blog/tags/english/index.html

   1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   2           "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
   3 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr">
   4   <head>
   5     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Entries Tagged english</title>
   7     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/style.css" />
   8     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/vim.css" />
   9     <link rel="alternate" title="RSS Feed" href="english.rss" type="application/rss+xml" />
  10   </head>
  11   <body>
  12     <div class="title">
  13  <h1>
  14      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  15
  16  </h1>
  17
  18 </div>
  19
  20
  21     <h3>Entries tagged "english".</h3>
  22
  23     <div class="entry">
  24       <div class="title">
  25         <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>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         13th November 2013
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>Today NUUG and Hackeriet announced
  32 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Bli_med___bygge_dugnadsnett_for_alle_i_Oslo.shtml">our
  33 plans to join forces and create a wireless community network in
  34 Oslo</a>.  The workshop to help people get started will take place
  35 Thursday 2013-11-28, but we already are collecting the geolocation of
  36 people joining forces to make this happen.  We have
  37 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/oslo-nodes.geojson">9
  38 locations plotted on the map</a>, but we will need more before we have
  39 a connected mesh spread across Oslo.  If this sound interesting to
  40 you, please join us at the workshop.  If you are too impatient to wait
  41 15 days, please join us on the IRC channel
  42 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug">#nuug on irc.freenode.net</a>
  43 right away. :)</p>
  44
  45       </div>
  46       <div class="tags">
  47
  48
  49         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>.
  50
  51
  52       </div>
  53     </div>
  54     <div class="padding"></div>
  55
  56     <div class="entry">
  57       <div class="title">
  58         <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>
  59       </div>
  60       <div class="date">
  61         10th November 2013
  62       </div>
  63       <div class="body">
  64         <p>Continuing my research into mesh networking, I was recommended to
  65 use TP-Link 3040 and 3600 access points as mesh nodes, and the pair I
  66 bought arrived on Friday.  Here are my notes on how to set up the
  67 MR3040 as a mesh node using
  68 <a href="http://www.openwrt.org/">OpenWrt</a>.</p>
  69
  70 <p>I started by following the instructions on the OpenWRT wiki for
  71 <a href="http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-mr3040">TL-MR3040</a>,
  72 and downloaded
  73 <a href="http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin">the
  74 recommended firmware image</a>
  75 (openwrt-ar71xx-generic-tl-mr3040-v2-squashfs-factory.bin) and
  76 uploaded it into the original web interface.  The flashing went fine,
  77 and the machine was available via telnet on the ethernet port.  After
  78 logging in and setting the root password, ssh was available and I
  79 could start to set it up as a batman-adv mesh node.</p>
  80
  81 <p>I started off by reading the instructions from
  82 <a href="http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php?title=Antoine's_Research">Wireless
  83 Africa</a>, which had quite a lot of useful information, but
  84 eventually I followed the recipe from the Open Mesh wiki for
  85 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Batman-adv-openwrt-config">using
  86 batman-adv on OpenWrt</a>.  A small snag was the fact that the
  87 <tt>opkg install kmod-batman-adv</tt> command did not work as it
  88 should.  The batman-adv kernel module would fail to load because its
  89 dependency crc16 was not already loaded.  I
  90 <a href="https://dev.openwrt.org/ticket/14452">reported the bug</a> to
  91 the openwrt project and hope it will be fixed soon.  But the problem
  92 only seem to affect initial testing of batman-adv, as configuration
  93 seem to work when booting from scratch.</p>
  94
  95 <p>The setup is done using files in /etc/config/.  I did not bridge
  96 the Ethernet and mesh interfaces this time, to be able to hook up the
  97 box on my local network and log into it for configuration updates.
  98 The following files were changed and look like this after modifying
  99 them:</p>
 100
 101 <p><tt>/etc/config/network</tt></p>
 102
 103 <pre>
 104
 105 config interface 'loopback'
 106         option ifname 'lo'
 107         option proto 'static'
 108         option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
 109         option netmask '255.0.0.0'
 110
 111 config globals 'globals'
 112         option ula_prefix 'fdbf:4c12:3fed::/48'
 113
 114 config interface 'lan'
 115         option ifname 'eth0'
 116         option type 'bridge'
 117         option proto 'dhcp'
 118         option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
 119         option netmask '255.255.255.0'
 120         option hostname 'tl-mr3040'
 121         option ip6assign '60'
 122
 123 config interface 'mesh'
 124         option ifname 'adhoc0'
 125         option mtu '1528'
 126         option proto 'batadv'
 127         option mesh 'bat0'
 128 </pre>
 129
 130 <p><tt>/etc/config/wireless</tt></p>
 131 <pre>
 132
 133 config wifi-device 'radio0'
 134         option type 'mac80211'
 135         option channel '11'
 136         option hwmode '11ng'
 137         option path 'platform/ar933x_wmac'
 138         option htmode 'HT20'
 139         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-20'
 140         list ht_capab 'SHORT-GI-40'
 141         list ht_capab 'RX-STBC1'
 142         list ht_capab 'DSSS_CCK-40'
 143         option disabled '0'
 144
 145 config wifi-iface 'wmesh'
 146         option device 'radio0'
 147         option ifname 'adhoc0'
 148         option network 'mesh'
 149         option encryption 'none'
 150         option mode 'adhoc'
 151         option bssid '02:BA:00:00:00:01'
 152         option ssid 'meshfx@hackeriet'
 153 </pre>
 154 <p><tt>/etc/config/batman-adv</tt></p>
 155 <pre>
 156
 157 config 'mesh' 'bat0'
 158         option interfaces 'adhoc0'
 159         option 'aggregated_ogms'
 160         option 'ap_isolation'
 161         option 'bonding'
 162         option 'fragmentation'
 163         option 'gw_bandwidth'
 164         option 'gw_mode'
 165         option 'gw_sel_class'
 166         option 'log_level'
 167         option 'orig_interval'
 168         option 'vis_mode'
 169         option 'bridge_loop_avoidance'
 170         option 'distributed_arp_table'
 171         option 'network_coding'
 172         option 'hop_penalty'
 173
 174 # yet another batX instance
 175 # config 'mesh' 'bat5'
 176 #       option 'interfaces' 'second_mesh'
 177 </pre>
 178
 179 <p>The mesh node is now operational.  I have yet to test its range,
 180 but I hope it is good.  I have not yet tested the TP-Link 3600 box
 181 still wrapped up in plastic.</p>
 182
 183       </div>
 184       <div class="tags">
 185
 186
 187         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>.
 188
 189
 190       </div>
 191     </div>
 192     <div class="padding"></div>
 193
 194     <div class="entry">
 195       <div class="title">
 196         <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>
 197       </div>
 198       <div class="date">
 199          2nd November 2013
 200       </div>
 201       <div class="body">
 202         <p>If one of the points of switching to a new init system in Debian is
 203 <a href="http://thomas.goirand.fr/blog/?p=147">to get rid of huge
 204 init.d scripts</a>, I doubt we need to switch away from sysvinit and
 205 init.d scripts at all.  Here is an example init.d script, ie a rewrite
 206 of /etc/init.d/rsyslog:</p>
 207
 208 <p><pre>
 209 #!/lib/init/init-d-script
 210 ### BEGIN INIT INFO
 211 # Provides:          rsyslog
 212 # Required-Start:    $remote_fs $time
 213 # Required-Stop:     umountnfs $time
 214 # X-Stop-After:      sendsigs
 215 # Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
 216 # Default-Stop:      0 1 6
 217 # Short-Description: enhanced syslogd
 218 # Description:       Rsyslog is an enhanced multi-threaded syslogd.
 219 #                    It is quite compatible to stock sysklogd and can be
 220 #                    used as a drop-in replacement.
 221 ### END INIT INFO
 222 DESC="enhanced syslogd"
 223 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/rsyslogd
 224 </pre></p>
 225
 226 <p>Pretty minimalistic to me... For the record, the original sysv-rc
 227 script was 137 lines, and the above is just 15 lines, most of it meta
 228 info/comments.</p>
 229
 230 <p>How to do this, you ask?  Well, one create a new script
 231 /lib/init/init-d-script looking something like this:
 232
 233 <p><pre>
 234 #!/bin/sh
 235
 236 # Define LSB log_* functions.
 237 # Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present
 238 # and status_of_proc is working.
 239 . /lib/lsb/init-functions
 240
 241 #
 242 # Function that starts the daemon/service
 243
 244 #
 245 do_start()
 246 {
 247         # Return
 248         #   0 if daemon has been started
 249         #   1 if daemon was already running
 250         #   2 if daemon could not be started
 251         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
 252                 || return 1
 253         start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
 254                 $DAEMON_ARGS \
 255                 || return 2
 256         # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
 257         # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
 258         # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
 259 }
 260
 261 #
 262 # Function that stops the daemon/service
 263 #
 264 do_stop()
 265 {
 266         # Return
 267         #   0 if daemon has been stopped
 268         #   1 if daemon was already stopped
 269         #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
 270         #   other if a failure occurred
 271         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
 272         RETVAL="$?"
 273         [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
 274         # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
 275         # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
 276         # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
 277         # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
 278         # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
 279         # sleep for some time.
 280         start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
 281         [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
 282         # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
 283         rm -f $PIDFILE
 284         return "$RETVAL"
 285 }
 286
 287 #
 288 # Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
 289 #
 290 do_reload() {
 291         #
 292         # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
 293         # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
 294         # then implement that here.
 295         #
 296         start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
 297         return 0
 298 }
 299
 300 SCRIPTNAME=$1
 301 scriptbasename="$(basename $1)"
 302 echo "SN: $scriptbasename"
 303 if [ "$scriptbasename" != "init-d-library" ] ; then
 304     script="$1"
 305     shift
 306     . $script
 307 else
 308     exit 0
 309 fi
 310
 311 NAME=$(basename $DAEMON)
 312 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
 313
 314 # Exit if the package is not installed
 315 #[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0
 316
 317 # Read configuration variable file if it is present
 318 [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME
 319
 320 # Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
 321 . /lib/init/vars.sh
 322
 323 case "$1" in
 324   start)
 325         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
 326         do_start
 327         case "$?" in
 328                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
 329                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
 330         esac
 331         ;;
 332   stop)
 333         [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
 334         do_stop
 335         case "$?" in
 336                 0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
 337                 2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
 338         esac
 339         ;;
 340   status)
 341         status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
 342         ;;
 343   #reload|force-reload)
 344         #
 345         # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
 346         # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
 347         #
 348         #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
 349         #do_reload
 350         #log_end_msg $?
 351         #;;
 352   restart|force-reload)
 353         #
 354         # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
 355         # 'force-reload' alias
 356         #
 357         log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
 358         do_stop
 359         case "$?" in
 360           0|1)
 361                 do_start
 362                 case "$?" in
 363                         0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
 364                         1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
 365                         *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
 366                 esac
 367                 ;;
 368           *)
 369                 # Failed to stop
 370                 log_end_msg 1
 371                 ;;
 372         esac
 373         ;;
 374   *)
 375         echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
 376         exit 3
 377         ;;
 378 esac
 379
 380 :
 381 </pre></p>
 382
 383 <p>It is based on /etc/init.d/skeleton, and could be improved quite a
 384 lot.  I did not really polish the approach, so it might not always
 385 work out of the box, but you get the idea.  I did not try very hard to
 386 optimize it nor make it more robust either.</p>
 387
 388 <p>A better argument for switching init system in Debian than reducing
 389 the size of init scripts (which is a good thing to do anyway), is to
 390 get boot system that is able to handle the kernel events sensibly and
 391 robustly, and do not depend on the boot to run sequentially.  The boot
 392 and the kernel have not behaved sequentially in years.</p>
 393
 394       </div>
 395       <div class="tags">
 396
 397
 398         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>.
 399
 400
 401       </div>
 402     </div>
 403     <div class="padding"></div>
 404
 405     <div class="entry">
 406       <div class="title">
 407         <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>
 408       </div>
 409       <div class="date">
 410          1st November 2013
 411       </div>
 412       <div class="body">
 413         <p><a href="http://www.spice-space.org/">The SPICE protocol</a> for
 414 remote display access is the preferred solution with oVirt and RedHat
 415 Enterprise Virtualization, and I was sad to discover the other day
 416 that the browser plugin needed to use these systems seamlessly was
 417 missing in Debian.  The <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/668284">request
 418 for a package</a> was from 2012-04-10 with no progress since
 419 2013-04-01, so I decided to wrap up a package based on the great work
 420 from Cajus Pollmeier and put it in a collab-maint maintained git
 421 repository to get a package I could use.  I would very much like
 422 others to help me maintain the package (or just take over, I do not
 423 mind), but as no-one had volunteered so far, I just uploaded it to
 424 NEW.  I hope it will be available in Debian in a few days.</p>
 425
 426 <p>The source is now available from
 427 <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>
 428
 429       </div>
 430       <div class="tags">
 431
 432
 433         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>.
 434
 435
 436       </div>
 437     </div>
 438     <div class="padding"></div>
 439
 440     <div class="entry">
 441       <div class="title">
 442         <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>
 443       </div>
 444       <div class="date">
 445         27th October 2013
 446       </div>
 447       <div class="body">
 448         <p>The
 449 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/v/vmdebootstrap.html">vmdebootstrap</a>
 450 program is a a very nice system to create virtual machine images.  It
 451 create a image file, add a partition table, mount it and run
 452 debootstrap in the mounted directory to create a Debian system on a
 453 stick.  Yesterday, I decided to try to teach it how to make images for
 454 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/RaspberryPi">Raspberry Pi</a>, as part
 455 of a plan to simplify the build system for
 456 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the FreedomBox
 457 project</a>.  The FreedomBox project already uses vmdebootstrap for
 458 the virtualbox images, but its current build system made multistrap
 459 based system for Dreamplug images, and it is lacking support for
 460 Raspberry Pi.</p>
 461
 462 <p>Armed with the knowledge on how to build "foreign" (aka non-native
 463 architecture) chroots for Raspberry Pi, I dived into the vmdebootstrap
 464 code and adjusted it to be able to build armel images on my amd64
 465 Debian laptop.  I ended up giving vmdebootstrap five new options,
 466 allowing me to replicate the image creation process I use to make
 467 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Raspberry_Pi_based_batman_adv_Mesh_network_node.html">Debian
 468 Jessie based mesh node images for the Raspberry Pi</a>.  First, the
 469 <tt>--foreign /path/to/binfm_handler</tt> option tell vmdebootstrap to
 470 call debootstrap with --foreign and to copy the handler into the
 471 generated chroot before running the second stage.  This allow
 472 vmdebootstrap to create armel images on an amd64 host.  Next I added
 473 two new options <tt>--bootsize size</tt> and <tt>--boottype
 474 fstype</tt> to teach it to create a separate /boot/ partition with the
 475 given file system type, allowing me to create an image with a vfat
 476 partition for the /boot/ stuff.  I also added a <tt>--variant
 477 variant</tt> option to allow me to create smaller images without the
 478 Debian base system packages installed.  Finally, I added an option
 479 <tt>--no-extlinux</tt> to tell vmdebootstrap to not install extlinux
 480 as a boot loader.  It is not needed on the Raspberry Pi and probably
 481 most other non-x86 architectures.  The changes were accepted by the
 482 upstream author of vmdebootstrap yesterday and today, and is now
 483 available from
 484 <a href="http://git.liw.fi/cgi-bin/cgit/cgit.cgi/vmdebootstrap/">the
 485 upstream project page</a>.</p>
 486
 487 <p>To use it to build a Raspberry Pi image using Debian Jessie, first
 488 create a small script (the customize script) to add the non-free
 489 binary blob needed to boot the Raspberry Pi and the APT source
 490 list:</p>
 491
 492 <p><pre>
 493 #!/bin/sh
 494 set -e # Exit on first error
 495 rootdir="$1"
 496 cd "$rootdir"
 497 cat &lt;&lt;EOF > etc/apt/sources.list
 498 deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
 499 EOF
 500 # Install non-free binary blob needed to boot Raspberry Pi.  This
 501 # install a kernel somewhere too.
 502 wget https://raw.github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/master/rpi-update \
 503     -O $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
 504 chmod a+x $rootdir/usr/bin/rpi-update
 505 mkdir -p $rootdir/lib/modules
 506 touch $rootdir/boot/start.elf
 507 chroot $rootdir rpi-update
 508 </pre></p>
 509
 510 <p>Next, fetch the latest vmdebootstrap script and call it like this
 511 to build the image:</p>
 512
 513 <pre>
 514 sudo ./vmdebootstrap \
 515     --variant minbase \
 516     --arch armel \
 517     --distribution jessie \
 518     --mirror http://http.debian.net/debian \
 519     --image test.img \
 520     --size 600M \
 521     --bootsize 64M \
 522     --boottype vfat \
 523     --log-level debug \
 524     --verbose \
 525     --no-kernel \
 526     --no-extlinux \
 527     --root-password raspberry \
 528     --hostname raspberrypi \
 529     --foreign /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \
 530     --customize `pwd`/customize \
 531     --package netbase \
 532     --package git-core \
 533     --package binutils \
 534     --package ca-certificates \
 535     --package wget \
 536     --package kmod
 537 </pre></p>
 538
 539 <p>The list of packages being installed are the ones needed by
 540 rpi-update to make the image bootable on the Raspberry Pi, with the
 541 exception of netbase, which is needed by debootstrap to find
 542 /etc/hosts with the minbase variant.  I really wish there was a way to
 543 set up an Raspberry Pi using only packages in the Debian archive, but
 544 that is not possible as far as I know, because it boots from the GPU
 545 using a non-free binary blob.</p>
 546
 547 <p>The build host need debootstrap, kpartx and qemu-user-static and
 548 probably a few others installed.  I have not checked the complete
 549 build dependency list.</p>
 550
 551 <p>The resulting image will not use the hardware floating point unit
 552 on the Raspberry PI, because the armel architecture in Debian is not
 553 optimized for that use.  So the images created will be a bit slower
 554 than <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> based images.</p>
 555
 556       </div>
 557       <div class="tags">
 558
 559
 560         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>.
 561
 562
 563       </div>
 564     </div>
 565     <div class="padding"></div>
 566
 567     <div class="entry">
 568       <div class="title">
 569         <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>
 570       </div>
 571       <div class="date">
 572         21st October 2013
 573       </div>
 574       <div class="body">
 575         <p>The last few days I have been experimenting with
 576 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki">the
 577 batman-adv mesh technology</a>.  I want to gain some experience to see
 578 if it will fit <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the
 579 Freedombox project</a>, and together with my neighbors try to build a
 580 mesh network around the park where I live.  Batman-adv is a layer 2
 581 mesh system ("ethernet" in other words), where the mesh network appear
 582 as if all the mesh clients are connected to the same switch.</p>
 583
 584 <p>My hardware of choice was the Linksys WRT54GL routers I had lying
 585 around, but I've been unable to get them working with batman-adv.  So
 586 instead, I started playing with a
 587 <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a>, and tried to
 588 get it working as a mesh node.  My idea is to use it to create a mesh
 589 node which function as a switch port, where everything connected to
 590 the Raspberry Pi ethernet plug is connected (bridged) to the mesh
 591 network.  This allow me to hook a wifi base station like the Linksys
 592 WRT54GL to the mesh by plugging it into a Raspberry Pi, and allow
 593 non-mesh clients to hook up to the mesh.  This in turn is useful for
 594 Android phones using <a href="http://servalproject.org/">the Serval
 595 Project</a> voip client, allowing every one around the playground to
 596 phone and message each other for free.  The reason is that Android
 597 phones do not see ad-hoc wifi networks (they are filtered away from
 598 the GUI view), and can not join the mesh without being rooted.  But if
 599 they are connected using a normal wifi base station, they can talk to
 600 every client on the local network.</p>
 601
 602 <p>To get this working, I've created a debian package
 603 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node">meshfx-node</a>
 604 and a script
 605 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/blob/master/build-rpi-mesh-node">build-rpi-mesh-node</a>
 606 to create the Raspberry Pi boot image.  I'm using Debian Jessie (and
 607 not Raspbian), to get more control over the packages available.
 608 Unfortunately a huge binary blob need to be inserted into the boot
 609 image to get it booting, but I'll ignore that for now.  Also, as
 610 Debian lack support for the CPU features available in the Raspberry
 611 Pi, the system do not use the hardware floating point unit.  I hope
 612 the routing performance isn't affected by the lack of hardware FPU
 613 support.</p>
 614
 615 <p>To create an image, run the following with a sudo enabled user
 616 after inserting the target SD card into the build machine:</p>
 617
 618 <p><pre>
 619 % wget -O build-rpi-mesh-node \
 620     https://raw.github.com/petterreinholdtsen/meshfx-node/master/build-rpi-mesh-node
 621 % sudo bash -x ./build-rpi-mesh-node > build.log 2>&1
 622 % dd if=/root/rpi/rpi_basic_jessie_$(date +%Y%m%d).img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M
 623 %
 624 </pre></p>
 625
 626 <p>Booting with the resulting SD card on a Raspberry PI with a USB
 627 wifi card inserted should give you a mesh node.  At least it does for
 628 me with a the wifi card I am using. The default mesh settings are the
 629 ones used by the Oslo mesh project at Hackeriet, as I mentioned in
 630 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oslo_community_mesh_network___with_NUUG_and_Hackeriet_at_Hausmania.html">an
 631 earlier blog post about this mesh testing</a>.</p>
 632
 633 <p>The mesh node was not horribly expensive either.  I bought
 634 everything over the counter in shops nearby.  If I had ordered online
 635 from the lowest bidder, the price should be significantly lower:</p>
 636
 637 <p><table>
 638
 639 <tr><th>Supplier</th><th>Model</th><th>NOK</th></tr>
 640 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi model B</td><td>349.90</td></tr>
 641 <tr><td>Teknikkmagasinet</td><td>Raspberry Pi type B case</td><td>99.90</td></tr>
 642 <tr><td>Lefdal</td><td>Jensen Air:Link 25150</td><td>295.-</td></tr>
 643 <tr><td>Clas Ohlson</td><td>Kingston 16 GB SD card</td><td>199.-</td></tr>
 644 <tr><td>Total cost</td><td></td><td>943.80</td></tr>
 645
 646 </table></p>
 647
 648 <p>Now my mesh network at home consist of one laptop in the basement
 649 connected to my production network, one Raspberry Pi node on the 1th
 650 floor that can be seen by my neighbor across the park, and one
 651 play-node I use to develop the image building script.  And some times
 652 I hook up my work horse laptop to the mesh to test it.  I look forward
 653 to figuring out what kind of latency the batman-adv setup will give,
 654 and how much packet loss we will experience around the park. :)</p>
 655
 656       </div>
 657       <div class="tags">
 658
 659
 660         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>.
