blog/archive/2010/09/index.html

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   5   <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: entries from September 2010</title>
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  13   <h1>
  14        <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
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  16   </h1>
  17
  18  </div>
  19
  20  <p>Entries from September 2010.</p>
  21
  22
  23 <div class="entry">
  24  <div class="title">
  25  <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>
  26  </div>
  27  <div class="date">
  28   2010-09-01 21:00
  29  </div>
  30
  31  <div class="body">
  32
  33 <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
  34 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
  35 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
  36 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
  37 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
  38 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
  39 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
  40 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
  41 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
  42 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
  43 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
  44 drive around.</p>
  45
  46 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
  47 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
  48
  49 <p><pre>
  50 use Spykee;
  51 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
  52 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
  53 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
  54 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
  55 $spykee->left();
  56 sleep 2;
  57 $spykee->right();
  58 sleep 2;
  59 $spykee->forward();
  60 sleep 2;
  61 $spykee->back();
  62 sleep 2;
  63 $spykee->stop();
  64 </pre></p>
  65
  66 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
  67 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
  68 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
  69 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
  70 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
  71 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
  72 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
  73 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
  74 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
  75 going. :).</p>
  76
  77 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
  78 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
  79 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
  80 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
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  86
  87   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>.
  88
  89  </div>
  90 </div>
  91  <div class="padding"></div>
  92
  93 <div class="entry">
  94  <div class="title">
  95  <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>
  96  </div>
  97  <div class="date">
  98   2010-09-04 10:10
  99  </div>
 100
 101  <div class="body">
 102
 103 <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
 104 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
 105 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
 106 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
 107 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
 108 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
 109 installed.</p>
 110
 111 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
 112 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
 113 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
 114 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
 115 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
 116 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
 117 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
 118 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
 119 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
 120
 121 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
 122 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
 123 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
 124 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
 125 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
 126 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
 127 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
 128 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
 129 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
 130 pages they want to visit.</p>
 131
 132 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
 133 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
 134 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
 135 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
 136 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
 137 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
 138 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
 139 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
 140 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
 141 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
 142 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
 143
 144  </div>
 145  <div class="tags">
 146
 147
 148
 149   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>.
 150
 151  </div>
 152 </div>
 153  <div class="padding"></div>
 154
 155  <p style="text-align: right;"><a href="09.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14"></a></p>
 156
 157
 158
 159 <div id="sidebar">
 160
 161 <h2>Archive</h2>
 162 <ul>
 163
 164 <li>2010
 165 <ul>
 166
 167 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 168
 169 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
 170
 171 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
 172
 173 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
 174
 175 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 176
 177 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
 178
 179 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
 180
 181 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
 182
 183 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (2)</a></li>
 184
 185 </ul></li>
 186
 187 <li>2009
 188 <ul>
 189
 190 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
 191
 192 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
 193
 194 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
 195
 196 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
 197
 198 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 199
 200 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
 201
 202 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
 203
 204 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 205
 206 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
 207
 208 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 209
 210 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 211
 212 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 213
 214 </ul></li>
 215
 216 <li>2008
 217 <ul>
 218
 219 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
 220
 221 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 222
 223 </ul></li>
 224
 225 </ul>
 226
 227
 228
 229 <h2>Tags</h2>
 230 <ul>
 231
 232  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (11)</a></li>
 233
 234  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
 235
 236  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
 237
 238  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (10)</a></li>
 239
 240  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (36)</a></li>
 241
 242  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (44)</a></li>
 243
 244  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (60)</a></li>
 245
 246  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (1)</a></li>
 247
 248  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (8)</a></li>
 249
 250  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (3)</a></li>
 251
 252  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
 253
 254  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (2)</a></li>
 255
 256  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
 257
 258  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (6)</a></li>
 259
 260  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (77)</a></li>
 261
 262  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (101)</a></li>
 263
 264  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (14)</a></li>
 265
 266  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (16)</a></li>
 267
 268  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (10)</a></li>
 269
 270  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (3)</a></li>
 271
 272  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
 273
 274  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (14)</a></li>
 275
 276  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (3)</a></li>
 277
 278  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (13)</a></li>
 279
 280  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (1)</a></li>
 281
 282  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (11)</a></li>
 283
 284  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (1)</a></li>
 285
 286  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (8)</a></li>
 287
 288 </ul>
 289
 290 </div>
 291 </body>
 292 </html>