et øye med hvilke
174 Stortingssaker stortingsrepresentantene synes er interessante å sjekke
175 ut, og hvilke sider rådgivere og andre på stortinget synes er
176 interessant å besøke, når de gjør det og hvilke andre representanter
177 som sjekker de samme sidene omtrent samtidig. Stortingets bruk av
178 Google Analytics gjør det dermed enkelt for utenlands etteretning å
179 spore representantenes aktivitet og interesse. Hvis noen av
180 representantene bruker Google Mail eller noen andre tjenestene som
181 krever innlogging, så vil det være enda enklere å finne ut nøyaktig
182 hvilke personer som bruker hvilke nettlesere og dermed knytte
183 informasjonen opp til enkeltpersoner på Stortinget.
</p
>
185 <p
>Og jo flere nettsteder som bruker Google Analytics, jo bedre
186 oversikt over stortingsrepresentantenes lesevaner og interesse blir
187 tilgjengelig for svensk, britisk og USAs etterretning. Hva de kan
188 bruke den informasjonen til overlater jeg til leseren å undres
194 <title>A Raspberry Pi based batman-adv Mesh network node
</title>
195 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html
</link>
196 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html
</guid>
197 <pubDate>Mon,
21 Oct
2013 11:
40:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
198 <description><p
>The last few days I have been experimenting with
199 <a href=
"http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki
">the
200 batman-adv mesh technology
</a
>. I want to gain some experience to see
201 if it will fit
<a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">the
202 Freedombox project
</a
>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
203 mesh network around the park where I live. Batman-adv is a layer
2
204 mesh system (
"ethernet
" in other words), where the mesh network appear
205 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.
</p
>
207 <p
>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
208 around, but I
've been unable to get them working with batman-adv. So
209 instead, I started playing with a
210 <a href=
"http://www.raspberrypi.org/
">Raspberry Pi
</a
>, and tried to
211 get it working as a mesh node. My idea is to use it to create a mesh
212 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
213 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
214 network. This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
215 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
216 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh. This in turn is useful for
217 Android phones using
<a href=
"http://servalproject.org/
">the Serval
218 Project
</a
> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
219 phone and message each other for free. The reason is that Android
220 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
221 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted. But if
222 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
223 every client on the local network.
</p
>
225 <p
>To get this working, I
've created a debian package
226 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node
">meshfx-node
</a
>
228 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
">build-rpi-mesh-node
</a
>
229 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image. I
'm using Debian Jessie (and
230 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
231 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
232 image to get it booting, but I
'll ignore that for now. Also, as
233 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
234 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit. I hope
235 the routing performance isn
't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
238 <p
>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
239 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:
</p
>
242 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
243 https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
244 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node
> build.log
2>&1
245 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=
1M
247 </pre
></p
>
249 <p
>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
250 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node. At least it does for
251 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
252 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
253 <a href=
"http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html
">an
254 earlier blog post about this mesh testing
</a
>.
</p
>
256 <p
>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either. I bought
257 everything over the counter in shops nearby. If I had ordered online
258 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:
</p
>
260 <p
><table
>
262 <tr
><th
>Supplier
</th
><th
>Model
</th
><th
>NOK
</th
></tr
>
263 <tr
><td
>Teknikkmagasinet
</td
><td
>Raspberry Pi model B
</td
><td
>349.90</td
></tr
>
264 <tr
><td
>Teknikkmagasinet
</td
><td
>Raspberry Pi type B case
</td
><td
>99.90</td
></tr
>
265 <tr
><td
>Lefdal
</td
><td
>Jensen Air:Link
25150</td
><td
>295.-
</td
></tr
>
266 <tr
><td
>Clas Ohlson
</td
><td
>Kingston
16 GB SD card
</td
><td
>199.-
</td
></tr
>
267 <tr
><td
>Total cost
</td
><td
></td
><td
>943.80</td
></tr
>
269 </table
></p
>
271 <p
>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
272 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the
1th
273 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
274 play-node I use to develop the image building script. And some times
275 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it. I look forward
276 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
277 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)
</p
>
282 <title>Perl library to control the Spykee robot moved to github
</title>
283 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html
</link>
284 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Perl_library_to_control_the_Spykee_robot_moved_to_github.html
</guid>
285 <pubDate>Sat,
19 Oct
2013 10:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
286 <description><p
>Back in
2010, I created a Perl library to talk to
287 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee
">the Spykee robot
</a
>
288 (with two belts, wifi, USB and Linux) and made it available from my
289 web page. Today I concluded that it should move to a site that is
290 easier to use to cooperate with others, and moved it to github. If
291 you got a Spykee robot, you might want to check out
292 <a href=
"https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/libspykee-perl
">the
293 libspykee-perl github repository
</a
>.