 661
 662
 663       </div>
 664     </div>
 665     <div class="padding"></div>
 666
 667     <div class="entry">
 668       <div class="title">
 669         <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>
 670       </div>
 671       <div class="date">
 672         19th October 2013
 673       </div>
 674       <div class="body">
 675         <p>Back in 2010, I created a Perl library to talk to
 676 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spykee">the Spykee robot</a>
 677 (with two belts, wifi, USB and Linux) and made it available from my
 678 web page.  Today I concluded that it should move to a site that is
 679 easier to use to cooperate with others, and moved it to github.  If
 680 you got a Spykee robot, you might want to check out
 681 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/libspykee-perl">the
 682 libspykee-perl github repository</a>.</p>
 683
 684       </div>
 685       <div class="tags">
 686
 687
 688         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>.
 689
 690
 691       </div>
 692     </div>
 693     <div class="padding"></div>
 694
 695     <div class="entry">
 696       <div class="title">
 697         <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>
 698       </div>
 699       <div class="date">
 700         15th October 2013
 701       </div>
 702       <div class="body">
 703         <p>The last few days I came across a few good causes that should get
 704 wider attention.  I recommend signing and donating to each one of
 705 these. :)</p>
 706
 707 <p>Via <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/18/">Debian
 708 Project News for 2013-10-14</a> I came across the Outreach Program for
 709 Women program which is a Google Summer of Code like initiative to get
 710 more women involved in free software.  One debian sponsor has offered
 711 to match <a href="http://debian.ch/opw2013">any donation done to Debian
 712 earmarked</a> for this initiative.  I donated a few minutes ago, and
 713 hope you will to. :)</p>
 714
 715 <p>And the Electronic Frontier Foundation just announced plans to
 716 create <a href="https://supporters.eff.org/donate/nsa-videos">video
 717 documentaries about the excessive spying</a> on every Internet user that
 718 take place these days, and their need to fund the work.  I've already
 719 donated.  Are you next?</p>
 720
 721 <p>For my Norwegian audience, the organisation Studentenes og
 722 Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond is collecting signatures for a
 723 statement under the heading
 724 <a href="http://saih.no/Bloggers_United/">Bloggers United for Open
 725 Access</a> for those of us asking for more focus on open access in the
 726 Norwegian government.  So far 499 signatures.  I hope you will sign it
 727 too.</p>
 728
 729       </div>
 730       <div class="tags">
 731
 732
 733         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>.
 734
 735
 736       </div>
 737     </div>
 738     <div class="padding"></div>
 739
 740     <div class="entry">
 741       <div class="title">
 742         <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>
 743       </div>
 744       <div class="date">
 745         11th October 2013
 746       </div>
 747       <div class="body">
 748         <p>Wireless mesh networks are self organising and self healing
 749 networks that can be used to connect computers across small and large
 750 areas, depending on the radio technology used.  Normal wifi equipment
 751 can be used to create home made radio networks, and there are several
 752 successful examples like
 753 <a href="http://www.freifunk.net/">Freifunk</a> and
 754 <a href="http://www.awmn.net/">Athens Wireless Metropolitan Network</a>
 755 (see
 756 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_community_networks_by_region#Greece">wikipedia
 757 for a large list</a>) around the globe.  To give you an idea how it
 758 work, check out the nice overview of the Kiel Freifunk community which
 759 can be seen from their
 760 <a href="http://freifunk.in-kiel.de/ffmap/nodes.html">dynamically
 761 updated node graph and map</a>, where one can see how the mesh nodes
 762 automatically handle routing and recover from nodes disappearing.
 763 There is also a small community mesh network group in Oslo, Norway,
 764 and that is the main topic of this blog post.</p>
 765
 766 <p>I've wanted to check out mesh networks for a while now, and hoped
 767 to do it as part of my involvement with the <a
 768 href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG member organisation</a> community, and
 769 my recent involvement in
 770 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">the Freedombox project</a>
 771 finally lead me to give mesh networks some priority, as I suspect a
 772 Freedombox should use mesh networks to connect neighbours and family
 773 when possible, given that most communication between people are
 774 between those nearby (as shown for example by research on Facebook
 775 communication patterns).  It also allow people to communicate without
 776 any central hub to tap into for those that want to listen in on the
 777 private communication of citizens, which have become more and more
 778 important over the years.</p>
 779
 780 <p>So far I have only been able to find one group of people in Oslo
 781 working on community mesh networks, over at the hack space
 782 <a href="http://hackeriet.no/">Hackeriet</a> at Husmania.  They seem to
 783 have started with some Freifunk based effort using OLSR, called
 784 <a href="http://oslo.freifunk.net/index.php?title=Main_Page">the Oslo
 785 Freifunk project</a>, but that effort is now dead and the people
 786 behind it have moved on to a batman-adv based system called
 787 <a href="http://meshfx.org/trac">meshfx</a>.  Unfortunately the wiki
 788 site for the Oslo Freifunk project is no longer possible to update to
 789 reflect this fact, so the old project page can't be updated to point to
 790 the new project.  A while back, the people at Hackeriet invited people
 791 from the Freifunk community to Oslo to talk about mesh networks.  I
 792 came across this video where Hans Jørgen Lysglimt interview the
 793 speakers about this talk (from
 794 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2Kd7CLkhSY">youtube</a>):</p>
 795
 796 <p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N2Kd7CLkhSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
 797
 798 <p>I mentioned OLSR and batman-adv, which are mesh routing protocols.
 799 There are heaps of different protocols, and I am still struggling to
 800 figure out which one would be "best" for some definitions of best, but
 801 given that the community mesh group in Oslo is so small, I believe it
 802 is best to hook up with the existing one instead of trying to create a
 803 completely different setup, and thus I have decided to focus on
 804 batman-adv for now.  It sure help me to  know that the very cool
 805 <a href="http://www.servalproject.org/">Serval project in Australia</a>
 806 is using batman-adv as their meshing technology when it create a self
 807 organizing and self healing telephony system for disaster areas and
 808 less industrialized communities.  Check out this cool video presenting
 809 that project (from
 810 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30qNfzJCQOA">youtube</a>):</p>
 811
 812 <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30qNfzJCQOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
 813
 814 <p>According to the wikipedia page on
 815 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network">Wireless
 816 mesh network</a> there are around 70 competing schemes for routing
 817 packets across mesh networks, and OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N. and
 818 B.A.T.M.A.N. advanced are protocols used by several free software
 819 based community mesh networks.</p>
 820
 821 <p>The batman-adv protocol is a bit special, as it provide layer 2
 822 (as in ethernet ) routing, allowing ipv4 and ipv6 to work on the same
 823 network.  One way to think about it is that it provide a mesh based
 824 vlan you can bridge to or handle like any other vlan connected to your
 825 computer.  The required drivers are already in the Linux kernel at
 826 least since Debian Wheezy, and it is fairly easy to set up.  A
 827 <a href="http://www.open-mesh.org/projects/batman-adv/wiki/Quick-start-guide">good
 828 introduction</a> is available from the Open Mesh project.  These are
 829 the key settings needed to join the Oslo meshfx network:</p>
 830
 831 <p><table>
 832 <tr><th>Setting</th><th>Value</th></tr>
 833 <tr><td>Protocol / kernel module</td><td>batman-adv</td></tr>
 834 <tr><td>ESSID</td><td>meshfx@hackeriet</td></tr>
 835 <td>Channel / Frequency</td><td>11 / 2462</td></tr>
 836 <td>Cell ID</td><td>02:BA:00:00:00:01</td>
 837 </table></p>
 838
 839 <p>The reason for setting ad-hoc wifi Cell ID is to work around bugs
 840 in firmware used in wifi card and wifi drivers.  (See a nice post from
 841 VillageTelco about
 842 "<a href="http://tiebing.blogspot.no/2009/12/ad-hoc-cell-splitting-re-post-original.html">Information
 843 about cell-id splitting, stuck beacons, and failed IBSS merges!</a>
 844 for details.)  When these settings are activated and you have some
 845 other mesh node nearby, your computer will be connected to the mesh
 846 network and can communicate with any mesh node that is connected to
 847 any of the nodes in your network of nodes. :)</p>
 848
 849 <p>My initial plan was to reuse my old Linksys WRT54GL as a mesh node,
 850 but that seem to be very hard, as I have not been able to locate a
 851 firmware supporting batman-adv.  If anyone know how to use that old
 852 wifi access point with batman-adv these days, please let me know.</p>
 853
 854 <p>If you find this project interesting and want to join, please join
 855 us on IRC, either channel
 856 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#oslohackerspace">#oslohackerspace</a>
 857 or <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#nuug">#nuug</a> on
 858 irc.freenode.net.</p>
 859
 860 <p>While investigating mesh networks in Oslo, I came across an old
 861 research paper from the university of Stavanger and Telenor Research
 862 and Innovation called
 863 <a href="http://folk.uio.no/paalee/publications/netrel-egeland-iswcs-2008.pdf">The
 864 reliability of wireless backhaul mesh networks</a> and elsewhere
 865 learned that Telenor have been experimenting with mesh networks at
 866 Grünerløkka in Oslo.  So mesh networks are also interesting for
 867 commercial companies, even though Telenor discovered that it was hard
 868 to figure out a good business plan for mesh networking and as far as I
 869 know have closed down the experiment.  Perhaps Telenor or others would
 870 be interested in a cooperation?</p>
 871
 872 <p><strong>Update 2013-10-12</strong>: I was just
 873 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2013-October/005900.html">told
 874 by the Serval project developers</a> that they no longer use
 875 batman-adv (but are compatible with it), but their own crypto based
 876 mesh system.</p>
 877
 878       </div>
 879       <div class="tags">
 880
 881
 882         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>.
 883
 884
 885       </div>
 886     </div>
 887     <div class="padding"></div>
 888
 889     <div class="entry">
 890       <div class="title">
 891         <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>
 892       </div>
 893       <div class="date">
 894          8th October 2013
 895       </div>
 896       <div class="body">
 897         <p>The other day I was pleased and surprised to discover that Marcelo
 898 Salvador had published a
 899 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-GgpdqgLFc">video on
 900 Youtube</a> showing how to install the standalone Debian Edu /
 901 Skolelinux profile.  This is the profile intended for use at home or
 902 on laptops that should not be integrated into the provided network
 903 services (no central home directory, no Kerberos / LDAP directory etc,
 904 in other word a single user machine).  The result is 11 minutes long,
 905 and show some user applications (seem to be rather randomly picked).
 906 Missed a few of my favorites like celestia, planets and chromium
 907 showing the <a href="http://www.zygotebody.com/">Zygote Body 3D model
 908 of the human body</a>, but I guess he did not know about those or find
 909 other programs more interesting. :) And the video do not show the
 910 advantages I believe is one of the most valuable featuers in Debian
 911 Edu, its central school server making it possible to run hundreds of
 912 computers without hard drives by installing one central
 913 <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP server</a>.</p>
 914
 915 <p>Anyway, check out the video, embedded below and linked to above:</p>
 916
 917 <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-GgpdqgLFc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 918
 919 <p>Are there other nice videos demonstrating Skolelinux?  Please let
 920 me know. :)</p>
 921
 922       </div>
 923       <div class="tags">
 924
 925
 926         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>.
 927
 928
 929       </div>
 930     </div>
 931     <div class="padding"></div>
 932
 933     <div class="entry">
 934       <div class="title">
 935         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Finally__Debian_Edu_Wheezy_is_released_today_.html">Finally, Debian Edu Wheezy is released today!</a>
 936       </div>
 937       <div class="date">
 938         29th September 2013
 939       </div>
 940       <div class="body">
 941         <p>A few hours ago, the announcement for the first stable release of
 942 Debian Edu Wheezy went out from the Debian publicity team.  The
 943 complete announcement text can be found at
 944 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130928">the Debian News
 945 section</a>, translated to several languages.  Please check it out.</p>
 946
 947 <p>There is one minor known problem that we will fix very soon.  One
 948 can not install a amd64 Thin Client Server using PXE, as the /var/
 949 partition is too small.  A workaround is to extend the partition (use
 950 lvresize + resize2fs in tty 2 while installing).</p>
 951
 952       </div>
 953       <div class="tags">
 954
 955
 956         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>.
 957
 958
 959       </div>
 960     </div>
 961     <div class="padding"></div>
 962
 963     <div class="entry">
 964       <div class="title">
 965         <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>
 966       </div>
 967       <div class="date">
 968         27th September 2013
 969       </div>
 970       <div class="body">
 971         <p>The <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox
 972 project</a> have been going on for a while, and have presented the
 973 vision, ideas and solution several places.  Here is a little
 974 collection of videos of talks and presentation of the project.</p>
 975
 976 <ul>
 977
 978 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukvUz5taxvA">FreedomBox -
 979 2,5 minute marketing film</a> (Youtube)</li>
 980
 981 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzW25QTVWsE">Eben Moglen
 982 discusses the Freedombox on CBS news 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 983
 984 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae8SZbxfE0g">Eben Moglen -
 985 Freedom in the Cloud - Software Freedom, Privacy and and Security for
 986 Web 2.0 and Cloud computing at ISOC-NY Public Meeting 2010</a>
 987 (Youtube)</li>
 988
 989 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNaIji_3xBE">Fosdem 2011
 990 Keynote by Eben Moglen presenting the Freedombox</a> (Youtube)</li>
 991
 992 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bDDUyJSQ9s">Presentation of
 993 the Freedombox by James Vasile at Elevate in Gratz 2011</a> (Youtube)</li>
 994
 995 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTmnk27g9s"> Freedombox -
 996 Discovery, Identity, and Trust by Nick Daly at Freedombox Hackfest New
 997 York City in 2012</a> (Youtube)</li>
 998
 999 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbSB4Ba7Ck">Introduction
1000 to the Freedombox at Freedombox Hackfest New York City in 2012</a>
1001 (Youtube)</li>
1002
1003 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-P2Jaeg0aQ">Freedom, Out
1004 of the Box! by Bdale Garbee at linux.conf.au Ballarat, 2012</a> (Youtube) </li>
1005
1006 <li><a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/freedombox/">Freedombox
1007 1.0 by Eben Moglen and Bdale Garbee at Fosdem 2013</a> (FOSDEM) </li>
1008
1009 <li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1LpYX2zVYg">What is the
1010 FreedomBox today by Bdale Garbee at Debconf13 in Vaumarcus
1011 2013</a> (Youtube)</li>
1012
1013 </ul>
1014
1015 <p>A larger list is available from
1016 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/TalksAndPresentations">the
1017 Freedombox Wiki</a>.</p>
1018
1019 <p>On other news, I am happy to report that Freedombox based on Debian
1020 Jessie is coming along quite well, and soon both Owncloud and using
1021 Tor should be available for testers of the Freedombox solution. :) In
1022 a few weeks I hope everything needed to test it is included in Debian.
1023 The withsqlite package is already in Debian, and the plinth package is
1024 pending in NEW.  The third and vital part of that puzzle is the
1025 metapackage/setup framework, which is still pending an upload.  Join
1026 us on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">IRC
1027 (#freedombox on irc.debian.org)</a> and
1028 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">the
1029 mailing list</a> if you want to help make this vision come true.</p>
1030
1031       </div>
1032       <div class="tags">
1033
1034
1035         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>.
1036
1037
1038       </div>
1039     </div>
1040     <div class="padding"></div>
1041
1042     <div class="entry">
1043       <div class="title">
1044         <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>
1045       </div>
1046       <div class="date">
1047         16th September 2013
1048       </div>
1049       <div class="body">
1050         <p>The third wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
1051 today.  This is the release announcement from Holger Levsen:</p>
1052
1053 <blockquote>
1054 <p>Hi,</p>
1055
1056 <p>it is my pleasure to announce the third beta release (beta 2 for
1057 short) of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
1058 Skolelinux</a> based on Debian Wheezy!</p>
1059
1060 <p>Please test these images extensivly, if no new problems are found
1061 we plan to do this final Debian Edu Wheezy release this coming
1062 weekend.  We are not aware of any major problems or blockers in beta2,
1063 if you find something, please notify us immediately!</p>
1064
1065 <p>(More about the remaining steps for the Edu Wheezy release in
1066 another mail to the edu list tonight or tomorrow...)</p>
1067
1068 <p>Noteworthy changes and software updates for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b2
1069 compared to beta1:</p>
1070
1071 <ul>
1072
1073 <li>The KDE proxy setup has been adjusted to use the provided wpad.dat. This
1074 also gets Chromium to use this proxy.</li>
1075 <li>Install kdepim-groupware with KDE desktops to make sure korganizer
1076 understand ical/dav sources.</li>
1077 <li>Increased default maximum size of /var/spool/squid and /skole/backup on the
1078 main server.</li>
1079 <li>A source DVD image containing all source packages is now available as well.</li>
1080 <li>Updates for chromium (29.0.1547.57-1~deb7u1), imagemagick
1081 (6.7.7.10-5+deb7u2), php5 (5.4.4-14+deb7u4), libmodplug
1082 (0.8.8.4-3+deb7u1+git20130828), tiff (4.0.2-6+deb7u2), linux-image
1083 (3.2.0-4-486_3.2.46-1+deb7u1).</li>
1084
1085 </ul>
1086
1087 <p>Where to get it:</p>
1088
1089 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
1090
1091 <ul>
1092 <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>
1093 <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>
1094 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-CD.iso .</li>
1095 </ul>
1096
1097 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is:  3a1c89f4666df80eebcd46c5bf5fedb866f9472f</p>
1098
1099 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use
1100 <ul>
1101 <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>
1102 <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>
1103 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-USB.iso .</li>
1104 </ul>
1105
1106 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 702d1718548f401c74bfa6df9f032cc3ee16597e</p>
1107
1108 <p>The Source DVD image has the filename
1109 debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b2-source-DVD.iso and the SHA1SUM
1110 089eed8b3f962db47aae1f6a9685e9bb2fa30ca5 and is available the same way
1111 as the other isos.</p>
1112
1113 <p>How to report bugs</p>
1114
1115 <p>For information how to report bugs please see
1116 <br><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
1117
1118
1119 <p>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</p>
1120
1121 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
1122 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
1123 configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
1124 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
1125 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
1126 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
1127 initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
1128 machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
1129 provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
1130 centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
1131 services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
1132 packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
1133 can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
1134
1135 <p>This is the seventh test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
1136 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
1137 Squeeze release.</p>
1138
1139 <p>Notes for upgrades from Alpha Prereleases</p>
1140
1141 <p>Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
1142 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
1143 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
1144 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
1145 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined on the mailing list. (2)
1146 Accept the new version of gosa.conf and replace both contained admin
1147 password placeholders with the password hashes found in the old one
1148 (backup copy!). In both cases all users need to change their password
1149 to make sure a password is set for CIFS access to their home
1150 directory.</p>
1151
1152
1153 <p>cheers,
1154 <br>        Holger</p>
1155 </blockquote>
1156
1157       </div>
1158       <div class="tags">
1159
1160
1161         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>.
1162
1163
1164       </div>
1165     </div>
1166     <div class="padding"></div>
1167
1168     <div class="entry">
1169       <div class="title">
1170         <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>
1171       </div>
1172       <div class="date">
1173         10th September 2013
1174       </div>
1175       <div class="body">
1176         <p>I was introduced to the
1177 <a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
1178 in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
1179 of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
1180 within the legal protection of their own homes.  The idea is to give
1181 people back the power over their network and machines, and return
1182 Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture.  Instead of
1183 depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
1184 control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
1185
1186 <p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
1187 taken priority.  But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
1188 and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
1189 communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
1190 actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
1191
1192 <p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
1193 Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
1194 create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
1195 up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
1196 communication.  The initial deployment platform have been the
1197 <a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
1198 which is a piece of hardware I do not own.  So to be able to test what
1199 the current Freedombox setup look like, I had to come up with a way to install
1200 it on some hardware I do have access to.  I have rewritten the
1201 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
1202 image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
1203 setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
1204 set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
1205 the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
1206 missing in Debian).</p>
1207
1208 <p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
1209 scripts
1210 (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
1211 and a administrative web interface
1212 (<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
1213 withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
1214 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
1215 (freedombox-privoxy).  There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
1216 client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
1217 trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
1218 (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>).  The
1219 web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
1220 services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc.  Not much of
1221 this is really working yet, see
1222 <a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
1223 project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories.  Most of the code is
1224 on github at the moment.  The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
1225 box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
1226 users.  I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
1227 know there are several branches spread around github and other places
1228 with lots of half baked features.</p>
1229
1230 <p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current state, the
1231 following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
1232 at.</p>
1233
1234 <p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
1235
1236 <ol>
1237
1238 <li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
1239 <li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
1240 <li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
1241 to the Debian installer:<p>
1242 <pre>url=<a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</a></pre></li>
1243
1244 <li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
1245 install on.</li>
1246
1247 <li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
1248 few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
1249
1250 </ol>
1251
1252 <p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
1253
1254 <ol>
1255
1256 <li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
1257 <li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
1258 <li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
1259 <pre>
1260 deb <a href="http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/">http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox</a> wheezy main
1261 </pre></li>
1262 <li><p>Run this as root:</p>
1263 <pre>
1264 wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
1265    apt-key add -
1266 apt-get update
1267 apt-get install freedombox-setup
1268 /usr/lib/freedombox/setup
1269 </pre></li>
1270 <li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
1271
1272 </ol>
1273
1274 <p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
1275 freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
1276 the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
1277 in my APT repository.  But do not let this stop you.  It is only a
1278 short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
1279
1280 <p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
1281 192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
1282 off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
1283 disable</tt>" as root.</p>
1284
1285 <p>Please let me know if this works for you, or if you have any
1286 problems.  We gather on the IRC channel
1287 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
1288 irc.debian.org and the
1289 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
1290 mailing list</a>.</p>
1291
1292 <p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
1293 <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
1294 welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
1295 get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
1296 to look at the rest of plinth.  The default user is 'admin' and the
1297 default password is 'secret'.</p>
1298
1299       </div>
1300       <div class="tags">
1301
1302
1303         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>.
