blog/archive/2013/12/12.rss

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   4                 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from December 2013</title>
   5                 <description>Entries from December 2013</description>
   6                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
   7
   8
   9         <item>
  10                 <title>Dugnadsnett for alle stiller på Oslo Maker Faire i januar 2014</title>
  11                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnadsnett_for_alle_stiller_p__Oslo_Maker_Faire_i_januar_2014.html</link>
  12                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnadsnett_for_alle_stiller_p__Oslo_Maker_Faire_i_januar_2014.html</guid>
  13                 <pubDate>Tue, 10 Dec 2013 19:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
  14                 <description>&lt;p&gt;Helga 18. og 19. januar 2014 arrangeres
  15 &lt;a href=&quot;http://makerfaireoslo.no/no/program/dugnadsnett&quot;&gt;Oslo Maker
  16 Faire&lt;/a&gt;, og &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dugnadsnett.no/&quot;&gt;Dugnadsnett for
  17 alle&lt;/a&gt; har fått plass!  Planen er å ha et bord med en plakat der vi
  18 forteller om hva Dugnadsnett for alle er for noe, og et lite verksted
  19 der vi hjelper folk som er interessert i å få opp sin egen mesh-node.
  20 Jeg gleder meg til å se hvordan prosjektet blir mottatt der.&lt;/p&gt;
  21
  22 &lt;p&gt;Målet med dugnadsnett for alle i Oslo er å få på plass et datanett
  23 for kommunikasjon ved hjelp av radio-repeaterstasjoner (kalt
  24 mesh-noder) som gjør at en kan direkte kommunisere med slekt, venner
  25 og bekjente i Oslo via andre som deltar i dugnadsnettet, samt gjøre
  26 det mulig komme ut på internett via dugnadsnettet.  Første delmål er å
  27 kunne sende SMS-meldinger vha. IP-telefoni løsningen
  28 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.servalproject.org/&quot;&gt;Serval project&lt;/a&gt; mellom
  29 deltagerne i Dugnadsnett for alle i Oslo.  Formålet er å ta tilbake
  30 kontrollen over egen nett-infrastruktur og gjøre det dyrere å bedrive
  31 massiv innsamling av informasjon om borgernes bruk av datanett.&lt;/p&gt;
  32
  33 &lt;p&gt;Høres dette interessant ut?  Bli med på prosjektet, fortell oss
  34 hvor du kunne tenke deg å sette opp en radio-repeater (slik at folk i
  35 nærheten kan finne hverandre ved hjelp av
  36 &lt;a href=&quot;http://flynor.net/mesh/mesh.php&quot;&gt;kartet over planlagte og
  37 eksisterende radio-repeatere&lt;/A&gt;), bli med på epostlisten
  38 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/dugnadsnett&quot;&gt;dugnadsnett
  39 (at) nuug.no&lt;/a&gt; og stikk innom
  40 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.freenode.net/#dugnadsnett.no&quot;&gt;IRC-kanalen
  41 #dugnadsnett.no&lt;/a&gt;.  Så langt er det planlagt over 40
  42 radio-repeatere, med VPN-forbindelser via Internet for å la de delene
  43 av nettet som ikke når hverandre via radio kunne snakke med hverandre
  44 likevel.&lt;/p&gt;
  45 </description>
  46         </item>
  47
  48         <item>
  49                 <title>Debian Edu interview: Klaus Knopper</title>
  50                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Klaus_Knopper.html</link>
  51                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Klaus_Knopper.html</guid>
  52                 <pubDate>Fri, 6 Dec 2013 09:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
  53                 <description>&lt;p&gt;It has been a while since I managed to publish the last interview,
  54 but the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu /
  55 Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt; community is still going strong, and yesterday we even
  56 had a new school administrator show up on
  57 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu&quot;&gt;#debian-edu&lt;/a&gt; to share
  58 his success story with installing Debian Edu at their school.  This
  59 time I have been able to get some helpful comments from the creator of
  60 Knoppix, Klaus Knopper, who was involved in a Skolelinux project in
  61 Germany a few years ago.&lt;/p&gt;
  62
  63 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Who are you, and how do you spend your days?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  64
  65 &lt;p&gt;I am Klaus Knopper.  I have a master degree in electrical
  66 engineering, and is currently professor in information management at
  67 the university of applied sciences Kaiserslautern / Germany and
  68 freelance Open Source software developer and consultant.&lt;/p&gt;
  69
  70 &lt;p&gt;All of this is pretty much of the work I spend my days with. Apart
  71 from teaching, I&#39;m also conducting some more or less experimental
  72 projects like the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.knoppix.org&quot;&gt;Knoppix GNU/Linux live