</p
>
298 <title>Good causes: Debian Outreach Program for Women, EFF documenting the spying and Open access in Norway
</title>
299 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html
</link>
300 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Good_causes__Debian_Outreach_Program_for_Women__EFF_documenting_the_spying_and_Open_access_in_Norway.html
</guid>
301 <pubDate>Tue,
15 Oct
2013 21:
30:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
302 <description><p
>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
303 wider attention. I recommend signing and donating to each one of
306 <p
>Via
<a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/
2013/
18/
">Debian
307 Project News for
2013-
10-
14</a
> I came across the Outreach Program for
308 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
309 more women involved in free software. One debian sponsor has offered
310 to match
<a href=
"http://debian.ch/opw2013
">any donation done to Debian
311 earmarked
</a
> for this initiative. I donated a few minutes ago, and
312 hope you will to. :)
</p
>
314 <p
>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
315 create
<a href=
"https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos
">video
316 documentaries about the excessive spying
</a
> on every Internet user that
317 take place these days, and their need to fund the work. I
've already
318 donated. Are you next?
</p
>
320 <p
>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
321 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
322 statement under the heading
323 <a href=
"http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/
">Bloggers United for Open
324 Access
</a
> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
325 Norwegian government. So far
499 signatures. I hope you will sign it
331 <title>Oslo community mesh network - with NUUG and Hackeriet at Hausmania
</title>
332 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html
</link>
333 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html
</guid>
334 <pubDate>Fri,
11 Oct
2013 14:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
335 <description><p
>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
336 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
337 areas, depending on the radio technology used. Normal wifi equipment
338 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
339 successful examples like
340 <a href=
"http://www.freifunk.net/
">Freifunk
</a
> and
341 <a href=
"http://www.awmn.net/
">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network
</a
>
343 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece
">wikipedia
344 for a large list
</a
>) around the globe. To give you an idea how it
345 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
346 can be seen from their
347 <a href=
"http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html
">dynamically
348 updated node graph and map
</a
>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
349 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
350 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
351 and that is the main topic of this blog post.
</p
>
353 <p
>I
've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
354 to do it as part of my involvement with the
<a
355 href=
"http://www.nuug.no/
">NUUG member organisation
</a
> community, and
356 my recent involvement in
357 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox
">the Freedombox project
</a
>
358 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
359 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
360 when possible, given that most communication between people are
361 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
362 communication patterns). It also allow people to communicate without
363 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
364 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
365 important over the years.
</p
>
367 <p
>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
368 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
369 <a href=
"http://hackeriet.no/
">Hackeriet
</a
> at Husmania. They seem to
370 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
371 <a href=
"http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page
">the Oslo
372 Freifunk project
</a
>, but that effort is now dead and the people
373 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
374 <a href=
"http://meshfx.org/trac
">meshfx
</a
>. Unfortunately the wiki
375 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
376 reflect this fact, so the old project page can
't be updated to point to
377 the new project. A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
378 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks. I
379 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
380 speakers about this talk (from
381 <a href=
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY
">youtube
</a
>):
</p
>
383 <p
><iframe width=
"420" height=
"315" src=
"https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY
" frameborder=
"0" allowfullscreen
></iframe
></p
>
385 <p
>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
386 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
387 figure out which one would be
"best
" for some definitions of best, but
388 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
389 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
390 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
391 batman-adv for now. It sure help me to know that the very cool
392 <a href=
"http://www.servalproject.org/
">Serval project in Australia
</a
>
393 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
394 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
395 less industrialized communities. Check out this cool video presenting
397 <a href=
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
30qNfzJCQOA
">youtube
</a
>):
</p
>
399 <p
><iframe width=
"560" height=
"315" src=
"https://www.youtube.com/embed/
30qNfzJCQOA
" frameborder=
"0" allowfullscreen
></iframe
></p
>
401 <p
>According to the wikipedia page on
402 <a href=
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network
">Wireless
403 mesh network
</a
> there are around
70 competing schemes for routing
404 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
405 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
406 based community mesh networks.
</p
>
408 <p
>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer
2
409 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
410 network. One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
411 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
412 computer. The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
413 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up. A
414 <a href=
"http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide
">good
415 introduction
</a
> is available from the Open Mesh project. These are
416 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:
</p
>
418 <p
><table
>
419 <tr
><th
>Setting
</th
><th
>Value
</th
></tr
>
420 <tr
><td
>Protocol / kernel module
</td
><td
>batman-adv
</td
></tr
>
421 <tr
><td
>ESSID
</td
><td
>meshfx@hackeriet
</td
></tr
>
422 <td
>Channel / Frequency
</td
><td
>11 /
2462</td
></tr
>
423 <td
>Cell ID
</td
><td
>02:BA:
00:
00:
00:
01</td
>
424 </table
></p
>
426 <p
>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
427 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers. (See a nice post from
429 "<a href=
"http://tiebing.blogspot.no/
2009/
12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html
">Information
430 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!