1304
1305
1306       </div>
1307     </div>
1308     <div class="padding"></div>
1309
1310     <div class="entry">
1311       <div class="title">
1312         <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>
1313       </div>
1314       <div class="date">
1315         22nd August 2013
1316       </div>
1317       <div class="body">
1318         <p>The second wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
1319 today, slightly delayed because of some bugs in the initial Windows
1320 integration fixes .  This is the release announcement:</p>
1321
1322 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b1 released 2013-08-22</strong></p>
1323
1324 <p>These are the release notes for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1325 7.1+edu0~b1, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
1326
1327 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
1328
1329 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
1330 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
1331 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
1332 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
1333 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
1334 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
1335 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
1336 the main server from CD or USB stick all other machines can be
1337 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
1338 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
1339 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
1340 desktop contains
1341 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
1342 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
1343 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
1344 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
1345
1346 <p>This is the sixth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically this
1347 is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the Squeeze
1348 release.</p>
1349
1350 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
1351 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
1352 release. Both alpha and beta0 based installations should reinstall or
1353 deal with gosa.conf manually; there are two options: (1) Keep
1354 gosa.conf and edit this file as outlined
1355 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/08/msg00127.html">on
1356 the mailing list</a>. (2) Accept the new version of gosa.conf and
1357 replace both contained admin password placeholders with the password
1358 hashes found in the old one (backup copy!). In both cases every user
1359 need to change their their password to make sure a password is set for
1360 CIFS access to their home directory.</p>
1361
1362 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
1363
1364 <ul>
1365
1366 <li>Added ssh askpass packages to default installation, to ensure ssh
1367     work also without a attached tty.</li>
1368 <li>Add the command-not-found package to the default installation to
1369     make it easier to figure out where to find missing command line
1370     tools. Please note, that the command 'update-command-not-found'
1371     has to be run as root to actually make it useful (internet access
1372     required).</li>
1373
1374 </ul>
1375
1376 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
1377
1378 <ul>
1379
1380 <li>Adjusted the USB stick ISO image build to include every tool
1381 needed for desktop=xfce installations.</li>
1382 <li>Adjust thin-client-server task to work when installing from USB
1383 stick ISO image.</li>
1384 <li>Made new grub artwork (changed png from indexed to RGB format).</li>
1385 <li>Minor cleanup in the CUPS setup.</li>
1386 <li>Make sure that bootstrapping of the Samba domain really happens
1387     during installation of the main server and adjust SID handling to
1388     cope with this.</li>
1389 <li>Make Samba passwords changeable (again) via GOsa².</li>
1390 <li>Fix generation of LM and NT password hashes via GOsa² to avoid
1391     empty password hashes.</li>
1392 <li>Adapted Samba machine domain joining to latest change in the
1393     smbldap-tools Perl package, fixing bugs blocking Windows machines
1394     from joining the Samba domain.</li>
1395
1396 </ul>
1397
1398 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
1399
1400 <ul>
1401
1402 <li>KDE fails to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
1403     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
1404 <li>Chromium also fails to use the proxy when using the KDE desktop
1405     (using the KDE configuration).</li>
1406
1407 </ul>
1408
1409 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
1410
1411 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
1412
1413 <ul>
1414
1415 <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>
1416
1417 <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>
1418
1419 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-CD.iso .</li>
1420
1421 </ul>
1422
1423 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 1e357f80b55e703523f2254adde6d78b
1424 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 7157f9be5fd27c7694d713c6ecfed61c3edda3b2</p>
1425
1426 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
1427
1428 <ul>
1429
1430 <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>
1431 <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>
1432 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b1-USB.iso .</li>
1433
1434 </ul>
1435
1436 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 7a8408ead59cf7e3cef25afb6e91590b
1437 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: f1817c031f02790d5edb3bfa0dcf8451088ad119</p>
1438
1439
1440 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
1441
1442 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
1443
1444       </div>
1445       <div class="tags">
1446
1447
1448         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>.
1449
1450
1451       </div>
1452     </div>
1453     <div class="padding"></div>
1454
1455     <div class="entry">
1456       <div class="title">
1457         <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>
1458       </div>
1459       <div class="date">
1460         18th August 2013
1461       </div>
1462       <div class="body">
1463         <p>Earlier, I reported about
1464 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_fix_a_Thinkpad_X230_with_a_broken_180_GB_SSD_disk.html">my
1465 problems using an Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB disk</a>.  Friday I was
1466 told by IBM that the original disk should be thrown away.  And as
1467 there no longer was a problem if I bricked the firmware, I decided
1468 today to try to install Intel firmware to replace the Lenovo firmware
1469 currently on the disk.</p>
1470
1471 <p>I searched the Intel site for firmware, and found
1472 <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>
1473 (aka Intel SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool) which
1474 according to the site should contain the latest firmware for SSD
1475 disks.  I inserted the broken disk in one of my spare laptops and
1476 booted the ISO from a USB stick.  The disk was recognized, but the
1477 program claimed the newest firmware already were installed and refused
1478 to insert any Intel firmware.  So no change, and the disk is still
1479 unable to handle write load. :( I guess the only way to get them
1480 working would be if Lenovo releases new firmware.  No idea how likely
1481 that is.  Anyway, just blogging about this test for completeness.  I
1482 got a working Samsung disk, and see no point in spending more time on
1483 the broken disks.</p>
1484
1485       </div>
1486       <div class="tags">
1487
1488
1489         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>.
1490
1491
1492       </div>
1493     </div>
1494     <div class="padding"></div>
1495
1496     <div class="entry">
1497       <div class="title">
1498         <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>
1499       </div>
1500       <div class="date">
1501          2nd August 2013
1502       </div>
1503       <div class="body">
1504         <p>It has been a while since my last update.  Since last summer, I
1505 have worked on a Norwegian
1506 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
1507 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
1508 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright
1509 law.  Yesterday, I finally broken the 90% mark, when counting the
1510 number of strings to translate.  Due to real life constraints, I have
1511 not had time to work on it since March, but when the summer broke out,
1512 I found time to work on it again.  Still lots of work left, but the
1513 first draft is nearing completion.  I created a graph to show the
1514 progress of the translation:</p>
1515
1516 <p><img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png"></p>
1517
1518 <p>When the first draft is done, the translated text need to be
1519 proof read, and the remaining formatting problems with images and SVG
1520 drawings need to be fixed.  There are probably also some index entries
1521 missing that need to be added.  This can be done by comparing the
1522 index entries listed in the SiSU version of the book, or comparing the
1523 English docbook version with the paper version.  Last, the colophon
1524 page with ISBN numbers etc need to be wrapped up before the release is
1525 done.  I should also figure out how to get correct Norwegian sorting
1526 of the index pages.  All docbook tools I have tried so far (xmlto,
1527 docbook-xsl, dblatex) get the order of symbols and the special
1528 Norwegian letters ÆØÅ wrong.</p>
1529
1530 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
1531 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
1532 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
1533 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
1534 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
1535 around?  There are also some legal terms that are unfamiliar to me.
1536 If you want to help, please get in touch with me, and check out the
1537 project files currently available from
1538 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
1539
1540 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
1541 the updated
1542 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
1543 and
1544 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
1545 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
1546 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
1547 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
1548
1549       </div>
1550       <div class="tags">
1551
1552
1553         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>.
1554
1555
1556       </div>
1557     </div>
1558     <div class="padding"></div>
1559
1560     <div class="entry">
1561       <div class="title">
1562         <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>
1563       </div>
1564       <div class="date">
1565         27th July 2013
1566       </div>
1567       <div class="body">
1568         <p>The first wheezy based beta release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
1569 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
1570
1571 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~b0 released
1572 2013-07-27</strong></p>
1573
1574 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1575 7.1+edu0~b0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
1576
1577 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
1578
1579 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
1580 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
1581 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
1582 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
1583 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
1584 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
1585 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
1586 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
1587 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
1588 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
1589 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
1590 desktop contains
1591 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
1592 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
1593 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
1594 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
1595
1596 <p>This is the fifth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
1597 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
1598 Squeeze release.</p>
1599
1600 <p>ALERT: Alpha based installations should reinstall or downgrade the
1601 versions of gosa and libpam-mklocaluser to the ones used in this beta
1602 release.</p>
1603
1604 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
1605
1606 <ul>
1607
1608 <li>Switched roaming workstation profiles from wicd to network-manager
1609    for network configuration, as wicd didn't work any more.</li>
1610 <li>Changed version numbers of patched gosa and libpam-mklocaluser
1611    packages to make sure our locally patched versions will be replaced
1612    by the official packages when they are released from Debian. Those
1613    installing alpha version need to reinstall or manually downgrade gosa
1614    and libpam-mklocaluser.</li>
1615 <li>Added bluetooth tools to the default desktop (bluedevil, blueman).</li>
1616 <li>Added tools for sharing the desktop on KDE (krdc, krfb).</li>
1617 <li>Added valgrind to the default installation for easier debugging of
1618    crash bugs.</li>
1619
1620 </ul>
1621
1622 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
1623
1624 <ul>
1625
1626 <li>Fixed artwork package to work with gnome, no longer break
1627    desktop=gnome installations.</li>
1628 <li>Adjusted installer to now work when forced to use a proxy with the
1629    netinst CD.</li>
1630 <li>Fixed code detecting and setting/loading hardware specific
1631    setup/firmware to work more robust out of the box.</li>
1632 <li>Adjusted Kerberos setup to detect realm and server settings at
1633    install time instead of dynamically at run time. This avoid a crash
1634    with krb5-auth-dialog on diskless workstations without a DNS name.</li>
1635 <li>Worked around misfeature in network-manager not calling the dhclient
1636    exit hooks, causing automatic proxy configuration and automatic host
1637    name setting at run time to work again.</li>
1638 <li>Fixed feature setting the default Iceweasel start page from URL
1639    fetched from LDAP, to allow schools to set the global default by
1640    updating the dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no LDAP object.</li>
1641 <li>Changed default host name on all networked machines to be unique
1642    (generated from MAC or reverse DNS) after boot.</li>
1643 <li>Adjusted partition sizes to make sure they are big enough.</li>
1644
1645 </ul>
1646
1647 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
1648
1649 <ul>
1650
1651 <li>Grub is missing the new artwork.</li>
1652 <li>KDE fail to understand the wpad.dat file provided, causing it to
1653     not use the http proxy as it should.</li>
1654 <li>Chromium also fail to use the proxy.</li>
1655
1656 </ul>
1657
1658 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
1659
1660 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
1661
1662 <ul>
1663
1664 <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>
1665
1666 <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>
1667
1668 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-CD.iso .</li>
1669
1670 </ul>
1671
1672 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 55d5de9765b6dccd5d9ec33cf1a07109
1673 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 996a1d9517740e4d627d100de2d12b23dd545a3f</p>
1674
1675 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
1676
1677 <ul>
1678
1679 <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>
1680 <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>
1681 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~b0-USB.iso .</li>
1682
1683 </ul>
1684
1685 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: d8f0818c51a78d357de794066f289f69
1686 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 49185ca354e8d0543240423746924f76a6cee733</p>
1687
1688
1689 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
1690
1691 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
1692
1693       </div>
1694       <div class="tags">
1695
1696
1697         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>.
1698
1699
1700       </div>
1701     </div>
1702     <div class="padding"></div>
1703
1704     <div class="entry">
1705       <div class="title">
1706         <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>
1707       </div>
1708       <div class="date">
1709         17th July 2013
1710       </div>
1711       <div class="body">
1712         <p>Today I switched to
1713 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">my
1714 new laptop</a>.  I've previously written about the problems I had with
1715 my new Thinkpad X230, which was delivered with an
1716 <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
1717 GB Intel SSD disk with Lenovo firmware</a> that did not handle
1718 sustained writes.  My hardware supplier have been very forthcoming in
1719 trying to find a solution, and after first trying with another
1720 identical 180 GB disks they decided to send me a 256 GB Samsung SSD
1721 disk instead to fix it once and for all.  The Samsung disk survived
1722 the installation of Debian with encrypted disks (filling the disk with
1723 random data during installation killed the first two), and I thus
1724 decided to trust it with my data.  I have installed it as a Debian Edu
1725 Wheezy roaming workstation hooked up with my Debian Edu Squeeze main
1726 server at home using Kerberos and LDAP, and will use it as my work
1727 station from now on.</p>
1728
1729 <p>As this is a solid state disk with no moving parts, I believe the
1730 Debian Wheezy default installation need to be tuned a bit to increase
1731 performance and increase life time of the disk.  The Linux kernel and
1732 user space applications do not yet adjust automatically to such
1733 environment.  To make it easier for my self, I created a draft Debian
1734 package <tt>ssd-setup</tt> to handle this tuning.  The
1735 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/ssd-setup.git">source
1736 for the ssd-setup package</a> is available from collab-maint, and it
1737 is set up to adjust the setup of the machine by just installing the
1738 package.  If there is any non-SSD disk in the machine, the package
1739 will refuse to install, as I did not try to write any logic to sort
1740 file systems in SSD and non-SSD file systems.</p>
1741
1742 <p>I consider the package a draft, as I am a bit unsure how to best
1743 set up Debian Wheezy with an SSD.  It is adjusted to my use case,
1744 where I set up the machine with one large encrypted partition (in
1745 addition to /boot), put LVM on top of this and set up partitions on
1746 top of this again.  See the README file in the package source for the
1747 references I used to pick the settings.  At the moment these
1748 parameters are tuned:</p>
1749
1750 <ul>
1751
1752 <li>Set up cryptsetup to pass TRIM commands to the physical disk
1753     (adding discard to /etc/crypttab)</li>
1754
1755 <li>Set up LVM to pass on TRIM commands to the underlying device (in
1756     this case a cryptsetup partition) by changing issue_discards from
1757     0 to 1 in /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.</li>
1758
1759 <li>Set relatime as a file system option for ext3 and ext4 file
1760     systems.</li>
1761
1762 <li>Tell swap to use TRIM commands by adding 'discard' to
1763     /etc/fstab.</li>
1764
1765 <li>Change I/O scheduler from cfq to deadline using a udev rule.</li>
1766
1767 <li>Run fstrim on every ext3 and ext4 file system every night (from
1768     cron.daily).</li>
1769
1770 <li>Adjust sysctl values vm.swappiness to 1 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure
1771     to 50 to reduce the kernel eagerness to swap out processes.</li>
1772
1773 </ul>
1774
1775 <p>During installation, I cancelled the part where the installer fill
1776 the disk with random data, as this would kill the SSD performance for
1777 little gain.  My goal with the encrypted file system is to ensure
1778 those stealing my laptop end up with a brick and not a working
1779 computer.  I have no hope in keeping the really resourceful people
1780 from getting the data on the disk (see
1781 <a href="http://xkcd.com/538/">XKCD #538</a> for an explanation why).
1782 Thus I concluded that adding the discard option to crypttab is the
1783 right thing to do.</p>
1784
1785 <p>I considered using the noop I/O scheduler, as several recommended
1786 it for SSD, but others recommended deadline and a benchmark I found
1787 indicated that deadline might be better for interactive use.</p>
1788
1789 <p>I also considered using the 'discard' file system option for ext3
1790 and ext4, but read that it would give a performance hit ever time a
1791 file is removed, and thought it best to that that slowdown once a day
1792 instead of during my work.</p>
1793
1794 <p>My package do not set up tmpfs on /var/run, /var/lock and /tmp, as
1795 this is already done by Debian Edu.</p>
1796
1797 <p>I have not yet started on the user space tuning.  I expect
1798 iceweasel need some tuning, and perhaps other applications too, but
1799 have not yet had time to investigate those parts.</p>
1800
1801 <p>The package should work on Ubuntu too, but I have not yet tested it
1802 there.</p>
1803
1804 <p>As for the answer to the question in the title of this blog post,
1805 as far as I know, the only solution I know about is to replace the
1806 disk.  It might be possible to flash it with Intel firmware instead of
1807 the Lenovo firmware.  But I have not tried and did not want to do so
1808 without approval from Lenovo as I wanted to keep the warranty on the
1809 disk until a solution was found and they wanted the broken disks
1810 back.</p>
1811
1812       </div>
1813       <div class="tags">
1814
1815
1816         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>.
1817
1818
1819       </div>
1820     </div>
1821     <div class="padding"></div>
1822
1823     <div class="entry">
1824       <div class="title">
1825         <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>
1826       </div>
1827       <div class="date">
1828         10th July 2013
1829       </div>
1830       <div class="body">
1831         <p>A few days ago, I wrote about
1832 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230_.html">the
1833 problems I experienced with my new X230 and its SSD disk</a>, which
1834 was dying during installation because it is unable to cope with
1835 sustained write.  My supplier is in contact with
1836 <a href="http://www.lenovo.com/">Lenovo</a>, and they wanted to send a
1837 replacement disk to try to fix the problem.  They decided to send an
1838 identical model, so my hopes for a permanent fix was slim.</p>
1839
1840 <p>Anyway, today I got the replacement disk and tried to install
1841 Debian Edu Wheezy with encrypted disk on it.  The new disk have the
1842 same firmware version as the original.  This time my hope raised
1843 slightly as the installation progressed, as the original disk used to
1844 die after 4-7% of the disk was written to, while this time it kept
1845 going past 10%, 20%, 40% and even past 50%.  But around 60%, the disk
1846 died again and I was back on square one.  I still do not have a new
1847 laptop with a disk I can trust.  I can not live with a disk that might
1848 lock up when I download a new
1849 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ISO or
1850 other large files.  I look forward to hearing from my supplier with
1851 the next proposal from Lenovo.</p>
1852
1853 <p>The original disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
1854 11S0C38722Z1ZNME35X1TR, ISN: CVCV321407HB180EGN, SA: G57560302, FW:
1855 LF1i, 29MAY2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
1856 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40002756C4, Model:
1857 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
1858 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
1859
1860 <p>The replacement disk is marked Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB,
1861 11S0C38722Z1ZNDE34N0L0, ISN: CVCV315306RK180EGN, SA: G57560-302, FW:
1862 LF1i, 22APR2013, PBA: G39779-300, LBA 351,651,888, LI P/N: 0C38722,
1863 Pb-free 2LI, LC P/N: 16-200366, WWN: 55CD2E40000AB69E, Model:
1864 SSDSC2BW180A3L 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD 180G 5V 1A, ASM P/N 0C38732, FRU
1865 P/N 45N8295, P0C38732.</p>
1866
1867 <p>The only difference is in the first number (serial number?), ISN,
1868 SA, date and WNPP values.  Mentioning all the details here in case
1869 someone is able to use the information to find a way to identify the
1870 failing disk among working ones (if any such working disk actually
1871 exist).</p>
1872
1873       </div>
1874       <div class="tags">
1875
1876
1877         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>.
1878
1879
1880       </div>
1881     </div>
1882     <div class="padding"></div>
1883
1884     <div class="entry">
1885       <div class="title">
1886         <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>
1887       </div>
1888       <div class="date">
1889          9th July 2013
1890       </div>
1891       <div class="body">
1892         <p>The upcoming Saturday, 2013-07-13, we are organising a combined
1893 Debian Edu developer gathering and Debian and Ubuntu bug squashing
1894 party in Oslo.  It is organised by <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the
1895 member assosiation NUUG</a> and
1896 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
1897 project</a> together with <a href="http://bitraf.no/">the hack space
1898 Bitraf</a>.</p>
1899
1900 <p>It starts 10:00 and continue until late evening.  Everyone is
1901 welcome, and there is no fee to participate.  There is on the other
1902 hand limited space, and only room for 30 people.  Please put your name
1903 on <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/BSP/2013/07/13/no/Oslo">the event
1904 wiki page</a> if you plan to join us.</p>
1905
1906       </div>
1907       <div class="tags">
1908
1909
1910         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>.
1911
1912
1913       </div>
1914     </div>
1915     <div class="padding"></div>
1916
1917     <div class="entry">
1918       <div class="title">
1919         <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>
1920       </div>
1921       <div class="date">
1922          5th July 2013
1923       </div>
1924       <div class="body">
1925         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
1926 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
1927 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
1928 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
1929 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
1930 ended up picking a
1931 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
1932 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
1933 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
1934 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
1935 on that below.</p>
1936
1937 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
1938 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
1939 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
1940 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
1941 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
1942 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
1943 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
1944 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
1945 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
1946
1947 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
1948 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
1949 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
1950 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
1951 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
1952 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
1953 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
1954
1955 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
1956 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
1957
1958 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
1959 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
1960 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
1961 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
1962 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
1963 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
1964 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
1965 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
1966 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
1967 kernel developers as
1968 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
1969 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
1970 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
1971 Lenovo forums, both for
1972 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
1973 2012-11-10</a> and for
1974 <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
1975 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
1976 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
1977 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
1978 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
1979 There is even a
1980 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
1981 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
1982 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
1983
1984 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
1985 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
1986 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
1987 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
1988 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
1989 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
1990 fixed. :)</p>
1991
1992       </div>
1993       <div class="tags">
1994
1995
1996         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>.
1997
1998
1999       </div>
2000     </div>
2001     <div class="padding"></div>
2002
2003     <div class="entry">
2004       <div class="title">
2005         <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>
2006       </div>
2007       <div class="date">
2008          4th July 2013
2009       </div>
2010       <div class="body">
2011         <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
2012 trusty old Thinkpad X41.  Unfortunately I did not have much time to
2013 spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived.  I ended up
2014 picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
2015 X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu
2016 Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly.  As I write
2017 this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
2018 with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
2019 with an expencive door stop.</p>
2020
2021 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
2022 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
2023 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
2024 feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
2025 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
2026 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
2027 to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
2028
2029 <p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
2030 wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
2031 to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly good and the
2032 individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
2033 used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
2034 new laptop now. :)</p>
2035
2036 <p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
2037
2038       </div>
2039       <div class="tags">
2040
2041
2042         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>.