  73 system&lt;/a&gt; (Debian-based like Skolelinux),
  74 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html&quot;&gt;ADRIANE&lt;/a&gt;
  75 (a blind-friendly talking desktop system) and
  76 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.knopper.net/linbo/index-en.html&quot;&gt;LINBO&lt;/a&gt;
  77 (Linux-based network boot console, a fast remote install and repair
  78 system supporting various operating systems).&lt;/p&gt;
  79
  80 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
  81 project?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  82
  83 &lt;p&gt;The credit for this have to go to Kurt Gramlich, who is the German
  84 coordinator for Skolelinux.  We were looking for an all-in-one open
  85 source community-supported distribution for schools, and Kurt
  86 introduced us to Skolelinux for this purpose.&lt;/p&gt;
  87
  88 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
  89 Edu?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  90
  91 &lt;ul&gt;
  92   &lt;li&gt;Quick installation,&lt;/li&gt;
  93   &lt;li&gt;works (almost) out of the box,&lt;/li&gt;
  94   &lt;li&gt;contains many useful software packages for teaching and learning,&lt;/li&gt;
  95   &lt;li&gt;is a purely community-based distro and not controlled by a
  96     single company,&lt;/li&gt;
  97   &lt;li&gt;has a large number of supporters and teachers who share their
  98     experience and problem solutions.&lt;/li&gt;
  99 &lt;/ul&gt;
 100
 101 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 102 Edu?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 103
 104 &lt;ul&gt;
 105   &lt;li&gt;Skolelinux is - as we had to learn - not easily upgradable to
 106   the next version.  Opposed to its genuine Debian base, upgrading to
 107   a new version means a full new installation from scratch to get it
 108   working again reliably.
 109
 110   &lt;li&gt;Skolelinux is based on Debian/stable, and therefore always a
 111   little outdated in terms of program versions compared to Edubuntu or
 112   similar educational Linux distros, which rather use Debian/testing
 113   as their base.
 114
 115   &lt;li&gt;Skolelinux has some very self-opinionated and stubborn default
 116   configuration which in my opinion adds unnecessary complexity and is
 117   not always suitable for a schools needs, the preset network
 118   configuration is actually a core definition feature of Skolelinux
 119   and not easy to change, so schools sometimes have to change their
 120   network configuration to make it &quot;Skolelinux-compatible&quot;.
 121
 122   &lt;li&gt;Some proposed extensions, which were made available as
 123   contribution, like secure examination mode and lecture material
 124   distribution and collection, were not accepted into the mainline
 125   Skolelinux development and are now not easy to maintain in the
 126   future because of Skolelinux somewhat undeterministic update
 127   schemes.&lt;/li&gt;
 128
 129   &lt;li&gt;Skolelinux has only a very tiny number of base developers
 130   compared to Debian.&lt;/li&gt;
 131
 132 &lt;/ul&gt;
 133
 134 &lt;p&gt;For these reasons and experience from our project, I would now
 135 rather consider using plain Debian for schools next time, until
 136 Skolelinux is more closely integrated into Debian and becomes
 137 upgradeable without reinstallation.&lt;/p&gt;
 138
 139 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Which free software do you use daily?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 140
 141 &lt;p&gt;GNU/Linux with LXDE desktop, bash for interactive dialog and
 142 programming, texlive for documentation and correspondence,
 143 occasionally LibreOffice for document format conversion. Various
 144 programming languages for teaching.&lt;/p&gt;
 145
 146 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 147 get schools to use free software?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 148
 149 &lt;p&gt;Strong arguments are&lt;/p&gt;
 150
 151 &lt;ul&gt;
 152
 153   &lt;li&gt;Knowledge is free, and so should be methods and tools for
 154     teaching and learning.&lt;/li&gt;
 155
 156   &lt;li&gt;Students can learn with and use the same software at school, at
 157     home, and at their working place without running into license or
 158     conversion problems.&lt;/li&gt;
 159
 160   &lt;li&gt;Closed source or proprietary software hides knowledge rather
 161     than exposing it, and proprietary software vendors try to bind
 162     customers to certain products.  But teachers need to teach
 163     science, not products.&lt;/li&gt;
 164
 165   &lt;li&gt;If you have everything you for daily work as open source, what
 166     would you need proprietary software for?&lt;/li&gt;
 167
 168 &lt;/ul&gt;
 169 </description>
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