</a
>
431 for details.) When these settings are activated and you have some
432 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
433 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
434 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)
</p
>
436 <p
>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
437 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
438 firmware supporting batman-adv. If anyone know how to use that old
439 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.
</p
>
441 <p
>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
442 us on IRC, either channel
443 <a href=
"irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace
">#oslohackerspace
</a
>
444 or
<a href=
"irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug
">#nuug
</a
> on
445 irc.freenode.net.
</p
>
447 <p
>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
448 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
449 and Innovation called
450 <a href=
"http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-
2008.pdf
">The
451 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks
</a
> and elsewhere
452 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
453 Grünerløkka in Oslo. So mesh networks are also interesting for
454 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
455 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
456 know have closed down the experiment. Perhaps Telenor or others would
457 be interested in a cooperation?
</p
>
459 <p
><strong
>Update
2013-
10-
12</strong
>: I was just
460 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/
2013-October/
005900.html
">told
461 by the Serval project developers
</a
> that they no longer use
462 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
463 mesh system.
</p
>
468 <title>Skolelinux / Debian Edu
7.1 install and overview video from Marcelo Salvador
</title>
469 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_7_1_install_and_overview_video_from_Marcelo_Salvador.html
</link>
470 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_7_1_install_and_overview_video_from_Marcelo_Salvador.html
</guid>
471 <pubDate>Tue,
8 Oct
2013 17:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
472 <description><p
>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
473 Salvador had published a
474 <a href=
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc
">video on
475 Youtube
</a
> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
476 Skolelinux profile. This is the profile intended for use at home or
477 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
478 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
479 in other word a single user machine). The result is
11 minutes long,
480 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
481 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
482 showing the
<a href=
"http://www.zygotebody.com/
">Zygote Body
3D model
483 of the human body
</a
>, but I guess he did not know about those or find
484 other programs more interesting. :) And the video do not show the
485 advantages I believe is one of the most valuable featuers in Debian
486 Edu, its central school server making it possible to run hundreds of
487 computers without hard drives by installing one central
488 <a href=
"http://www.ltsp.org/
">LTSP server
</a
>.
</p
>
490 <p
>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:
</p
>
492 <iframe width=
"420" height=
"315" src=
"http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc
" frameborder=
"0" allowfullscreen
></iframe
>
494 <p
>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux? Please let
495 me know. :)
</p
>
500 <title>Finally, Debian Edu Wheezy is released today!
</title>
501 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html
</link>
502 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html
</guid>
503 <pubDate>Sun,
29 Sep
2013 10:
20:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
504 <description><p
>A few hours ago, the announcement for the first stable release of
505 Debian Edu Wheezy went out from the Debian publicity team. The
506 complete announcement text can be found at
507 <a href=
"http://www.debian.org/News/
2013/
20130928">the Debian News
508 section
</a
>, translated to several languages. Please check it out.
</p
>
510 <p
>There is one minor known problem that we will fix very soon. One
511 can not install a amd64 Thin Client Server using PXE, as the /var/
512 partition is too small. A workaround is to extend the partition (use
513 lvresize + resize2fs in tty
2 while installing).
</p
>
518 <title>Videos about the Freedombox project - for inspiration and learning
</title>
519 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html
</link>
520 <guid isPermaLink=
"true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Videos_about_the_Freedombox_project___for_inspiration_and_learning.html
</guid>
521 <pubDate>Fri,
27 Sep
2013 14:
10:
00 +
0200</pubDate>
522 <description><p
>The
<a href=
"http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/
">Freedombox
523 project
</a
> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
524 vision, ideas and solution several places. Here is a little
525 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.
</p
>
529 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA
">FreedomBox -
530 2,
5 minute marketing film
</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
532 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE
">Eben Moglen
533 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news
2011</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
535 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g
">Eben Moglen -
536 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
537 Web
2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting
2010</a
>
540 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE
">Fosdem
2011
541 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox
</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
543 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
9bDDUyJSQ9s
">Presentation of
544 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz
2011</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
546 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s
"> Freedombox -
547 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
548 York City in
2012</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
550 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck
">Introduction
551 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in
2012</a
>
554 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ
">Freedom, Out
555 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat,
2012</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
557 <li
><a href=
"https://archive.fosdem.org/
2013/schedule/event/freedombox/
">Freedombox
558 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem
2013</a
> (FOSDEM)
</li
>
560 <li
><a href=
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg
">What is the
561 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
562 2013</a
> (Youtube)
</li
>
566 <p
>A larger list is available from
567 <a href=
"https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations
">the
568 Freedombox Wiki
</a
>.
</p
>
570 <p
>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
571 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
572 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
573 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
574 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
575 pending in NEW. The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
576 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload. Join
577 us on
<a href=
"irc://irc.debian.org:
6667/%
23freedombox
">IRC
578 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)
</a
> and
579 <a href=
"http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
">the
580 mailing list
</a
> if you want to help make this vision come true.
</p
>