2043
2044
2045       </div>
2046     </div>
2047     <div class="padding"></div>
2048
2049     <div class="entry">
2050       <div class="title">
2051         <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>
2052       </div>
2053       <div class="date">
2054          3rd July 2013
2055       </div>
2056       <div class="body">
2057         <p>The fourth wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
2058 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
2059
2060 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.1+edu0~alpha3 released
2061 2013-07-03</strong></p>
2062
2063 <p>These are the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2064 7.1+edu0~alpha3, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
2065
2066 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
2067
2068 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
2069 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
2070 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
2071 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
2072 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
2073 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
2074 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
2075 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
2076 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
2077 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
2078 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
2079 desktop contains
2080 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
2081 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
2082 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
2083 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
2084
2085 <p>This is the fourth test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
2086 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
2087 Squeeze release.</p>
2088
2089 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
2090 <ul>
2091   <li>Dropped ispell dictionaries from our default installation.</li>
2092   <li>Dropped menu-xdg from the KDE desktop option, to drop the Debian
2093     submenu.  It was not included with Gnome, LXDE or Xfce, so this
2094     brings KDE in line with the others.</li>
2095   <li>Dropped xdrawchem, xjig and xsok from our default installation as
2096     they don't have a desktop menu entry and thus won't show up in the
2097     menu now that menu-xdg was removed.</li>
2098   <li>Removed the killer system to kill left behind processes on
2099     multi-user machines, as it was no longer able to understand when a
2100     X display was in use and killed the processes of the active users
2101     too.</li>
2102   <li>Dropped the golearn (from goplay) package as the debtags in wheezy
2103     are too few to make the package useful.</li>
2104 </ul>
2105 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
2106 <ul>
2107   <li>Updated artwork matching http://wiki.debian.org/DebianArt/Themes/Joy
2108   <li>Multi-arch i386/amd64 USB stick ISO available.</li>
2109   <li>Got rid of ispell/wordlist related debconf questions that showed
2110     up for some language options.</li>
2111   <li>Switched to using http.debian.net as APT source by default.</li>
2112   <li>Fixed proxy configuration on Main Server installations.</li>
2113   <li>Changed LTSP setup to ask dpkg to use force-unsafe-io the same way
2114     d-i is doing it.</li>
2115   <li>Made sure root and user passwords were not left behind in the
2116     debconf database after installation on Main Server installations.</li>
2117   <li>Made Roaming Workstation dynamic setup more robust and added draft
2118     script setup-ad-client to hook a Roaming Workstation up to a
2119     Active Directory server instead of a Debian Edu Main Server.</li>
2120   <li>Update system to install needed firmware packages during
2121     installation, to work properly in Wheezy.</li>
2122   <li>Update system to handle hardware quirks (debian-edu-hwsetup).</li>
2123   <li>Corrected PXE installation setup to properly pass selected desktop
2124     and keymap settings to PXE installation clients.</li>
2125   <li>LTSP diskless workstations use sshfs by default, allowing them to
2126     work without adding them to DNS and NIS netgroups for NFS access.</li>
2127 </ul>
2128 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
2129 <ul>
2130   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
2131     available yet (698840).</li>
2132   <li>Artwork not enabled for all desktops.</li>
2133 </ul>
2134 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
2135
2136 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
2137 <ul>
2138   <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>
2139   <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>
2140   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-CD.iso .</li>
2141 </ul>
2142
2143 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 2b161a99d2a848c376d8d04e3854e30c
2144 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 498922e9c508c0a7ee9dbe1dfe5bf830d779c3c8</p>
2145
2146 <p>To download the multiarch USB stick ISO release you can use</p>
2147 <ul>
2148   <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>
2149   <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>
2150   <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.1+edu0~a3-USB.iso .</li>
2151 </ul>
2152
2153 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 25e808e403a4c15dbef1d13c37d572ac
2154 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 15ecfc93eb6b4f453b7eb0bc04b6a279262d9721</p>
2155
2156 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
2157
2158 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
2159
2160       </div>
2161       <div class="tags">
2162
2163
2164         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>.
2165
2166
2167       </div>
2168     </div>
2169     <div class="padding"></div>
2170
2171     <div class="entry">
2172       <div class="title">
2173         <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>
2174       </div>
2175       <div class="date">
2176         25th June 2013
2177       </div>
2178       <div class="body">
2179         <p>It annoys me when the computer fail to do automatically what it is
2180 perfectly capable of, and I have to do it manually to get things
2181 working.  One such task is to find out what firmware packages are
2182 needed to get the hardware on my computer working.  Most often this
2183 affect the wifi card, but some times it even affect the RAID
2184 controller or the ethernet card.  Today I pushed version 0.4 of the
2185 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram package</a>
2186 including a new script isenkram-autoinstall-firmware handling the
2187 process of asking all the loaded kernel modules what firmware files
2188 they want, find debian packages providing these files and install the
2189 debian packages.  Here is a test run on my laptop:</p>
2190
2191 <p><pre>
2192 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2193 info: kernel drivers requested extra firmware: ipw2200-bss.fw ipw2200-ibss.fw ipw2200-sniffer.fw
2194 info: fetching http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/squeeze/Contents-i386.gz
2195 info: locating packages with the requested firmware files
2196 info: Updating APT sources after adding non-free APT source
2197 info: trying to install firmware-ipw2x00
2198 firmware-ipw2x00
2199 firmware-ipw2x00
2200 Preconfiguring packages ...
2201 Selecting previously deselected package firmware-ipw2x00.
2202 (Reading database ... 259727 files and directories currently installed.)
2203 Unpacking firmware-ipw2x00 (from .../firmware-ipw2x00_0.28+squeeze1_all.deb) ...
2204 Setting up firmware-ipw2x00 (0.28+squeeze1) ...
2205 #
2206 </pre></p>
2207
2208 <p>When all the requested firmware is present, a simple message is
2209 printed instead:</p>
2210
2211 <p><pre>
2212 # isenkram-autoinstall-firmware
2213 info: did not find any firmware files requested by loaded kernel modules.  exiting
2214 #
2215 </pre></p>
2216
2217 <p>It could use some polish, but it is already working well and saving
2218 me some time when setting up new machines. :)</p>
2219
2220 <p>So, how does it work?  It look at the set of currently loaded
2221 kernel modules, and look up each one of them using modinfo, to find
2222 the firmware files listed in the module meta-information.  Next, it
2223 download the Contents file from a nearby APT mirror, and search for
2224 the firmware files in this file to locate the package with the
2225 requested firmware file.  If the package is in the non-free section, a
2226 non-free APT source is added and the package is installed using
2227 <tt>apt-get install</tt>.  The end result is a slightly better working
2228 machine.</p>
2229
2230 <p>I hope someone find time to implement a more polished version of
2231 this script as part of the hw-detect debian-installer module, to
2232 finally fix <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">BTS report
2233 #655507</a>.  There really is no need to insert USB sticks with
2234 firmware during a PXE install when the packages already are available
2235 from the nearby Debian mirror.</p>
2236
2237       </div>
2238       <div class="tags">
2239
2240
2241         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>.
2242
2243
2244       </div>
2245     </div>
2246     <div class="padding"></div>
2247
2248     <div class="entry">
2249       <div class="title">
2250         <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>
2251       </div>
2252       <div class="date">
2253         22nd June 2013
2254       </div>
2255       <div class="body">
2256         <p>In the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
2257 Skolelinux</a> project, we include a post-installation test suite,
2258 which check that services are running, working, and return the
2259 expected results.  It runs automatically just after the first boot on
2260 test installations (using test ISOs), but not on production
2261 installations (using non-test ISOs).  It test that the LDAP service is
2262 operating, Kerberos is responding, DNS is replying, file systems are
2263 online resizable, etc, etc.  And it check that the PXE service is
2264 configured, which is the topic of this post.</p>
2265
2266 <p>The last week I've fixed the DVD and USB stick ISOs for our Debian
2267 Edu Wheezy release.  These ISOs are supposed to be able to install a
2268 complete system without any Internet connection, but for that to
2269 happen all the needed packages need to be on them.  Thanks to our test
2270 suite, I discovered that we had forgotten to adjust our PXE setup to
2271 cope with the new names and paths used by the netboot d-i packages.
2272 When Internet connectivity was available, the installer fall back to
2273 using wget to fetch d-i boot images, but when offline it require
2274 working packages to get it working.  And the packages changed name
2275 from debian-installer-6.0-netboot-$arch to
2276 debian-installer-7.0-netboot-$arch, we no longer pulled in the
2277 packages during installation.  Without our test suite, I suspect we
2278 would never have discovered this before release.  Now it is fixed
2279 right after we got the ISOs operational.</p>
2280
2281 <p>Another by-product of the test suite is that we can ask system
2282 administrators with problems getting Debian Edu to work, to run the
2283 test suite using <tt>/usr/sbin/debian-edu-test-install</tt> and see if
2284 any errors are detected.  This usually pinpoint the subsystem causing
2285 the problem.</p>
2286
2287 <p>If you want to help us help kids learn how to share and create,
2288 please join us on
2289 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
2290 irc.debian.org</a> and the
2291 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@</a> mailing
2292 list.</p>
2293
2294       </div>
2295       <div class="tags">
2296
2297
2298         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>.
2299
2300
2301       </div>
2302     </div>
2303     <div class="padding"></div>
2304
2305     <div class="entry">
2306       <div class="title">
2307         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Victor_Ni_u.html">Debian Edu interview: Victor Nițu</a>
2308       </div>
2309       <div class="date">
2310         17th June 2013
2311       </div>
2312       <div class="body">
2313         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
2314 Skolelinux</a> distribution have users and contributors all around the
2315 globe.  And a while back, an enterprising young man showed up on
2316 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">our IRC channel
2317 #debian-edu</a> and started asking questions about how Debian Edu
2318 worked.  We answered as good as we could, and even convinced him to
2319 help us with translations.  And today I managed to get an interview
2320 with him, to learn more about him.</p>
2321
2322 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2323
2324 <p>I'm a 25 year old free software enthusiast, living in Romania,
2325 which is also my country of origin. Back in 2009, at a New Year's Eve
2326 party, I had a very nice <strike>beer</strike> discussion with a
2327 friend, when we realized we have no organised Debian community in our
2328 country. A few days later, we put together the infrastructure for such
2329 community and even gathered a nice Debian-ish crowd. Since then, I
2330 began my quest as a free software hacker and activist and I am
2331 constantly trying to cover as much ground as possible on that
2332 field.</p>
2333
2334 <p>A few years ago I founded a small web development company, which
2335 provided me the flexible schedule I needed so much for my
2336 activities. For the last 13 months, I have been the Technical Director
2337 of <a href="http://ceata.org/">Fundația Ceata</a>, which is a free
2338 software activist organisation endorsed by the FSF and the FSFE, and
2339 the only one we have in our country.</p>
2340
2341 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
2342 project?</strong></p>
2343
2344 <p>The idea of participating in the Debian Edu project was a surprise
2345 even to me, since I never used it before I began getting involved in
2346 it. This year I had a great opportunity to deliver a talk on
2347 educational software, and I knew immediately where to look. It was a
2348 love at first sight, since I was previously involved with some of the
2349 technologies the project incorporates, and I rapidly found a lot of
2350 ways to contribute.</p>
2351
2352 <p>My first contributions consisted in translating the installer and
2353 configuration dialogs, then I found some bugs to squash (I still
2354 haven't fixed them yet though), and I even got my eyes on some other
2355 areas where I can prove myself helpful. Since the appetite for free
2356 software in my country is pretty low, I'll be happy to be the first
2357 one around here advocating for the project's adoption in educational
2358 environments, and maybe even get my hands dirty in creating a flavour
2359 for our own needs. I am not used to make very advanced plannings, so
2360 from now on, time will tell what I'll be doing next, but I think I
2361 have a pretty consistent starting point.</p>
2362
2363 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2364 Edu?</strong></p>
2365
2366 <p>Not a long time ago, I was in the position of configuring and
2367 maintaining a LDAP server on some Debian derivative, and I must say it
2368 took me a while. A long time ago, I was maintaining a bigger
2369 Samba-powered infrastructure, and I must say I spent quite a lot of
2370 time on it. I have similar stories about many of the services included
2371 with Skolelinux, and the main advantage I see about it is the
2372 out-of-the box availability of them, making it quite competitive when
2373 it comes to managing a school's network, for example.</p>
2374
2375 <p>Of course, there is more to say about Skolelinux than the
2376 availability of the software included, its flexibility in various
2377 scenarios is something I can't wait to experiment "into the wild" (I
2378 only played with virtual machines so far). And I am sure there is a
2379 lot more I haven't discovered yet about it, being so new within the
2380 project.</p>
2381
2382 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2383 Edu?</strong></p>
2384
2385 <p>As usual, when it comes to Debian Blends, I see as the biggest
2386 disadvantage the lack of a numerous team dedicated to the
2387 project. Every day I see the same names in the changelogs, and I have
2388 a constantly fear of the bus factor in this story.  I'd like to see
2389 Debian Edu advertised more as an entry point into the Debian
2390 ecosystem, especially amongst newcomers and students. IMHO there are a
2391 lot low-hanging fruits in terms of bug squashing, and enough
2392 opportunities to get the feeling of the Debian Project's dynamics. Not
2393 to mention it's a very fun blend to work on!</p>
2394
2395 <p>Derived from the previous statement, is the delay in catching up
2396 with the main Debian release and documentation. This is common though
2397 to all blends and derivatives, but it's an issue we can all work
2398 on.</p>
2399
2400 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2401
2402 <p>I can hardly imagine myself spending a day without Vim, since my
2403 daily routine covers writing code and hacking configuration files. I
2404 am a fan of the Awesome window manager (but I also like the
2405 Enlightenment project a lot!),
2406 <a href="http://www.claws-mail.org/‎">Claws Mail</a> due to its ease of
2407 use and very configurable behaviour. Recently I fell in love with
2408 <a href="https://launchpad.net/redshift">Redshift</a>, which helps me
2409 get through the night without headaches. Of course, there is much more
2410 stuff in this bag, but I'll need a blog on my own for doing this!</p>
2411
2412 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2413 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2414
2415 <p>Well, on this field, I cannot do much more than experiment right
2416 now. So, being far from having a recipe for success, I can only assume
2417 that:</p>
2418
2419 <ul>
2420
2421 <li>schools would like to get rid of proprietary software</li>
2422
2423 <li>students will love the openness of the system, and will want to
2424     experiment with it - maybe we need to harvest the native curiosity
2425     of teenagers more?</li>
2426
2427 <li>there is no "right one" when it comes to strategies, but it would
2428     be useful to have some success stories published somewhere, so
2429     other can get some inspiration from them (I know I'd promote
2430     them!)</li>
2431
2432 <li>more active promotion - talks, conferences, even small school
2433     lectures can do magical things if they encounter at least one
2434     person interested. Who knows who that person might be? ;-)</li>
2435
2436 </ul>
2437
2438 <p>I also see some problems in getting Skolelinux into schools; for
2439 example, in our country we have a great deal of corruption issues, so
2440 it might be hard(er) to fight against proprietary solutions. Also,
2441 people who relied on commercial software for all their lives, would be
2442 very hard to convert against their will.</p>
2443
2444       </div>
2445       <div class="tags">
2446
2447
2448         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>.
2449
2450
2451       </div>
2452     </div>
2453     <div class="padding"></div>
2454
2455     <div class="entry">
2456       <div class="title">
2457         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Jonathan_Carter.html">Debian Edu interview: Jonathan Carter</a>
2458       </div>
2459       <div class="date">
2460         12th June 2013
2461       </div>
2462       <div class="body">
2463         <p>There is a certain cross-over between the
2464 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
2465 project</a> and <a href="http://www.edubuntu.org/">the Edubuntu
2466 project</a>, and for example the LTSP packages in Debian are a joint
2467 effort between the projects.  One person with a foot in both camps is
2468 Jonathan Carter, which I am now happy to present to you.</p>
2469
2470 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2471
2472 <p>I'm a South-African free software geek who lives in Cape Town. My
2473 days vary quite a bit since I'm involved in too many things. As I'm
2474 getting older I'm learning how to focus a bit more :)</p>
2475
2476 <p>I'm also an Edubuntu contributor and I love when there are
2477 opportunities for the Edubuntu and Debian Edu projects to benefit from
2478 each other.</p>
2479
2480 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
2481 project?</strong></p>
2482
2483 <p>I've been somewhat familiar with the project before, but I think my
2484 first direct exposure to the project was when I met Petter
2485 [Reinholdtsen] and Knut [Yrvin] at the Edubuntu summit in 2005 in
2486 London. They provided great feedback that helped the bootstrapping of
2487 Edubuntu. Back then Edubuntu (and even Ubuntu) was still very new and
2488 it was great getting input from people who have been around longer. I
2489 was also still very excitable and said yes to everything and to this
2490 day I have a big todo list backlog that I'm catching up with. I think
2491 over the years the relationship between Edubuntu and Debian-Edu has
2492 been gradually improving, although I think there's a lot that we could
2493 still improve on in terms of working together on packages. I'm sure
2494 we'll get there one day.</p>
2495
2496 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2497 Edu?</strong></p>
2498
2499 <p>Debian itself already has so many advantages. I could go on about
2500 it for pages, but in essence I love that it's a very honest project
2501 that puts its users first with no hidden agendas and also produces
2502 very high quality work.</p>
2503
2504 <p>I think the advantage of Debian Edu is that it makes many common
2505 set-up tasks simpler so that administrators can get up and running
2506 with a lot less effort and frustration. At the same time I think it
2507 helps to standardise installations in schools so that it's easier for
2508 community members and commercial suppliers to support.</p>
2509
2510 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2511 Edu?</strong></p>
2512
2513 <p>I had to re-type this one a few times because I'm trying to
2514 separate "disadvantages" from "areas that need improvement" (which is
2515 what I originally rambled on about)</p>
2516
2517 <p>The biggest disadvantage I can think of is lack of manpower. The
2518 project could do so much more if there were more good contributors. I
2519 think some of the problems are external too. Free software and free
2520 content in education is a no-brainer but it takes some time to catch
2521 on. When you've been working with the same proprietary eco-system for
2522 years and have gotten used to it, it can be hard to adjust to some
2523 concepts in the free software world. It would be nice if there were
2524 more Debian Edu consultants across the world. I'd love to be one
2525 myself but I'm already so over-committed that it's just not possible
2526 currently.</p>
2527
2528 <p>I think the best short-term solution to that large-scale problem is
2529 for schools to be pro-active and share their experiences and grow
2530 their skills in-house. I'm often saddened to see how much money
2531 educational institutions spend on 3rd party solutions that they don't
2532 have access to after the service has ended and they could've gotten so
2533 much more value otherwise by being more self-sustainable and
2534 autonomous.</p>
2535
2536 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2537
2538 <p>My main laptop dual-boots between Debian and Windows 7. I was
2539 Windows free for years but started dual-booting again last year for
2540 some games which help me focus and relax (Starcraft II in
2541 particular). Gaming support on Linux is improving in leaps and bounds
2542 so I suppose I'll soon be able to regain that disk space :)</p>
2543
2544 <p>Besides that I rely on Icedove, Chromium, Terminator, Byobu, irssi,
2545 git, Tomboy, KVM, VLC and LibreOffice. Recently I've been torn on
2546 which desktop environment I like and I'm taking some refuge in Xfce
2547 while I figure that out. I like tools that keep things simple. I enjoy
2548 Python and shell scripting. I went to an Arduino workshop recently and
2549 it was awesome seeing how easy and simple the IDE software was to get
2550 up and running in Debian compared to the users running Windows and OS
2551 X.</p>
2552
2553 <p>I also use mc which some people frown upon slightly. I got used to
2554 using Norton Commander in the early 90's and it stuck (I think the
2555 people who sneer at it is just jealous that they don't know how to use
2556 it :p)
2557
2558 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2559 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2560
2561 <p>I think trying to force it is unproductive. I also think that in
2562 many cases it's appropriate for schools to use non-free systems and I
2563 don't think that there's any particular moral or ethical problem with
2564 that.</p>
2565
2566 <p>I do think though that free software can already solve so so many
2567 problems in educational institutions and it's just a shame not taking
2568 advantage of that.</p>
2569
2570 <p>I also think that some curricula need serious review. For example,
2571 some areas of the world rely heavily on very specific versions of MS
2572 Office, teaching students to parrot menu items instead of learning the
2573 general concepts. I think that's very unproductive because firstly, MS
2574 Office's interface changes drastically every few years and on top of
2575 that it also locks in a generation to a product that might not be the
2576 best solution for them.</p>
2577
2578 <p>To answer your question, I believe that the right strategy is to
2579 educate and inform, giving someone the information they require to
2580 make a decision that would work for them.</p>
2581
2582       </div>
2583       <div class="tags">
2584
2585
2586         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>.
2587
2588
2589       </div>
2590     </div>
2591     <div class="padding"></div>
2592
2593     <div class="entry">
2594       <div class="title">
2595         <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>
2596       </div>
2597       <div class="date">
2598         11th June 2013
2599       </div>
2600       <div class="body">
2601         <p>When installing RedHat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu on some machines,
2602 the screen just turn black when Linux boot, either during installation
2603 or on first boot from the hard disk.  I've seen it once in a while the
2604 last few years, but only recently understood the cause.  I've seen it
2605 on HP laptops, and on my latest acquaintance the Packard Bell laptop.
2606 The reason seem to be in the wiring of some laptops.  The system to
2607 control the screen background light is inverted, so when Linux try to
2608 turn the brightness fully on, it end up turning it off instead.  I do
2609 not know which Linux drivers are affected, but this post is about the
2610 i915 driver used by the
2611 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
2612 EasyNote LV</a>, Thinkpad X40 and many other laptops.</p>
2613
2614 <p>The problem can be worked around two ways.  Either by adding
2615 i915.invert_brightness=1 as a kernel option, or by adding a file in
2616 /etc/modprobe.d/ to tell modprobe to add the invert_brightness=1
2617 option when it load the i915 kernel module.  On Debian and Ubuntu, it
2618 can be done by running these commands as root:</p>
2619
2620 <pre>
2621 echo options i915 invert_brightness=1 | tee /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
2622 update-initramfs -u -k all
2623 </pre>
2624
2625 <p>Since March 2012 there is
2626 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=4dca20efb1a9c2efefc28ad2867e5d6c3f5e1955">a
2627 mechanism in the Linux kernel</a> to tell the i915 driver which
2628 hardware have this problem, and get the driver to invert the
2629 brightness setting automatically.  To use it, one need to add a row in
2630 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c">the
2631 intel_quirks array</a> in the driver source
2632 <tt>drivers/gpu/drm/i915/intel_display.c</tt> (look for "<tt>static
2633 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks</tt>"), specifying the PCI device
2634 number (vendor number 8086 is assumed) and subdevice vendor and device
2635 number.</p>
2636
2637 <p>My Packard Bell EasyNote LV got this output from <tt>lspci
2638 -vvnn</tt> for the video card in question:</p>
2639
2640 <p><pre>
2641 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation \
2642     3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0156] \
2643     (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
2644  Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0688]
2645  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- \
2646     ParErr- Stepping- SE RR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
2647  Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- \
2648     <TAbort- <MAbort->SERR- <PERR- INTx-
2649  Latency: 0
2650  Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42
2651  Region 0: Memory at c2000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
2652  Region 2: Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
2653  Region 4: I/O ports at 4000 [size=64]
2654  Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
2655  Capabilities: <access denied>
2656  Kernel driver in use: i915
2657 </pre></p>
2658
2659 <p>The resulting intel_quirks entry would then look like this:</p>
2660
2661 <p><pre>
2662 struct intel_quirk intel_quirks[] = {
2663        ...
2664         /* Packard Bell EasyNote LV11HC needs invert brightness quirk */
2665         { 0x0156, 0x1025, 0x0688, quirk_invert_brightness },
2666        ...
2667 }
2668 </pre></p>
2669
2670 <p>According to the kernel module instructions (as seen using
2671 <tt>modinfo i915</tt>), information about hardware needing the
2672 invert_brightness flag should be sent to the
2673 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/dri-devel">dri-devel
2674 (at) lists.freedesktop.org</a> mailing list to reach the kernel
2675 developers.  But my email about the laptop sent 2013-06-03 have not
2676 yet shown up in
2677 <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-June/thread.html">the
2678 web archive for the mailing list</a>, so I suspect they do not accept
2679 emails from non-subscribers.  Because of this, I sent my patch also to
2680 the Debian bug tracking system instead as
2681 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/710938">BTS report #710938</a>, to make
2682 sure the patch is not lost.</p>
2683
2684 <p>Unfortunately, it is not enough to fix the kernel to get Laptops
2685 with this problem working properly with Linux.  If you use Gnome, your
2686 worries should be over at this point.  But if you use KDE, there is
2687 something in KDE ignoring the invert_brightness setting and turning on
2688 the screen during login.  I've reported it to Debian as
2689 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/711237">BTS report #711237</a>, and
2690 have no idea yet how to figure out exactly what subsystem is doing
2691 this.  Perhaps you can help?  Perhaps you know what the Gnome
2692 developers did to handle this, and this can give a clue to the KDE
2693 developers?  Or you know where in KDE the screen brightness is changed
2694 during login?  If so, please update the BTS report (or get in touch if
2695 you do not know how to update BTS).</p>
2696
2697 <p>Update 2013-07-19: The correct fix for this machine seem to be
2698 acpi_backlight=vendor, to disable ACPI backlight support completely,
2699 as the ACPI information on the machine is trash and it is better to
2700 leave it to the intel video driver to control the screen
2701 backlight.</p>
2702
2703       </div>
2704       <div class="tags">
2705
2706
2707         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>.
2708
2709
2710       </div>
2711     </div>
2712     <div class="padding"></div>
2713
2714     <div class="entry">
2715       <div class="title">
2716         <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>
2717       </div>
2718       <div class="date">
2719         10th June 2013
2720       </div>
2721       <div class="body">
2722         <p>The third wheezy based alpha release of Debian Edu was wrapped up
2723 today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
2724
2725 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha2 released
2726 2013-06-10</strong></p>
2727
2728 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
2729 alpha2, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
2730
2731 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
2732
2733 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
2734 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
2735 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
2736 network. Immediately after installation a school server running all
2737 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
2738 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
2739 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
2740 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
2741 installed via the network. The provided school server provides LDAP
2742 database and Kerberos authentication service, centralized home
2743 directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other services. The
2744 desktop contains
2745 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">more
2746 than 60 educational software packages</a> and more are available from
2747 the Debian archive, and schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE
2748 and Xfce desktop environment.</p>
2749
2750 <p>This is the third test release based on Debian Wheezy. Basically
2751 this is an updated and slightly improved version compared to the
2752 Squeeze release.</p>
2753
2754 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
2755
2756 <ul>
2757
2758 <li>Iceweasel was updated from 10 to 17. (DSA 2699-1)
2759 <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).
2760 <li>Switched xrdp on thin client servers to use tightvncserver instead of xvnc4.
2761 <li>Now install software oscilloscope xoscope by default.
2762 <li>Now install music tools gtick, lingot and pianobooster by default.
2763
2764 </ul>
2765
2766 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
2767
2768 <ul>
2769
2770 <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.
2771 <li>Updated translation of the installation.
2772 <li>New Romanian translation.
2773 <li>Fix security problem causing root and first user password to no longer show up in /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat.
2774 <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).
2775 <li>Made roaming workstation setup more robust in non-Debian Edu environments.
2776 <li>New script debian-edu-bless to transform a Debian installation to a Debian Edu profile.
2777 <li>Adjust Iceweasel setup to improve performance when $HOME is on NFS.
2778 <li>More testsuite tests.
2779 <li>Make automatic proxy configuration more robust.
2780 <li>Adjust GOsa² GUI configuration.
2781
2782 <li>Update thin client and diskless workstation setup to work with
2783 LTSP in Wheezy.</li>
2784
2785 <li>Diskless workstations now run out of the box -- no need to set
2786 them up with GOsa².</li>
2787
2788 <li>Update IMAP server setup. </li>
2789
2790 <li>Fix login into Skolelinux Backup Tool (Closed in
2791 slbackup-php/0.4.4-1: #700257: slbackup-php: Fails to submit correctly
2792 entered password). </li>
2793
2794 </ul>
2795
2796 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
2797
2798 <ul>
2799
2800 <li>DVD binary and source images are not yet ready.</li>
2801
2802 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
2803 available yet (Open in gosa/2.7.4-4: #698840: gosa-plugin-ldapmanager:
2804 missing import feature).</li>
2805
2806 <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others). </li>
2807
2808 <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons (Closed: #502192: menu-xdg: invents
2809 own icon names instead of using existing). This will remain
2810 unfixed.</li>
2811
2812 </ul>
2813
2814 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
2815
2816 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
2817
2818 <ul>
2819
2820 <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>
2821
2822 <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>
2823
2824 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/debian-edu-7.0+edu0~a2-CD.iso .</li>
2825
2826 </ul>
2827
2828 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 27bbcace407743382f3c42c08dbe8178
2829 <br>The SHA1SUM of this image is: e35f7d7908566cd3075375b3721fa10ee420d419</p>
2830
2831 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
2832
2833 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a>
2834
2835       </div>
2836       <div class="tags">
2837
2838
2839         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>.
2840
2841
2842       </div>
2843     </div>
2844     <div class="padding"></div>
2845
2846     <div class="entry">
2847       <div class="title">
2848         <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>
2849       </div>
2850       <div class="date">
2851          5th June 2013
2852       </div>
2853       <div class="body">
2854         <p>Here is a call for help from the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project.
2855 We have two problems blocking the release of the Wheezy version we
2856 hope to get released soon.  The two problems require some with PHP
2857 skills, and we seem to lack anyone with both time and PHP skills in
2858 the project:
2859
2860 <ol>
2861
2862 <li>It is impossible to log into the slbackup web interface
2863   (slbackup-php) using the root user and password.  This is
2864   <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">BTS report #700257</a>.
2865   This used to work, but stopped working some time since Squeeze.
2866   Perhaps some obsolete PHP feature was used?</li>
2867
2868 <li>It is not possible to "mass import" user lists in Gosa, neither
2869   using ldif nor using CSV files.  The feature was disabled after a
2870   major rewrite of Gosa, and need to be ported to the new system.
2871   This is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">BTS report
2872   #698840</a>.</li>
2873
2874 </ol>
2875
2876 <p>If you can help us, please join us on IRC
2877 (<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu on
2878 irc.debian.org</a>) and provide patches via the BTS.</p>
2879
2880       </div>
2881       <div class="tags">
2882
2883
2884         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>.
2885
2886
2887       </div>
2888     </div>
2889     <div class="padding"></div>
2890
2891     <div class="entry">
2892       <div class="title">
2893         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__C_dric_Boutillier.html">Debian Edu interview: Cédric Boutillier</a>
2894       </div>
2895       <div class="date">
2896          4th June 2013
2897       </div>
2898       <div class="body">
2899         <p>It has been a while since my last English
2900 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
2901 interview last November.  But the developers and translators are still
2902 pulling along to get the Wheezy based release out the door, and this
2903 time I managed to get an interview from one of the French translators
2904 in the project, Cédric Boutillier.</p>
2905
2906 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2907
2908 <p>I am 34 year old. I live near Paris, France. I am an assistant
2909 professor in probability theory. I spend my daytime teaching
2910 mathematics at the university and doing fundamental research in
2911 probability in connexion with combinatorics and statistical physics.</p>
2912
2913 <p>I have been involved in the Debian project for a couple of years
2914 and became Debian Developer a few months ago. I am working on Ruby
2915 packaging, publicity and translation.</p>
2916
2917 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
2918 project?</strong></p>
2919
2920 <p>I came to the Debian Edu project after a call for translation of
2921 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Manuals">the
2922 Debian Edu manual</a> for the release of Debian Edu Squeeze. Since
2923 then, I have been working on updating the French translation of the
2924 manual.
2925
2926 <p>I had the opportunity to make an installation of Debian Edu in a
2927 virtual machine when I was preparing localised version of some screen
2928 shots for the manual. I was amazed to see it worked out of the box and
2929 how comprehensive the list of software installed by default was.</p>
2930
2931 <p>What amazed me was the complete network infrastructure directly
2932 ready to use, which can and the nice administration interface provided
2933 by <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa²</a>.  What pleased
2934 me also was the fact that among the software installed by default,
2935 there were many "traditional" educative software to learn languages,
2936 to count, to program... but also software to develop creativity and
2937 artistic skills with music (<a href="http://ardour.org/">Ardour</a>,
2938 <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>) and
2939 movies/animation (I was especially thinking of
2940 <a href="http://linuxstopmotion.sourceforge.net/">Stopmotion</a>).</p>
2941
2942 <p>I am following the development of Debian Edu and am hanging out on
2943 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>.
2944 Unfortunately, I don't much time to get more involved in this
2945 beautiful project.</p>
2946
2947 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2948 Edu?</strong></p>
2949
2950 <p>For me, the main advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu are its
2951 community of experts and its precise documentation, as well as the
2952 fact that it provides a solution ready to use.</p>
2953
2954 <p>I would add also the fact that it is based on the rock solid Debian
2955 distribution, which ensures stability and provides a huge collection
2956 of educational free software.</p>
2957
2958 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
2959 Edu?</strong></p>
2960
2961 <p>Maybe the lack of manpower to do lobbying on the
2962 project. Sometimes, people who need to take decisions concerning IT do
2963 not have all the elements to evaluate properly free software
2964 solutions. The fact that support by a company may be difficult to find
2965 is probably a problem if the school does not have IT personnel.</p>
2966
2967 <p>One can find support from a company by looking at
2968 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Help/ProfessionalHelp">the
2969 wiki dokumentation</a>, where some countries already have a number of
2970 companies providing support for Debian Edu, like Germany or
2971 Norway. This list is easy to find readily from the manual. However,
2972 for other countries, like France, the list is empty. I guess that
2973 consultants proposing support for Debian would be able to provide some
2974 support for Debian Edu as well.</p>
2975
2976 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2977
2978 <p>I am using the KDE Plasma Desktop. But the pieces of software I use
2979 most runs in a terminal: Mutt and OfflineIMAP for emails, latex for
2980 scientific documents, mpd for music. VIM is my editor of choice.  I am
2981 also using the mathematical software
2982 <a href="http://www.scilab.org/en/scilab/about‎">Scilab</a> and
2983 <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/index.html‎">Sage</a> (built from
2984 source as not completely packaged for Debian, yet).
2985
2986 <p><strong>Do you have any suggestions for teachers interested in
2987 using the free software in Debian to teach mathematics and
2988 statistics?</strong></p>
2989
2990 <p>I do not have any "nice" recommendations for statistics. At our
2991 university, we use both <a href="http://www.r-project.org/‎">R</a> and
2992 Scilab to teach statistics and probabilistic simulations. For
2993 geometry, there are nice programs:</p>
2994
2995 <ul>
2996
2997 <li><a href="http://www.drgeo.eu/">drgeo</a> and
2998 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/kig‎">kig</a> to do
2999 constructions in planar geometry
3000
3001 <li><a href="http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/download/kali.html">kali</a>
3002 to discover symmetry groups (the so-called wallpapers and frieze
3003 groups), although the interface looks a bit old.</li>
3004
3005 </ul>
3006
3007 <p>I like also
3008 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/applications/all/cantor">cantor</a>, which
3009 provides a uniform interface to SciLab, Sage,
3010 <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Octave‎">Octave</a>, etc...</p>
3011
3012 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3013 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3014
3015 <p>My suggestions would be to</p>
3016
3017 <ul>
3018
3019 <li>advertise the reduction of costs when free software is used.</li>
3020
3021 <li>communicate about the quality of free software projects, using
3022     well known examples like Firefox, ThunderBird and
3023     OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice.</li>
3024
3025 <li>advertise the living and strong community around the project.</li>
3026
3027 <li>show that it is not more difficult to use than any other
3028     system.</li>
3029
3030 </ul>
3031
3032       </div>
3033       <div class="tags">
3034
3035
3036         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>.
3037
3038
3039       </div>
3040     </div>
3041     <div class="padding"></div>
3042
3043     <div class="entry">
3044       <div class="title">
3045         <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>
3046       </div>
3047       <div class="date">
3048          1st June 2013
3049       </div>
3050       <div class="body">
3051         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
3052 Skolelinux</a>, there are quite a lot of educational software.
3053 Created to help teachers teach, and pupils learn.  We have tried to
3054 tag them all using debtags use::learning and role::program, and using
3055 the debtags I was happy to be able to create a collage of the
3056 educational software packages installed by default, sorted by the
3057 debtag field.  Here it is.  Click on a image to learn more about the
3058 program.</p>
3059
3060 <!-- 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 -->
3061
3062 <p><strong>field::arts</strong></p>
3063 <p>
3064 <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>
3065 <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>
3066 <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>
3067 <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>
3068 <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>
3069 <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>
3070 <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>
3071 <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>
3072 <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>
3073 <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>
3074 <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>
3075 <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>
3076 <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>
3077 <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>
3078 </p>
3079
3080 <p><strong>field::astronomy</strong></p>
3081 <p>
3082 <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>
3083 <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>
3084 <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>
3085 <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>
3086 <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>
3087 <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>
3088 </p>
3089
3090 <p><strong>field::biology:structural</strong></p>
3091 <p>
3092 <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>
3093 </p>
3094
3095 <p><strong>field::chemistry</strong></p>
3096 <p>
3097 <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>
3098 <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>
3099 <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>
3100 <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>
3101 <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>
3102 <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>
3103 <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>
3104 <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>
3105 <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>
3106 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=viewmol'>[viewmol]</a>
3107 <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>
3108 </p>
3109
3110 <p><strong>field::electronics</strong></p>
3111 <p>
3112 <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>
3113 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=gpsim'>[gpsim]</a>
3114 </p>
3115
3116 <p><strong>field::geography</strong></p>
3117 <p>
3118 <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>
3119 <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>
3120 <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>
3121 </p>
3122
3123 <p><strong>field::linguistics</strong></p>
3124 <p>
3125 <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>
3126 <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>
3127 <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>
3128 <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>
3129 <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>
3130 </p>
3131
3132 <p><strong>field::mathematics</strong></p>
3133 <p>
3134 <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>
3135 <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>
3136 <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>
3137 <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>
3138 <a href='http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all&section=all&keywords=geomview'>[geomview]</a>
3139 <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>
3140 <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>
3141 <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>
3142 <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>
3143 <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>
3144 <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>
3145 <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>
3146 <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>
3147 <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>
3148 <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>
3149 <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>
3150 <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>
3151 </p>
3152
3153 <p><strong>field::physics</strong></p>
3154 <p>
3155 <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>
3156 <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>
3157 </p>
3158
3159 <p><strong>field::TODO</strong></p>
3160 <p>
3161 <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>
3162 <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>
3163 <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>
3164 <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>
3165 <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>
3166 <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>
3167 <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>
3168 <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>
3169 <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>
3170 <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>
3171 </p>
3172
3173 <p>In total, 61 applications.  3 of them lacked screen shots on
3174 <a href="http://screenshot.debian.net">screenshot.debian.net</a>.  If
3175 you know of some packages we should install by default, please let us
3176 know on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu
3177 on irc.debian.org</a>, or our
3178 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">mailing list
3179 debian-edu@</a>.</p>
3180
3181       </div>
3182       <div class="tags">
3183
3184
3185         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>.
3186
3187
3188       </div>
3189     </div>
3190     <div class="padding"></div>
3191
3192     <div class="entry">
3193       <div class="title">
3194         <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>
3195       </div>
3196       <div class="date">
3197         27th May 2013
3198       </div>
3199       <div class="body">
3200         <p>Two days ago, I asked
3201 <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
3202 I could install Linux on a Packard Bell EasyNote LV computer
3203 preinstalled with Windows 8</a>.  I found a solution, but am horrified
3204 with the obstacles put in the way of Linux users on a laptop with UEFI
3205 and Windows 8.</p>
3206
3207 <p>I never found out if the cause of my problems were the use of UEFI
3208 secure booting or fast boot.  I suspect fast boot was the problem,
3209 causing the firmware to boot directly from HD without considering any
3210 key presses and alternative devices, but do not know UEFI settings
3211 enough to tell.</p>
3212
3213 <p>There is no way to install Linux on the machine in question without
3214 opening the box and disconnecting the hard drive!  This is as far as I
3215 can tell, the only way to get access to the firmware setup menu
3216 without accepting the Windows 8 license agreement.  I am told (and
3217 found description on how to) that it is possible to configure the
3218 firmware setup once booted into Windows 8.  But as I believe the terms
3219 of that agreement are completely unacceptable, accepting the license
3220 was never an alternative.  I do not enter agreements I do not intend
3221 to follow.</p>
3222
3223 <p>I feared I had to return the laptops and ask for a refund, and
3224 waste many hours on this, but luckily there was a way to get it to
3225 work.  But I would not recommend it to anyone planning to run Linux on
3226 it, and I have become sceptical to Windows 8 certified laptops.  Is
3227 this the way Linux will be forced out of the market place, by making
3228 it close to impossible for "normal" users to install Linux without
3229 accepting the Microsoft Windows license terms?  Or at least not
3230 without risking to loose the warranty?</p>
3231
3232 <p>I've updated the
3233 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Linux Laptop
3234 wiki page for Packard Bell EasyNote LV</a>, to ensure the next person
3235 do not have to struggle as much as I did to get Linux into the
3236 machine.</p>
3237
3238 <p>Thanks to Bob Rosbag, Florian Weimer, Philipp Kern, Ben Hutching,
3239 Michael Tokarev and others for feedback and ideas.</p>
3240
3241       </div>
3242       <div class="tags">
3243
3244
3245         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>.
3246
3247
3248       </div>
3249     </div>
3250     <div class="padding"></div>
3251
3252     <div class="entry">
3253       <div class="title">
3254         <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>
3255       </div>
3256       <div class="date">
3257         25th May 2013
3258       </div>
3259       <div class="body">
3260         <p>I've run into quite a problem the last few days.  I bought three
3261 new laptops for my parents and a few others.  I bought Packard Bell
3262 Easynote LV to run Kubuntu on and use as their home computer.  But I
3263 am completely unable to figure out how to install Linux on it.  The
3264 computer is preinstalled with Windows 8, and I suspect it uses UEFI
3265 instead of a BIOS to boot.</p>
3266
3267 <p>The problem is that I am unable to get it to PXE boot, and unable
3268 to get it to boot the Linux installer from my USB stick.  I have yet
3269 to try the DVD install, and still hope it will work.  when I turn on
3270 the computer, there is no information on what buttons to press to get
3271 the normal boot menu.  I expect to get some boot menu to select PXE or
3272 USB stick booting.  When booting, it first ask for the language to
3273 use, then for some regional settings, and finally if I will accept the
3274 Windows 8 terms of use.  As these terms are completely unacceptable to
3275 me, I have no other choice but to turn off the computer and try again
3276 to get it to boot the Linux installer.</p>
3277
3278 <p>I have gathered my findings so far on a Linlap page about the
3279 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/packard_bell_easynote_lv">Packard Bell
3280 EasyNote LV</a> model.  If you have any idea how to get Linux
3281 installed on this machine, please get in touch or update that wiki
3282 page.  If I can't find a way to install Linux, I will have to return
3283 the laptop to the seller and find another machine for my parents.</p>
3284
3285 <p>I wonder, is this the way Linux will be forced out of the market
3286 using UEFI and "secure boot" by making it impossible to install Linux
3287 on new Laptops?</p>
3288
3289       </div>
3290       <div class="tags">
3291
3292
3293         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>.
3294
3295
3296       </div>
3297     </div>
3298     <div class="padding"></div>
3299
3300     <div class="entry">
3301       <div class="title">
3302         <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>
3303       </div>
3304       <div class="date">
3305         17th May 2013
3306       </div>
3307       <div class="body">
3308         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is
3309 an operating system based on Debian intended for use in schools.  It
3310 contain a turn-key solution for the computer network provided to
3311 pupils in the primary schools.  It provide both the central server,
3312 network boot servers and desktop environments with heaps of
3313 educational software.  The project was founded almost 12 years ago,
3314 2001-07-02.  If you want to support the project, which is in need for
3315 cash to fund developer gatherings and other project related activity,
3316 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">please
3317 donate some money</a>.
3318
3319 <p>A topic that come up again and again on the Debian Edu mailing
3320 lists and elsewhere, is the question on how to transform a Debian or
3321 Ubuntu installation into a Debian Edu installation.  It isn't very
3322 hard, and last week I wrote a script to replicate the steps done by
3323 the Debian Edu installer.</p>
3324
3325 <p>The script,
3326 <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/>
3327 in the debian-edu-config package, will go through these six steps and
3328 transform an existing Debian Wheezy or Ubuntu (untested) installation
3329 into a Debian Edu Workstation:</p>
3330
3331 <ol>
3332
3333 <li>Add skolelinux related APT sources.</li>
3334 <li>Create /etc/debian-edu/config with the wanted configuration.</li>
3335 <li>Install debian-edu-install to load preseeding values and pull in
3336     our configuration.</li>
3337 <li>Preseed debconf database with profile setup in
3338     /etc/debian-edu/config, and run tasksel to install packages
3339     according to the profile specified in the config above,
3340     overriding some of the Debian automation machinery.</li>
3341 <li>Run debian-edu-cfengine-D installation to configure everything
3342     that could not be done using preseeding.</li>
3343 <li>Ask for a reboot to enable all the configuration changes.</li>
3344
3345 </ol>
3346
3347 <p>There are some steps in the Debian Edu installation that can not be
3348 replicated like this.  Disk partitioning and LVM setup, for example.
3349 So this script just assume there is enough disk space to install all
3350 the needed packages.</p>
3351
3352 <p>The script was created to help a Debian Edu student working on
3353 setting up <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org">Raspberry Pi</a> as a
3354 Debian Edu client, and using it he can take the existing
3355 <a href="http://www.raspbian.org/FrontPage‎">Raspbian</a> installation and
3356 transform it into a fully functioning Debian Edu Workstation (or
3357 Roaming Workstation, or whatever :).</p>
3358
3359 <p>The default setting in the script is to create a KDE Workstation.
3360 If a LXDE based Roaming workstation is wanted instead, modify the
3361 PROFILE and DESKTOP values at the top to look like this instead:</p>
3362
3363 <p><pre>
3364 PROFILE="Roaming-Workstation"
3365 DESKTOP="lxde"
3366 </pre></p>
3367
3368 <p>The script could even become useful to set up Debian Edu servers in
3369 the cloud, by starting with a virtual Debian installation at some
3370 virtual hosting service and setting up all the services on first
3371 boot.</p>
3372
3373       </div>
3374       <div class="tags">
3375
3376
3377         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>.
3378
3379
3380       </div>
3381     </div>
3382     <div class="padding"></div>
3383
3384     <div class="entry">
3385       <div class="title">
3386         <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>
3387       </div>
3388       <div class="date">
3389         14th May 2013
3390       </div>
3391       <div class="body">
3392         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3393 project</a> is making great progress and made its second Wheezy based
3394 release today.  This is the release announcement:</p>
3395
3396 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu 7.0.0 alpha1 released
3397 2013-05-14</strong></p>
3398
3399 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux 7.0.0 edu
3400 alpha1, based on <a href="http://www.debian.org">Debian</a> with
3401 codename "Wheezy".</p>
3402
3403 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
3404
3405 <p>Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based
3406 on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
3407 configured school network. Immediatly after installation a school
3408 server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
3409 waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
3410 Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
3411 initial installation of the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all
3412 other machines can be installed via the network.</p>
3413
3414 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
3415 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
3416 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
3417
3418 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
3419 <ul>
3420   <li>Install freemind (0.9.0) by default, and stop installing vym by
3421     default.</li>
3422   <li>Install chromium (26.0.1410.43) by default.</li>
3423   <li>Install goplay (0.5-1.1) to make golearn available by default.</li>
3424   <li>Updated support for Japanese input methods, now based on
3425     ibus-anthy.</li>
3426 </ul>
3427
3428 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
3429 <ul>
3430
3431   <li>Switched default file system from ext3 to ext4 for speed and
3432     reliability improvements.</li>
3433   <li>Got rid of unwanted winbind daemon and PAM setup activated because
3434     of <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706434">706434</a>.</li>
3435   <li>Extended and improved the testsuite tests to detect more possible
3436     problems.</li>
3437   <li>Corrected proxy handling to not set http_proxy to a bogus
3438     direct:// URL.</li>
3439   <li>Corrected proxy setup for diskless workstations.</li>
3440   <li>Corrected PXE setup to use our updated udebs during installation.</li>
3441   <li>Made installation handling of low entropy level more robust.</li>
3442   <li>Create larger partitions for Roaming workstations and Thin client
3443     servers, to make room for all the software installed.</li>
3444   <li>Fix bug in Roaming workstation PAM setup, making it impossible to
3445     log in (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/706753">706753</a>).</li>
3446 </ul>
3447
3448 <p><strong>Known issues</strong></p>
3449 <ul>
3450
3451   <li>IP resolution for the local hostname give useless IPv6 address
3452     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/705900">705900</a>).  Only install
3453     libnss-myhostname on roaming workstations until it is fixed.</li>
3454   <li>DVD images are not yet ready.</li>
3455   <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv)
3456     available yet (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698840">698840</a>).</li>
3457   <li>Missing artwork for the KDE desktop (and probably a few others).</li>
3458   <li>KDE Debian submenu lacks icons.</li>
3459   <li>LXDE menu lacks entry for changing GOsa password
3460     (website). Installing gosa-desktop will be an option.</li>
3461   <li>Backup configuration via web interface is impossible due to
3462     password submission problem
3463     (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/700257">700257</a>).</li>
3464
3465 </ul>
3466
3467 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
3468
3469 <p>To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use</p>
3470 <ul>
3471
3472   <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>
3473   <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>
3474   <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>
3475
3476 </ul>
3477
3478 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: 685ed76c1aa8e44b12d3fde21faf450b</p>
3479
3480 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 6c874de157024da13e115bab29c068080a11ec4c</p>
3481
3482 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
3483
3484 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
3485
3486       </div>
3487       <div class="tags">
3488
3489
3490         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>.
3491
3492
3493       </div>
3494     </div>
3495     <div class="padding"></div>
3496
3497     <div class="entry">
3498       <div class="title">
3499         <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>
3500       </div>
3501       <div class="date">
3502         11th May 2013
3503       </div>
3504       <div class="body">
3505         <P>In January,
3506 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_IRC_channel_for_LEGO_designers_using_Debian.html">I
3507 announced a</a> new <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">IRC
3508 channel #debian-lego</a>, for those of us in the Debian and Linux
3509 community interested in <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a>, the
3510 marvellous construction system from Denmark.  We also created
3511 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">a wiki page</a> to have
3512 a place to take notes and write down our plans and hopes.  And several
3513 people showed up to help.  I was very happy to see the effect of my
3514 call.  Since the small start, we have a debtags tag
3515 <a href="http://debtags.debian.net/search/bytag?wl=hardware::hobby:lego">hardware::hobby:lego</a>
3516 tag for LEGO related packages, and now count 10 packages related to
3517 LEGO and <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/">Mindstorms</a>:</p>
3518
3519 <p><table>
3520 <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>
3521 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/leocad">leocad</a></td><td>virtual brick CAD software</td></tr>
3522 <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>
3523 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/lnpd">lnpd</a></td><td>daemon for LNP communication with BrickOS</td></tr>
3524 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nbc">nbc</a></td><td>compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricks</td></tr>
3525 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/nqc">nqc</a></td><td>Not Quite C compiler for LEGO Mindstorms RCX</td></tr>
3526 <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>
3527 <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>
3528 <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>
3529 <tr><td><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/t2n">t2n</a></td><td>simple command-line tool for Lego NXT</td></tr>
3530 </table></p>
3531
3532 <p>Some of these are available in Wheezy, and all but one are
3533 currently available in Jessie/testing.  leocad is so far only
3534 available in experimental.</p>
3535
3536 <p>If you care about LEGO in Debian, please join us on IRC and help
3537 adding the rest of the great free software tools available on Linux
3538 for LEGO designers.</p>
3539
3540       </div>
3541       <div class="tags">
3542
3543
3544         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>.
3545
3546
3547       </div>
3548     </div>
3549     <div class="padding"></div>
3550
3551     <div class="entry">
3552       <div class="title">
3553         <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>
3554       </div>
3555       <div class="date">
3556          5th May 2013
3557       </div>
3558       <div class="body">
3559         <p>When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to see that the
3560 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504">release announcement
3561 for Debian Wheezy</a> was waiting in my mail box.  This is a great
3562 Debian release, and I expect to move my machines at home over to it fairly
3563 soon.</p>
3564
3565 <p>The new debian release contain heaps of new stuff, and one program
3566 in particular make me very happy to see included.  The
3567 <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/">Scratch</a> program, made famous by
3568 the <a href="http://www.code.org/">Teach kids code</a> movement, is
3569 included for the first time.  Alongside similar programs like
3570 <a href="http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/">kturtle</a> and
3571 <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art">turtleart</a>,
3572 it allow for visual programming where syntax errors can not happen,
3573 and a friendly programming environment for learning to control the
3574 computer.  Scratch will also be included in the next release of Debian
3575 Edu.</a>
3576
3577 <p>And now that Wheezy is wrapped up, we can wrap up the next Debian
3578 Edu/Skolelinux release too.  The
3579 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2013/04/msg00132.html">first
3580 alpha release</a> went out last week, and the next should soon
3581 follow.<p>
3582
3583       </div>
3584       <div class="tags">
3585
3586
3587         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>.
3588
3589
3590       </div>
3591     </div>
3592     <div class="padding"></div>
3593
3594     <div class="entry">
3595       <div class="title">
3596         <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>
3597       </div>
3598       <div class="date">
3599         26th April 2013
3600       </div>
3601       <div class="body">
3602         <p>The Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is still going strong and made
3603 its first Wheezy based release today.  This is the release
3604 announcement:</p>
3605
3606 <p><strong>New features for Debian Edu ~7.0.0 alpha0 released
3607 2013-04-26</strong></p>
3608
3609 <p>This is the release notes for for Debian Edu / Skolelinux ~7.0.0
3610 edu alpha0, based on Debian with codename "Wheezy".</p>
3611
3612 <p><strong>About Debian Edu and Skolelinux</strong></p>
3613
3614 <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu, also known as
3615 Skolelinux</a>, is a Linux distribution based on Debian providing an
3616 out-of-the box environment of a completely configured school
3617 network. Immediatly after installation a school server running all
3618 services needed for a school network is set up just waiting for users
3619 and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable Web-UI. A netbooting
3620 environment is prepared using PXE, so after initial installation of
3621 the main server from CD, DVD or USB stick all other machines can be
3622 installed via the network.</p>
3623
3624 <p>This is the first test release based on Wheezy (which currently is
3625 not released yet). Basically this is an updated and slightly improved
3626 version compared to the Squeeze release.</p>
3627
3628 <p><strong>Software updates</strong></p>
3629
3630 <ul>
3631 <li>Everything which is new in Debian Wheezy, eg:
3632   <ul>
3633      <li>Linux kernel 3.2.x</li>
3634      <li>Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.8.4, GNOME 3.4, and LXDE 4
3635          (KDE is installed by default; to choose GNOME or LXDE: see
3636          manual.)</li>
3637      <li>Web browser Iceweasel 10 ESR</li>
3638      <li>LibreOffice 3.5.4</li>
3639      <li>LTSP 5.4.2</li>
3640      <li>GOsa 2.7.4</li>
3641      <li>CUPS print system 1.5.3</li>
3642      <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 12.01</li>
3643      <li>Music creator Rosegarden 12.04</li>
3644      <li>Image editor Gimp 2.8.2</li>
3645      <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.1</li>
3646      <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.11.3</li>
3647      <li>Scratch visual programming environment 1.4.0.6</li>
3648      <li>New version of debian-installer from Debian Wheezy, see
3649          <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/wheezy/installmanual">installation
3650          manual</a> for more details.</li>
3651      <li>Debian Wheezy includes about 37000 packages available for
3652          installation.</li>
3653      <li>More information about Debian Wheezy 7.0 is provided in the
3654          <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>
3655   </ul></li>
3656 </ul>
3657
3658 <p><strong>Documentation</strong></p>
3659 <ul>
3660 <li>The (<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Wheezy">English</a>) Debian Edu Wheezy Manual is fully translated to
3661     German, French, Italian and Danish. Partly translated versions exist
3662     for Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.</li>
3663 </ul>
3664
3665 <p><Strong>LDAP related changes</strong></p>
3666 <ul>
3667 <li>Slight changes to some objects and acls to have more types to
3668     choose from when adding systems in GOsa. Now systems can be of type
3669     server, workstation, printer, terminal or netdevice.</li>
3670 </ul>
3671
3672 <p><strong>Other changes</strong></p>
3673 <ul>
3674 <li>LTSP clients start as diskless workstation / thin client can be
3675     configured via command line argument -- or individually adding an
3676     entry in lts.conf or LDAP.<li>
3677 <li>GOsa gui: Now some options that seemed to be available, but are non
3678     functional, are greyed out (or are not clickable). Some tabs are
3679     completely hidden to the end user, others even to the GOsa admin.</li>
3680 </ul>
3681
3682 <p><strong>Regressions</strong></p>
3683 <ul>
3684 <li>No mass import of user account data in GOsa (ldif or csv) available
3685     yet.</li>
3686 </ul>
3687
3688 <p><strong>No updated artwork</strong></p>
3689
3690 <ul>
3691 <li>Updated artwork which is visible during installation, in the login
3692     screen and as desktop wallpaper is still missing or the same as we
3693     had for our Squeeze based release.</li>
3694 </ul>
3695
3696 <p><strong>Where to get it</strong></p>
3697
3698 To download the multiarch netinstall CD release you can use
3699 <ul>
3700 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
3701 <li><a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</a></li>
3702 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/wheezy/</li>
3703 </ul>
3704
3705 <p>The MD5SUM of this image is: c5e773ddafdaa4f48c409c682f598b6c</p>
3706
3707 <p>The SHA1SUM of this image is: 25934fabb9b7d20235499a0a51f08ce6c54215f2</p>
3708
3709 <p><strong>How to report bugs</strong></p>
3710
3711 <p><a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a></p>
3712
3713       </div>
3714       <div class="tags">
3715
3716
3717         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>.
3718
3719
3720       </div>
3721     </div>
3722     <div class="padding"></div>
3723
3724     <div class="entry">
3725       <div class="title">
3726         <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>
3727       </div>
3728       <div class="date">
3729         16th April 2013
3730       </div>
3731       <div class="body">
3732         <p>This years first <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux /
3733 Debian Edu</a> developer gathering take place the coming weekend in Trondheim.
3734 Details about the gathering can be found
3735 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2013-04-19-21-Trondheim">on
3736 the FRiSK wiki</a>.  The dates are 19-21th of April 2013, and online
3737 participation for those unable to make it in person is very welcome,
3738 and I plan to participate online myself as I could not leave Oslo this
3739 weekend.</p>
3740
3741 <p>The focus of the gathering is to work on the web pages and project
3742 infrastructure, and to continue the work on the Wheezy based Debian
3743 Edu release.</p>
3744
3745 <p>See you on <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-edu">IRC, #debian-edu on irc.debian.org,</a> then?</p>
3746
3747       </div>
3748       <div class="tags">
3749
3750
3751         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>.
3752
3753
3754       </div>
3755     </div>
3756     <div class="padding"></div>
3757
3758     <div class="entry">
3759       <div class="title">
3760         <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>
3761       </div>
3762       <div class="date">
3763          3rd April 2013
3764       </div>
3765       <div class="body">
3766         <p>Today the <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">Isenkram
3767 package</a> finally made it into the archive, after lingering in NEW
3768 for many months.  I uploaded it to the Debian experimental suite
3769 2013-01-27, and today it was accepted into the archive.</p>
3770
3771 <p>Isenkram is a system for suggesting to users what packages to
3772 install to work with a pluggable hardware device.  The suggestion pop
3773 up when the device is plugged in.  For example if a Lego Mindstorm NXT
3774 is inserted, it will suggest to install the program needed to program
3775 the NXT controller.  Give it a go, and report bugs and suggestions to
3776 BTS. :)</p>
3777
3778       </div>
3779       <div class="tags">
3780
3781
3782         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>.
3783
3784
3785       </div>
3786     </div>
3787     <div class="padding"></div>
3788
3789     <div class="entry">
3790       <div class="title">
3791         <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>
3792       </div>
3793       <div class="date">
3794         26th March 2013
3795       </div>
3796       <div class="body">
3797         <p>Would you like to help the environment and save money at the same
3798 time, without much sacrifice?  A small step could be to change the
3799 font you use when printing.</p>
3800
3801 <p>Three years ago,
3802 <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/04/last-year-printer-comparison-website/">Ars
3803 Technica</a> reported how the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
3804 changed their default front from
3805 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial">Arial</a> to
3806 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_Gothic">Century
3807 Gothic</a> to save money.  The Century Gothic font uses 30% less toner
3808 than Arial to print the same text.  In other word, you could cut your
3809 toner costs by 30% (or actually, increase your toner supply life time
3810 by more than 30%), by simply changing the default font used in your
3811 prints.</p>
3812
3813 <p>But it is not quite obvious how much one will save by switching.
3814 The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay said it used $100,000 per year
3815 on ink and toner cartridges, according to
3816 <a href="http://www.twincities.com/ci_14833097">a report from
3817 TwinCities.com</a>, and expected to save between $5,000 and $10,000
3818 per year by asking staff and students to use a different font.  Not
3819 all PDFs and documents are created internally, and those from external
3820 sources will most likely still use a different font.  Also, the
3821 Century Gothic font is slightly wider than Arial, and thus might use
3822 more sheets of paper to print the same text, so the total saving
3823 depend on the documents printed.</p>
3824
3825 <p>But it is definitely something to consider, if you want to reduce
3826 the amount of trash, decrease the amount of toner used in the world,
3827 and save some money in the process.</p>
3828
3829 <p>Update 2013-04-10: If you want to know how much ink/toner could be
3830 saved when switching between fonts, Inkfarm got a
3831 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/What-the-Font">service to calculate the
3832 difference between font pairs</a>.  They also
3833 <a href="http://www.inkfarm.com/Recommended-Ink-Saving-Fonts---">recommend
3834 which fonts to use</a> to save ink.  Check it out. :) While updating
3835 this blog post, I also came across a blog post from InkCloners,
3836 <a href="http://inkcloners.com/blog/ink-cartridges/change-fonts-to-save-ink-costs/">listing
3837 the fonts they recommend</a>, with Centory Gothic at the top.</p>
3838
3839       </div>
3840       <div class="tags">
3841
3842
3843         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
3844
3845
3846       </div>
3847     </div>
3848     <div class="padding"></div>
3849
3850     <div class="entry">
3851       <div class="title">
3852         <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>
3853       </div>
3854       <div class="date">
3855         24th March 2013
3856       </div>
3857       <div class="body">
3858         <p>A few days ago, during a discussion in
3859 <a href="http://www.efn.no/">EFN</a> about interesting books to read
3860 about copyright and the data retention directive, a suggestion to read
3861 the 1968 short story Kodémus by
3862 <a href="http://web2.gyldendal.no/toraage/">Tore Åge Bringsværd</a>
3863 came up.  The text was only available in old paper books, and thus not
3864 easily available for current and future generations.  Some of the
3865 people participating in the discussion contacted the author, and
3866 reported back 2013-03-19 that the author was OK with releasing the
3867 short story using a <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative
3868 Commons</a> license.  The text was quickly scanned and OCR-ed, and we
3869 were ready to start on the editing and typesetting.</p>
3870
3871 <p>As I already had some experience formatting text in my project to
3872 provide a Norwegian version of the Free Culture book by Lawrence
3873 Lessig, I chipped in and set up a
3874 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">DocBook</a> processing framework to
3875 generate PDF, HTML and EPUB version of the short story.  The tools to
3876 transform DocBook to different formats are already in my Linux
3877 distribution of choice, <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>, so
3878 all I had to do was to use the
3879 <a href="http://dblatex.sourceforge.net/">dblatex</a>,
3880 <a href="http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/epub/README">dbtoepub</a>
3881 and <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/xmlto/">xmlto</a> tools to do the
3882 conversion.  After a few days, we decided to replace dblatex with
3883 xsltproc/fop (aka
3884 <a href="http://wiki.docbook.org/DocBookXslStylesheets">docbook-xsl</a>),
3885 to get the copyright information to show up in the PDF and to get a
3886 nicer &lt;variablelist&gt; typesetting, but that is just a minor
3887 technical detail.</p>
3888
3889 <p>There were a few challenges, of course.  We want to typeset the
3890 short story to look like the original, and that require fairly good
3891 control over the layout.  The original short story have three
3892 parts/scenes separated by a single horizontally centred star (*), and
3893 the paragraphs do not contain only flowing text, but dialogs and text
3894 that started on a new line in the middle of the paragraph.</p>
3895
3896 <p>I initially solved the first challenge by using a paragraph with a
3897 single star in it, ie &lt;para&gt;*&lt;/para&gt;, but it made sure a
3898 placeholder indicated where the scene shifted.  This did not look too
3899 good without the centring.  The next approach was to create a new
3900 preprocessor directive &lt;?newscene?&gt;, mapping to "&lt;hr/&gt;"
3901 for HTML and "&lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;&lt;fo:leader
3902 leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;&lt;/fo:block&gt;"
3903 for FO/PDF output (did not try to implement this in dblatex, as we had
3904 switched at this time).  The HTML XSL file looked like this:</p>
3905
3906 <p><blockquote><pre>
3907 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
3908 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
3909   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
3910     &lt;hr/&gt;
3911   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
3912 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
3913 </pre></blockquote></p>
3914
3915 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
3916
3917 <p><blockquote><pre>
3918 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
3919 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
3920   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('newscene')"&gt;
3921     &lt;fo:block text-align="center"&gt;
3922       &lt;fo:leader leader-pattern="rule" rule-thickness="0.5pt"/&gt;
3923     &lt;/fo:block&gt;
3924   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
3925 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
3926 </pre></blockquote></p>
3927
3928 <p>Finally, I came across the &lt;bridgehead&gt; tag, which seem to be
3929 a good fit for the task at hand, and I replaced &lt;?newscene?&gt;
3930 with &lt;bridgehead&gt;*&lt;/bridgehead&gt;.  It isn't centred, but we
3931 can fix it with some XSL rule if the current visual layout isn't
3932 enough.</p>
3933
3934 <p>I did not find a good DocBook compliant way to solve the
3935 linebreak/paragraph challenge, so I ended up creating a new processor
3936 directive &lt;?linebreak?&gt;, mapping to &lt;br/&gt; in HTML, and
3937 &lt;fo:block/&gt; in FO/PDF.  I suspect there are better ways to do
3938 this, and welcome ideas and patches on github.  The HTML XSL file now
3939 look like this:</p>
3940
3941 <p><blockquote><pre>
3942 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
3943 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'&gt;
3944   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
3945     &lt;br/&gt;
3946   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
3947 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
3948 </pre></blockquote></p>
3949
3950 <p>And the FO/PDF XSL file looked like this:</p>
3951
3952 <p><blockquote><pre>
3953 &lt;?xml version='1.0'?&gt;
3954 &lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version='1.0'
3955   xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"&gt;
3956   &lt;xsl:template match="processing-instruction('linebreak)"&gt;
3957     &lt;fo:block/&gt;
3958   &lt;/xsl:template&gt;
3959 &lt;/xsl:stylesheet&gt;
3960 </pre></blockquote></p>
3961
3962 <p>One unsolved challenge is our wish to expose different ISBN numbers
3963 per publication format, while keeping all of them in some conditional
3964 structure in the DocBook source.  No idea how to do this, so we ended
3965 up listing all the ISBN numbers next to their format in the colophon
3966 page.</p>
3967
3968 <p>If you want to check out the finished result, check out the
3969 <a href="https://github.com/sickel/kodemus">source repository at
3970 github</a>
3971 (<a href="https://github.com/EFN/kodemus">future/new/official
3972 repository</a>).  We expect it to be ready and announced in a few
3973 days.</p>
3974
3975       </div>
3976       <div class="tags">
3977
3978
3979         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>.
3980
3981
3982       </div>
3983     </div>
3984     <div class="padding"></div>
3985
3986     <div class="entry">
3987       <div class="title">
3988         <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>
3989       </div>
3990       <div class="date">
3991         17th March 2013
3992       </div>
3993       <div class="body">
3994         <p>Via
3995 <a href="https://twitter.com/pcwizz/status/313044373262716930">twitter</a>
3996 I just discovered that <a href="http://pcwizz.net/">Pcwizz</a> have
3997 done a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPzTZ61Pcuc">video
3998 review</a> on Youtube of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
3999 / Debian Edu</a> version 6.  He installed the standalone profile and
4000 the video show a walk-through of of the menu content, demonstration of
4001 a few programs and his view of our distribution.</p>
4002
4003 <p>There is also some really nice quotes (transcribed by me, might
4004 have heard wrong).  While looking thought the Graphics menu:</p>
4005
4006 <blockquote>
4007 "Basically everything you ever need in a school environment."
4008 </blockquote>
4009
4010 <p>And as a general evaluation of the entire distribution:</p>
4011
4012 <blockquote>
4013 "So, yeah, a bit bloated.  It kept all the Debian stuff in there, just
4014 to keep it nice and GNU.  So, I do not want to go on about it, but
4015 lets give it 7 out of 10.  I am not going to use it.  That is because
4016 I am not deploying a school network.  There may be some mythical
4017 feature to help you deploy Skolelinux on a school network."
4018 </blockquote>
4019
4020 <p>To bad he did not test the server profile, and discovered the PXE
4021 installation option.  It make it possible to install only the main
4022 server from CD, and the rest of the machines via the net, and might be
4023 considered the mythical feature he talk about. :)</p>
4024
4025 <p>While looking through the menus, there is also this funny comment
4026 about the part of the K menu generated from the Debian menu subsystem:
4027
4028 <blockquote>
4029 "[The K menu] have a special Debian section for software that no-one
4030 is going to look at, because it contain lots of junky stuff that you
4031 actually don't need in the education distribution, but have just been
4032 included because it isn't stripped out for some reason."
4033 </blockquote>
4034
4035 <p>I guess it is yet another argument for merging the Debian menu and
4036 Gnome/KDE desktop menu entries into
4037 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/Proposals/DebianMenuUsingDesktopEntries">one
4038 consistent menu system</a> instead of two incomplete and partly
4039 inconsistent menu systems.</p>
4040
4041 <p>The entire video is available below for those accepting iframe
4042 embedding:</p>
4043
4044 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wPzTZ61Pcuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
4045
4046       </div>
4047       <div class="tags">
4048
4049
4050         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>.
4051
4052
4053       </div>
4054     </div>
4055     <div class="padding"></div>
4056
4057     <div class="entry">
4058       <div class="title">
4059         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_update_released.html">First Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze update released</a>
4060       </div>
4061       <div class="date">
4062          8th March 2013
4063       </div>
4064       <div class="body">
4065         <p>Last Sunday, 2013-03-03,, Holger Levsen announced the first update
4066 of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
4067 based on Debian Squeeze.  This is the first update since
4068 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
4069 initial release 2012-03-11</a>.  This is the
4070 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2013/03/msg00000.html">release
4071 announcement email from Holger</a>:</p>
4072
4073 <blockquote><p>Hi,</p>
4074
4075 <p>it's my pleasure to announce the immediate availability of Debian
4076 Edu 6.0.7+r1 ("Debian Edu Squeeze").</p>
4077
4078 <p>Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 is an incremental update to Debian Edu
4079 6.0.4+r0, containing all the changes between Debian 6.0.4 and 6.0.7 as
4080 well Debian Edu specific bugfixes and enhancements. See below (in this
4081 mail) for the full list of (edu) changes.  Please see
4082 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311">http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311</a>
4083 for more information on "Debian Edu Squeeze".</p>
4084
4085 <p>Images are available for download at
4086 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/</a></p>
4087
4088 <p>md5sums:
4089 <br>1fe79eb4f0f9ae1c58fc318e26cc1e2e  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
4090 <br>a6ddd924a8bd9a1b5ca122e8fe1c34ec  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
4091 <br>ac6c72cd7925ccec51bfbf58e2a7c69c  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
4092
4093 <p>sha1sums:
4094 <br>a4b58233b672a99c7df8dc24fb6de3327654a5c3  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-CD.iso
4095 <br>9b524915e0ff2aa793f13d93123e5bd2bab2dbaa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-DVD.iso
4096 <br>43997614893fc5e9e59ad6ce066b05d07fd836fa  debian-edu-6.0.7+r1-source-DVD.iso</p>
4097
4098 <p>These images are suitable for amd64+i386.</p>
4099
4100 <p>Changes for Debian Edu 6.0.7+r1 Codename "Squeeze", released
4101 2013-03-03:</p>
4102
4103 <ul>
4104   <li>sitesummary was updated from 0.1.3 to 0.1.8
4105   <ul>
4106         <li>Make Nagios configuration more robust and efficient</li>
4107         <li>Comply with 3.X kernel</li>
4108   </ul></li>
4109   <li>debian-edu-doc from 1.4~20120310~6.0.4+r0 to 1.4~20130228~6.0.7+r1
4110   <ul>
4111         <li>Minor updates from the wiki</li>
4112         <li>Danish translation now complete</li>
4113   </ul></li>
4114   <li>debian-edu-config from 1.453 to 1.455
4115      <ul>
4116         <li>Fix /etc/hosts for LTSP diskless workstations. Closes: #699880</li>
4117         <li>Make ltsp_local_mount script work for multiple devices.</li>
4118         <li>Correct Kerberos user policy: don't expire password after 2 days.
4119                 Closes: #664596</li>
4120         <li>Handle '#' characters in the root or first users password.
4121                 Closes: #664976</li>
4122         <li>Fixes for gosa-sync:
4123            <ul>
4124                 <li>Don't fail if password contains "</li>
4125                 <li>Don't disclose new password string in syslog</li>
4126            </ul></li>
4127         <li>Fixes for gosa-create:
4128            <ul>
4129                 <li>Invalidate libnss cache before applying changes</li>
4130                 <li>Multiple failures during mass user import into GOsa²</li>
4131                 <li>gosa-netgroups plugin: don't erase entries of attribute type
4132                          "memberNisNetgroup". Closes: #687256</li>
4133                 <li>First user now uses the same Kerberos policy as all other users</li>
4134            </ul></li>
4135         <li>Add Danish web page</li>
4136     </ul>
4137   <li>debian-edu-install from 1.528 to 1.530
4138     <ul>
4139         <li>Improve preseeding support and documentation</li>
4140     </ul></li>
4141 </ul>
4142
4143 <p>End-user documentation in English is available at
4144 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/</a>
4145 - translations to French, Italian, Danish and German are available in
4146 the debian-edu-doc package. (Other languages could use your help!)</p>
4147
4148 <p>If you want to contribute to Debian Edu, please join our
4149 mailinglist
4150 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/">debian-edu@lists.debian.org</a>!
4151 </p></blockquote>
4152
4153 <p>I am very happy to see the fruits of a year of hard work. :)</p>
4154
4155       </div>
4156       <div class="tags">
4157
4158
4159         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>.
4160
4161
4162       </div>
4163     </div>
4164     <div class="padding"></div>
4165
4166     <div class="entry">
4167       <div class="title">
4168         <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>
4169       </div>
4170       <div class="date">
4171          3rd March 2013
4172       </div>
4173       <div class="body">
4174         <p>Do you want to set up your own TV station, schedule videos and
4175 broadcast them on the air?  Using free software?  With video on demand
4176 support using
4177 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
4178 open standards</a>?  Included a web based video stream as well?  And
4179 administrate it all in your web browser from anywhere in the world?  A
4180 few years now the Norwegian public access TV-channel
4181 <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a> have been building a
4182 system to do just this.  The source code for the solution is licensed
4183 using the GNU LGPL, and
4184 <a href="http://github.com/Frikanalen">available from github</a>.</p>
4185
4186 <p>The idea is simple.  You upload a video file over the web, and
4187 attach meta information to the file.  You select a time slot in the
4188 program schedule, and when the time come it is played on the air and
4189 in the web stream.  It is also made available in a video on demand
4190 solution for anyone to see it also outside its scheduled time.  All
4191 you need to run a TV station - using your web browser.</p>
4192
4193 <p>There are several parts to this web based solution.  I'll mention
4194 the three most important ones.  The first part is the database of
4195 videos and the schedule.  This is written in Django and include a REST
4196 API.  The current database is SQLite, but the plan is to migrate it to
4197 PostgreSQL.  At the moment this system can be tested on
4198 <a href="http://beta.frikanalen.tv/">beta.frikanalen.tv</a>.  The
4199 second part is the video playout, taking the schedule information from
4200 the database and providing a video stream to broadcast.  This is done
4201 using <a href="http://www.casparcg.com/">CasparCG from SVT</a> and
4202 <a href="http://www.mltframework.org/">Media Lovin' Toolkit</a>.  Video
4203 signal distribution is handled using
4204 <a href="http://www.ob-encoder.com/">Open Broadcast Encoder</a>.  The
4205 third part is the converter, handling the transformation of uploaded
4206 video files to a format useful for broadcasting, streaming and video
4207 on demand.  It is still very much work in progress, so it is not yet
4208 decided what it will end up using.  Note that the source of the latter
4209 two parts are not yet pushed to github.  The lead author want to clean
4210 them up a bit more first.</p>
4211
4212 <p>The development is coordinated on the
4213 <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/%23frikanalen">#frikanalen IRC
4214 channel</a> (irc.freenode.net), and discussed on
4215 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/frikanalen">the
4216 frikanalen mailing list</a>. The lead developer is Benjamin Bruheim
4217 (phed on IRC).  Anyone is welcome to participate in the
4218 development.</p>
4219
4220       </div>
4221       <div class="tags">
4222
4223
4224         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>.
4225
4226
4227       </div>
4228     </div>
4229     <div class="padding"></div>
4230
4231     <div class="entry">
4232       <div class="title">
4233         <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>
4234       </div>
4235       <div class="date">
4236         27th February 2013
4237       </div>
4238       <div class="body">
4239         <p>Dr. <a href="http://www.stallman.org/">Richard Stallman</a>,
4240 founder of <a href="http://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>,
4241 is giving <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">a
4242 talk in Oslo March 1st 2013 17:00 to 19:00</a>.  The event is public
4243 and organised by <a href="">Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG)</a>
4244 (where I am the chair of the board) and
4245 <a href="http://www.friprog.no/">The Norwegian Open Source Competence
4246 Center</a>.  The title of the talk is «The Free Software Movement and
4247 GNU», with this description:
4248
4249 <p><blockquote>
4250 The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to
4251 cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement
4252 developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the
4253 kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.
4254 </blockquote></p>
4255
4256 <p>The meeting is open for everyone.  Due to space limitations, the
4257 doors opens for NUUG members at 16:15, and everyone else at 16:45.  I
4258 am really curious how many will show up.  See
4259 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20130301-rms/">the event
4260 page</a> for the location details.</p>
4261
4262       </div>
4263       <div class="tags">
4264
4265
4266         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>.
4267
4268
4269       </div>
4270     </div>
4271     <div class="padding"></div>
4272
4273     <div class="entry">
4274       <div class="title">
4275         <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>
4276       </div>
4277       <div class="date">
4278         15th February 2013
4279       </div>
4280       <div class="body">
4281         <p>If you, like me, want an updated a map for your Garmin GPS, there is
4282 now a great source of free maps available from
4283 <a href="http://www.frikart.no/garmin/index.html">Frikart</a>.  To
4284 download a map, just click on the country you are interested in, and
4285 download the map type you want.  There are 8 different maps available,
4286 using different colours and data selection.  Pick one of Roadmap, Topo
4287 Summer, Topo Winter, Roadmap II, Topo Summer II, Topo Winter II,
4288 "Trails - overlay map" and "Cross country - overlay map" (see the web
4289 page for descriptions).</p>
4290
4291 <p>The maps are updated weekly, so if you find something wrong in the
4292 map you can just edit the
4293 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> map source
4294 (anyone can contribute) and fetch a fixed map a week later. :)</p>
4295
4296       </div>
4297       <div class="tags">
4298
4299
4300         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>.
4301
4302
4303       </div>
4304     </div>
4305     <div class="padding"></div>
4306
4307     <div class="entry">
4308       <div class="title">
4309         <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>
4310       </div>
4311       <div class="date">
4312         12th February 2013
4313       </div>
4314       <div class="body">
4315         <p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
4316 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
4317 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
4318 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
4319 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
4320 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
4321 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
4322 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
4323 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
4324 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
4325 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
4326 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
4327 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
4328 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
4329 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
4330 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
4331
4332 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
4333 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
4334 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
4335 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
4336 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
4337 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
4338 fields:</p>
4339
4340 <p><pre>
4341 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
4342 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
4343 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
4344 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
4345 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
4346 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
4347 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
4348 </pre></p>
4349
4350 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
4351 answer regarding
4352 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
4353 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
4354 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
4355 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
4356
4357 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
4358
4359 <p><pre>
4360 BEGIN:VCARD
4361 VERSION:2.1
4362 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
4363 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
4364 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
4365 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
4366 REV:20130212T095000Z
4367 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
4368 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
4369 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
4370 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
4371 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
4372 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
4373 END:VCARD
4374 </pre></p>
4375
4376 <p>The resulting QR code created using
4377 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
4378 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
4379 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
4380 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
4381 system.</p>
4382
4383 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
4384
4385 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
4386 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
4387 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
4388 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
4389
4390 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
4391 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
4392
4393       </div>
4394       <div class="tags">
4395
4396
4397         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>.
4398
4399
4400       </div>
4401     </div>
4402     <div class="padding"></div>
4403
4404     <div class="entry">
4405       <div class="title">
4406         <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>
4407       </div>
4408       <div class="date">
4409         10th February 2013
4410       </div>
4411       <div class="body">
4412         <p><img align="left" style="margin-right:25px;" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-10-morning-light.jpeg"></p>
4413
4414 <p>With kids in the house, one challenge is getting them to sleep
4415 during the night and wake up when it is morning.  I mean, when I
4416 believe it is morning, and not two hours earlier.  In our household we
4417 have decided that 07:00 is the turning point, but getting the kids to
4418 sleep until 07:00 is a small challenge every day.  They have adapted
4419 quite well, and rarely wake up at 05:00 any more, but some times wake
4420 up at times like 05:50, 06:15, 06:30 or 06:45, and it is hard to put
4421 the awake one to bed again without disturbing and waking the rest.
4422 And I understand perfectly well that they fail to sleep until 07:00
4423 some times, as there is no way for them to know if it is before or
4424 after the magic moment without coming and asking us parents.</p>
4425
4426 <p>But yesterday I came up with a method to solve this problem.  It
4427 involve home automation.  A few years ago I bought a
4428 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick">Tellstick</a> and RF
4429 switches at the local <a href="http://www.clasohlson.com/">Clas
4430 Ohlson</a> shop, allowing me to control lights and other electrical
4431 gadgets using my Linux server.  When I moved from the old flat to a
4432 small house, I put away all this equipment as most of the lighting in
4433 the house was not using wall sockets and thus not easy to connect to
4434 the gadgets I had.  But recently I bought a
4435 <a href="http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick_net">Tellstick
4436 Net</a> to be able to read sensor input as well as control power
4437 sockets.  I want to control ovens in the basement to avoid the pipes
4438 to freeze, and monitor the humidity to detect flooding.  The default
4439 setup for Tellstick Net is to be controlled by the vendor web service,
4440 which to me is a security problem, but it is also possible to build
4441 ones own
4442 <a href="http://developer.telldus.com/blog/2012/03/02/help-us-develop-local-access-using-tellstick-net-build-your-own-firmware">firmware
4443 with local access</A> instead of being controlled by a Swedish
4444 company, thanks to the release of the GPL licensed firmware source
4445 code.  I plan to get that running before I let it control anything
4446 important.  But while working on this, one idea to make it easier for
4447 the kids came to me yesterday.  We can set up a night light controlled
4448 by the computer, and turn it automatically on at 07:00.  The kids can
4449 then check the light in the morning to know if they are supposed to
4450 get up or not.  They joined me in setting everything up, and I
4451 repeated the concept several times before bed times to make sure they
4452 remembered to check the light before getting up in the morning.</p>
4453
4454 <p>We tested it this morning, and all the kids stayed in bed until
4455 after 07:00, and every one of them commented on the fact that the
4456 "morning light" was turned on and signalled that the morning had
4457 arrived.  So this look like a success, and I am excited to see how
4458 this develops the next few days. :) I really hope this can allow us
4459 all to sleep a bit longer in the morning.</p>
4460
4461 <p>A nice advantage of this setup is that we can remote control when
4462 to tell the kids to get up.  We do not have to wait until 07:00, and
4463 can also delay it if we want to.</p>
4464
4465       </div>
4466       <div class="tags">
4467
4468
4469         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
4470
4471
4472       </div>
4473     </div>
4474     <div class="padding"></div>
4475
4476     <div class="entry">
4477       <div class="title">
4478         <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>
4479       </div>
4480       <div class="date">
4481          2nd February 2013
4482       </div>
4483       <div class="body">
4484         <p>My
4485 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_backport_bitcoin_qt_version_0_7_2_2_to_Debian_Squeeze.html">last
4486 bitcoin related blog post</a> mentioned that the new
4487 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin package</a> for
4488 Debian was waiting in NEW.  It was accepted by the Debian ftp-masters
4489 2013-01-19, and have been available in unstable since then.  It was
4490 automatically copied to Ubuntu, and is available in their Raring
4491 version too.</p>
4492
4493 <p>But there is a strange problem with the build that block this new
4494 version from being available on the i386 and kfreebsd-i386
4495 architectures.  For some strange reason, the autobuilders in Debian
4496 for these architectures fail to run the test suite on these
4497 architectures (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/672524">BTS #672524</a>).
4498 We are so far unable to reproduce it when building it manually, and
4499 no-one have been able to propose a fix.  If you got an idea what is
4500 failing, please let us know via the BTS.</p>
4501
4502 <p>One feature that is annoying me with of the bitcoin client, because
4503 I often run low on disk space, is the fact that the client will exit
4504 if it run short on space (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/696715">BTS
4505 #696715</a>).  So make sure you have enough disk space when you run
4506 it. :)</p>
4507
4508 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
4509 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
4510 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
4511
4512       </div>
4513       <div class="tags">
4514
4515
4516         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>.
4517
4518
4519       </div>
4520     </div>
4521     <div class="padding"></div>
4522
4523     <div class="entry">
4524       <div class="title">
4525         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">Welcome to the world, Isenkram!</a>
4526       </div>
4527       <div class="date">
4528         22nd January 2013
4529       </div>
4530       <div class="body">
4531         <p>Yesterday, I
4532 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_prototype_ready_making_hardware_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">asked
4533 for testers</a> for my prototype for making Debian better at handling
4534 pluggable hardware devices, which I
4535 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">set
4536 out to create</a> earlier this month.  Several valuable testers showed
4537 up, and caused me to really want to to open up the development to more
4538 people.  But before I did this, I want to come up with a sensible name
4539 for this project.  Today I finally decided on a new name, and I have
4540 renamed the project from hw-support-handler to this new name.  In the
4541 process, I moved the source to git and made it available as a
4542 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/isenkram.git">collab-maint</a>
4543 repository in Debian.  The new name?  It is <strong>Isenkram</strong>.
4544 To fetch and build the latest version of the source, use</p>
4545
4546 <pre>
4547 git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/collab-maint/isenkram.git
4548 cd isenkram && git-buildpackage -us -uc
4549 </pre>
4550
4551 <p>I have not yet adjusted all files to use the new name yet.  If you
4552 want to hack on the source or improve the package, please go ahead.
4553 But please talk to me first on IRC or via email before you do major
4554 changes, to make sure we do not step on each others toes. :)</p>
4555
4556 <p>If you wonder what 'isenkram' is, it is a Norwegian word for iron
4557 stuff, typically meaning tools, nails, screws, etc.  Typical hardware
4558 stuff, in other words.  I've been told it is the Norwegian variant of
4559 the German word eisenkram, for those that are familiar with that
4560 word.</p>
4561
4562 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-26</strong>: Added -us -us to build
4563 instructions, to avoid confusing people with an error from the signing
4564 process.</p>
4565
4566 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-27</strong>: Switch to HTTP URL for the git
4567 clone argument to avoid the need for authentication.</p>
4568
4569       </div>
4570       <div class="tags">
4571
4572
4573         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>.
4574
4575
4576       </div>
4577     </div>
4578     <div class="padding"></div>
4579
4580     <div class="entry">
4581       <div class="title">
4582         <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>
4583       </div>
4584       <div class="date">
4585         21st January 2013
4586       </div>
4587       <div class="body">
4588         <p>Early this month I set out to try to
4589 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">improve
4590 the Debian support for pluggable hardware devices</a>.  Now my
4591 prototype is working, and it is ready for a larger audience.  To test
4592 it, fetch the
4593 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">source
4594 from the Debian Edu subversion repository</a>, build and install the
4595 package.  You might have to log out and in again activate the
4596 autostart script.</p>
4597
4598 <p>The design is simple:</p>
4599
4600 <ul>
4601
4602 <li>Add desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ causing a program
4603 hw-support-handlerd to start when the user log in.</li>
4604
4605 <li>This program listen for kernel events about new hardware (directly
4606 from the kernel like udev does), not using HAL dbus events as I
4607 initially did.</li>
4608
4609 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware modalias in
4610 the APT database, a database
4611 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=markup">available
4612 via HTTP</a> and a database available as part of the package.</li>
4613
4614 <li>If a package is mapped to the hardware in question, the package
4615 isn't installed yet and this is the first time the hardware was
4616 plugged in, show a desktop notification suggesting to install the
4617 package or packages.</li>
4618
4619 <li>If the user click on the 'install package now' button, ask
4620 aptdaemon via the PackageKit API to install the requrired package.</li>
4621
4622 <li>aptdaemon ask for root password or sudo password, and install the
4623 package while showing progress information in a window.</li>
4624
4625 </ul>
4626
4627 <p>I still need to come up with a better name for the system.  Here
4628 are some screen shots showing the prototype in action.  First the
4629 notification, then the password request, and finally the request to
4630 approve all the dependencies.  Sorry for the Norwegian Bokmål GUI.</p>
4631
4632 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-1-notification.png">
4633 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-2-password.png">
4634 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-3-dependencies.png">
4635 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-4-installing.png">
4636 <br><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-21-hw-support-5-installing-details.png" width="70%"></p>
4637
4638 <p>The prototype still need to be improved with longer timeouts, but
4639 is already useful.  The database of hardware to package mappings also
4640 need more work.  It is currently compatible with the Ubuntu way of
4641 storing such information in the package control file, but could be
4642 changed to use other formats instead or in addition to the current
4643 method.  I've dropped the use of discover for this mapping, as the
4644 modalias approach is more flexible and easier to use on Linux as long
4645 as the Linux kernel expose its modalias strings directly.</p>
4646
4647 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-21 16:50</strong>: Due to popular demand,
4648 here is the command required to check out and build the source: Use
4649 '<tt>svn checkout
4650 svn://svn.debian.org/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/; cd
4651 hw-support-handler; debuild</tt>'.  If you lack debuild, install the
4652 devscripts package.</p>
4653
4654 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-23 12:00</strong>: The project is now
4655 renamed to Isenkram and the source moved from the Debian Edu
4656 subversion repository to a Debian collab-maint git repository.  See
4657 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Welcome_to_the_world__Isenkram_.html">build
4658 instructions</a> for details.</p>
4659
4660       </div>
4661       <div class="tags">
4662
4663
4664         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>.
4665
4666
4667       </div>
4668     </div>
4669     <div class="padding"></div>
4670
4671     <div class="entry">
4672       <div class="title">
4673         <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>
4674       </div>
4675       <div class="date">
4676         19th January 2013
4677       </div>
4678       <div class="body">
4679         <p>This Christmas my trusty old laptop died.  It died quietly and
4680 suddenly in bed.  With a quiet whimper, it went completely quiet and
4681 black.  The power button was no longer able to turn it on.  It was a
4682 IBM Thinkpad X41, and the best laptop I ever had.  Better than both
4683 Thinkpads X30, X31, X40, X60, X61 and X61S.  Far better than the
4684 Compaq I had before that.  Now I need to find a replacement.  To keep
4685 going during Christmas, I moved the one year old SSD disk to my old
4686 X40 where it fitted (only one I had left that could use it), but it is
4687 not a durable solution.
4688
4689 <p>My laptop needs are fairly modest.  This is my wishlist from when I
4690 got a new one more than 10 years ago.  It still holds true.:)</p>
4691
4692 <ul>
4693
4694 <li>Lightweight (around 1 kg) and small volume (preferably smaller
4695   than A4).</li>
4696 <li>Robust, it will be in my backpack every day.</li>
4697 <li>Three button mouse and a mouse pin instead of touch pad.</li>
4698 <li>Long battery life time.  Preferable a week.</li>
4699 <li>Internal WIFI network card.</li>
4700 <li>Internal Twisted Pair network card.</li>
4701 <li>Some USB slots (2-3 is plenty)</li>
4702 <li>Good keyboard - similar to the Thinkpad.</li>
4703 <li>Video resolution at least 1024x768, with size around 12" (A4 paper
4704 size).</li>
4705 <li>Hardware supported by Debian Stable, ie the default kernel and
4706   X.org packages.</li>
4707 <li>Quiet, preferably fan free (or at least not using the fan most of
4708   the time).
4709
4710 </ul>
4711
4712 <p>You will notice that there are no RAM and CPU requirements in the
4713 list.  The reason is simply that the specifications on laptops the
4714 last 10-15 years have been sufficient for my needs, and I have to look
4715 at other features to choose my laptop.  But are there still made as
4716 robust laptops as my X41?  The Thinkpad X60/X61 proved to be less
4717 robust, and Thinkpads seem to be heading in the wrong direction since
4718 Lenovo took over.  But I've been told that X220 and X1 Carbon might
4719 still be useful.</p>
4720
4721 <p>Perhaps I should rethink my needs, and look for a pad with an
4722 external keyboard?  I'll have to check the
4723 <a href="http://www.linux-laptop.net/">Linux Laptops site</a> for
4724 well-supported laptops, or perhaps just buy one preinstalled from one
4725 of the vendors listed on the <a href="http://linuxpreloaded.com/">Linux
4726 Pre-loaded site</a>.</p>
4727
4728       </div>
4729       <div class="tags">
4730
4731
4732         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>.
4733
4734
4735       </div>
4736     </div>
4737     <div class="padding"></div>
4738
4739     <div class="entry">
4740       <div class="title">
4741         <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>
4742       </div>
4743       <div class="date">
4744         18th January 2013
4745       </div>
4746       <div class="body">
4747         <p>Some times I try to figure out which Iceweasel browser plugin to
4748 install to get support for a given MIME type.  Thanks to
4749 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/Plugins">specifications
4750 done by Ubuntu</a> and Mozilla, it is possible to do this in Debian.
4751 Unfortunately, not very many packages provide the needed meta
4752 information, Anyway, here is a small script to look up all browser
4753 plugin packages announcing ther MIME support using this specification:</p>
4754
4755 <pre>
4756 #!/usr/bin/python
4757 import sys
4758 import apt
4759 def pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
4760     cache = apt.Cache()
4761     cache.open(None)
4762     thepkgs = []
4763     for pkg in cache:
4764         version = pkg.candidate
4765         if version is None:
4766             version = pkg.installed
4767         if version is None:
4768             continue
4769         record = version.record
4770         if not record.has_key('Npp-MimeType'):
4771             continue
4772         mime_types = record['Npp-MimeType'].split(',')
4773         for t in mime_types:
4774             t = t.rstrip().strip()
4775             if t == mimetype:
4776                 thepkgs.append(pkg.name)
4777     return thepkgs
4778 mimetype = "audio/ogg"
4779 if 1 < len(sys.argv):
4780     mimetype = sys.argv[1]
4781 print "Browser plugin packages supporting %s:" % mimetype
4782 for pkg in pkgs_handling_mimetype(mimetype):
4783     print "  %s" %pkg
4784 </pre>
4785
4786 <p>It can be used like this to look up a given MIME type:</p>
4787
4788 <pre>
4789 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype
4790 Browser plugin packages supporting audio/ogg:
4791   gecko-mediaplayer
4792 % ./apt-find-browserplug-for-mimetype application/x-shockwave-flash
4793 Browser plugin packages supporting application/x-shockwave-flash:
4794   browser-plugin-gnash
4795 %
4796 </pre>
4797
4798 <p>In Ubuntu this mechanism is combined with support in the browser
4799 itself to query for plugins and propose to install the needed
4800 packages.  It would be great if Debian supported such feature too.  Is
4801 anyone working on adding it?</p>
4802
4803 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-18 14:20</strong>: The Debian BTS
4804 request for icweasel support for this feature is
4805 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/484010">#484010</a> from 2008 (and
4806 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/698426">#698426</a> from today).  Lack
4807 of manpower and wish for a different design is the reason thus feature
4808 is not yet in iceweasel from Debian.</p>
4809
4810       </div>
4811       <div class="tags">
4812
4813
4814         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>.
4815
4816
4817       </div>
4818     </div>
4819     <div class="padding"></div>
4820
4821     <div class="entry">
4822       <div class="title">
4823         <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>
4824       </div>
4825       <div class="date">
4826         16th January 2013
4827       </div>
4828       <div class="body">
4829         <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
4830 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
4831 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
4832 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
4833 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
4834 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
4835 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
4836 downloaded by the browser.</p>
4837
4838 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
4839 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
4840 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
4841 can be found on the
4842 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
4843 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
4844 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
4845 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
4846 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
4847
4848 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
4849
4850 <pre>
4851   count MIME type
4852   ----- -----------------------
4853      32 text/plain
4854      30 audio/mpeg
4855      29 image/png
4856      28 image/jpeg
4857      27 application/ogg
4858      26 audio/x-mp3
4859      25 image/tiff
4860      25 image/gif
4861      22 image/bmp
4862      22 audio/x-wav
4863      20 audio/x-flac
4864      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4865      18 video/x-ms-asf
4866      18 audio/x-musepack
4867      18 audio/x-mpeg
4868      18 application/x-ogg
4869      17 video/mpeg
4870      17 audio/x-scpls
4871      17 audio/ogg
4872      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4873 </pre>
4874
4875 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
4876
4877 <pre>
4878   count MIME type
4879   ----- -----------------------
4880      33 text/plain
4881      32 image/png
4882      32 image/jpeg
4883      29 audio/mpeg
4884      27 image/gif
4885      26 image/tiff
4886      26 application/ogg
4887      25 audio/x-mp3
4888      22 image/bmp
4889      21 audio/x-wav
4890      19 audio/x-mpegurl
4891      19 audio/x-mpeg
4892      18 video/mpeg
4893      18 audio/x-scpls
4894      18 audio/x-flac
4895      18 application/x-ogg
4896      17 video/x-ms-asf
4897      17 text/html
4898      17 audio/x-musepack
4899      16 image/x-xbitmap
4900 </pre>
4901
4902 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
4903
4904 <pre>
4905   count MIME type
4906   ----- -----------------------
4907      31 text/plain
4908      31 image/png
4909      31 image/jpeg
4910      29 audio/mpeg
4911      28 application/ogg
4912      27 image/gif
4913      26 image/tiff
4914      26 audio/x-mp3
4915      23 audio/x-wav
4916      22 image/bmp
4917      21 audio/x-flac
4918      20 audio/x-mpegurl
4919      19 audio/x-mpeg
4920      18 video/x-ms-asf
4921      18 video/mpeg
4922      18 audio/x-scpls
4923      18 application/x-ogg
4924      17 audio/x-musepack
4925      16 video/x-ms-wmv
4926      16 video/x-msvideo
4927 </pre>
4928
4929 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
4930 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
4931 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
4932 issues.</p>
4933
4934 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
4935 discovering a typo in my script.</p>
4936
4937       </div>
4938       <div class="tags">
4939
4940
4941         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>.
4942
4943
4944       </div>
4945     </div>
4946     <div class="padding"></div>
4947
4948     <div class="entry">
4949       <div class="title">
4950         <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>
4951       </div>
4952       <div class="date">
4953         15th January 2013
4954       </div>
4955       <div class="body">
4956         <p>Yesterday, I wrote about the
4957 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Modalias_strings___a_practical_way_to_map__stuff__to_hardware.html">modalias
4958 values provided by the Linux kernel</a> following my hope for
4959 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_hardware_dongles_easier_to_use_in_Debian.html">better
4960 dongle support in Debian</a>.  Using this knowledge, I have tested how
4961 modalias values attached to package names can be used to map packages
4962 to hardware.  This allow the system to look up and suggest relevant
4963 packages when I plug in some new hardware into my machine, and replace
4964 discover and discover-data as the database used to map hardware to
4965 packages.</p>
4966
4967 <p>I create a modaliases file with entries like the following,
4968 containing package name, kernel module name (if relevant, otherwise
4969 the package name) and globs matching the relevant hardware
4970 modalias.</p>
4971
4972 <p><blockquote>
4973 Package: package-name
4974 <br>Modaliases: module(modaliasglob, modaliasglob, modaliasglob)</p>
4975 </blockquote></p>
4976
4977 <p>It is fairly trivial to write code to find the relevant packages
4978 for a given modalias value using this file.</p>
4979
4980 <p>An entry like this would suggest the video and picture application
4981 cheese for many USB web cameras (interface bus class 0E01):</p>
4982
4983 <p><blockquote>
4984 Package: cheese
4985 <br>Modaliases: cheese(usb:v*p*d*dc*dsc*dp*ic0Eisc01ip*)</p>
4986 </blockquote></p>
4987
4988 <p>An entry like this would suggest the pcmciautils package when a
4989 CardBus bridge (bus class 0607) PCI device is present:</p>
4990
4991 <p><blockquote>
4992 Package: pcmciautils
4993 <br>Modaliases: pcmciautils(pci:v*d*sv*sd*bc06sc07i*)
4994 </blockquote></p>
4995
4996 <p>An entry like this would suggest the package colorhug-client when
4997 plugging in a ColorHug with USB IDs 04D8:F8DA:</p>
4998
4999 <p><blockquote>
5000 Package: colorhug-client
5001 <br>Modaliases: colorhug-client(usb:v04D8pF8DAd*)</p>
5002 </blockquote></p>
5003
5004 <p>I believe the format is compatible with the format of the Packages
5005 file in the Debian archive.  Ubuntu already uses their Packages file
5006 to store their mappings from packages to hardware.</p>
5007
5008 <p>By adding a XB-Modaliases: header in debian/control, any .deb can
5009 announce the hardware it support in a way my prototype understand.
5010 This allow those publishing packages in an APT source outside the
5011 Debian archive as well as those backporting packages to make sure the
5012 hardware mapping are included in the package meta information.  I've
5013 tested such header in the pymissile package, and its modalias mapping
5014 is working as it should with my prototype.  It even made it to Ubuntu
5015 Raring.</p>
5016
5017 <p>To test if it was possible to look up supported hardware using only
5018 the shell tools available in the Debian installer, I wrote a shell
5019 implementation of the lookup code.  The idea is to create files for
5020 each modalias and let the shell do the matching.  Please check out and
5021 try the
5022 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/hw-support-lookup?view=co">hw-support-lookup</a>
5023 shell script.  It run without any extra dependencies and fetch the
5024 hardware mappings from the Debian archive and the subversion
5025 repository where I currently work on my prototype.</p>
5026
5027 <p>When I use it on a machine with a yubikey inserted, it suggest to
5028 install yubikey-personalization:</p>
5029
5030 <p><blockquote>
5031 % ./hw-support-lookup
5032 <br>yubikey-personalization
5033 <br>%
5034 </blockquote></p>
5035
5036 <p>When I run it on my Thinkpad X40 with a PCMCIA/CardBus slot, it
5037 propose to install the pcmciautils package:</p>
5038
5039 <p><blockquote>
5040 % ./hw-support-lookup
5041 <br>pcmciautils
5042 <br>%
5043 </blockquote></p>
5044
5045 <p>If you know of any hardware-package mapping that should be added to
5046 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/modaliases?view=co">my
5047 database</a>, please tell me about it.</p>
5048
5049 <p>It could be possible to generate several of the mappings between
5050 packages and hardware.  One source would be to look at packages with
5051 kernel modules, ie packages with *.ko files in /lib/modules/, and
5052 extract their modalias information.  Another would be to look at
5053 packages with udev rules, ie packages with files in
5054 /lib/udev/rules.d/, and extract their vendor/model information to
5055 generate a modalias matching rule.  I have not tested any of these to
5056 see if it work.</p>
5057
5058 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
5059 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
5060 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
5061 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
5062
5063       </div>
5064       <div class="tags">
5065
5066
5067         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>.
5068
5069
5070       </div>
5071     </div>
5072     <div class="padding"></div>
5073
5074     <div class="entry">
5075       <div class="title">
5076         <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>
5077       </div>
5078       <div class="date">
5079         14th January 2013
5080       </div>
5081       <div class="body">
5082         <p>While looking into how to look up Debian packages based on hardware
5083 information, to find the packages that support a given piece of
5084 hardware, I refreshed my memory regarding modalias values, and decided
5085 to document the details.  Here are my findings so far, also available
5086 in
5087 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
5088 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>:
5089
5090 <p><strong>Modalias decoded</strong></p>
5091
5092 <p>This document try to explain what the different types of modalias
5093 values stands for.  It is in part based on information from
5094 &lt;URL: <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias">https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Modalias</a> &gt;,
5095 &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;,
5096 &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
5097 &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;.
5098
5099 <p>The modalias entries for a given Linux machine can be found using
5100 this shell script:</p>
5101
5102 <pre>
5103 find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u
5104 </pre>
5105
5106 <p>The supported modalias globs for a given kernel module can be found
5107 using modinfo:</p>
5108
5109 <pre>
5110 % /sbin/modinfo psmouse | grep alias:
5111 alias:          serio:ty05pr*id*ex*
5112 alias:          serio:ty01pr*id*ex*
5113 %
5114 </pre>
5115
5116 <p><strong>PCI subtype</strong></p>
5117
5118 <p>A typical PCI entry can look like this.  This is an Intel Host
5119 Bridge memory controller:</p>
5120
5121 <p><blockquote>
5122 pci:v00008086d00002770sv00001028sd000001ADbc06sc00i00
5123 </blockquote></p>
5124
5125 <p>This represent these values:</p>
5126
5127 <pre>
5128  v   00008086  (vendor)
5129  d   00002770  (device)
5130  sv  00001028  (subvendor)
5131  sd  000001AD  (subdevice)
5132  bc  06        (bus class)
5133  sc  00        (bus subclass)
5134  i   00        (interface)
5135 </pre>
5136
5137 <p>The vendor/device values are the same values outputted from 'lspci
5138 -n' as 8086:2770.  The bus class/subclass is also shown by lspci as
5139 0600.  The 0600 class is a host bridge.  Other useful bus values are
5140 0300 (VGA compatible card) and 0200 (Ethernet controller).</p>
5141
5142 <p>Not sure how to figure out the interface value, nor what it
5143 means.</p>
5144
5145 <p><strong>USB subtype</strong></p>
5146
5147 <p>Some typical USB entries can look like this.  This is an internal
5148 USB hub in a laptop:</p>
5149
5150 <p><blockquote>
5151 usb:v1D6Bp0001d0206dc09dsc00dp00ic09isc00ip00
5152 </blockquote></p>
5153
5154 <p>Here is the values included in this alias:</p>
5155
5156 <pre>
5157  v    1D6B  (device vendor)
5158  p    0001  (device product)
5159  d    0206  (bcddevice)
5160  dc     09  (device class)
5161  dsc    00  (device subclass)
5162  dp     00  (device protocol)
5163  ic     09  (interface class)
5164  isc    00  (interface subclass)
5165  ip     00  (interface protocol)
5166 </pre>
5167
5168 <p>The 0900 device class/subclass means hub.  Some times the relevant
5169 class is in the interface class section.  For a simple USB web camera,
5170 these alias entries show up:</p>
5171
5172 <p><blockquote>
5173 usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc01ip00
5174 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic01isc02ip00
5175 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc01ip00
5176 <br>usb:v0AC8p3420d5000dcEFdsc02dp01ic0Eisc02ip00
5177 </blockquote></p>
5178
5179 <p>Interface class 0E01 is video control, 0E02 is video streaming (aka
5180 camera), 0101 is audio control device and 0102 is audio streaming (aka
5181 microphone).  Thus this is a camera with microphone included.</p>
5182
5183 <p><strong>ACPI subtype</strong></p>
5184
5185 <p>The ACPI type is used for several non-PCI/USB stuff.  This is an IR
5186 receiver in a Thinkpad X40:</p>
5187
5188 <p><blockquote>
5189 acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
5190 </blockquote></p>
5191
5192 <p>The values between the colons are IDs.</p>
5193
5194 <p><strong>DMI subtype</strong></p>
5195
5196 <p>The DMI table contain lots of information about the computer case
5197 and model.  This is an entry for a IBM Thinkpad X40, fetched from
5198 /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/modalias:</p>
5199
5200 <p><blockquote>
5201 dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1UETB6WW(1.66):bd06/15/2005:svnIBM:pn2371H4G:pvrThinkPadX40:rvnIBM:rn2371H4G:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
5202 </blockquote></p>
5203
5204 <p>The values present are</p>
5205
5206 <pre>
5207  bvn  IBM            (BIOS vendor)
5208  bvr  1UETB6WW(1.66) (BIOS version)
5209  bd   06/15/2005     (BIOS date)
5210  svn  IBM            (system vendor)
5211  pn   2371H4G        (product name)
5212  pvr  ThinkPadX40    (product version)
5213  rvn  IBM            (board vendor)
5214  rn   2371H4G        (board name)
5215  rvr  NotAvailable   (board version)
5216  cvn  IBM            (chassis vendor)
5217  ct   10             (chassis type)
5218  cvr  NotAvailable   (chassis version)
5219 </pre>
5220
5221 <p>The chassis type 10 is Notebook.  Other interesting values can be
5222 found in the dmidecode source:</p>
5223
5224 <pre>
5225   3 Desktop
5226   4 Low Profile Desktop
5227   5 Pizza Box
5228   6 Mini Tower
5229   7 Tower
5230   8 Portable
5231   9 Laptop
5232  10 Notebook
5233  11 Hand Held
5234  12 Docking Station
5235  13 All In One
5236  14 Sub Notebook
5237  15 Space-saving
5238  16 Lunch Box
5239  17 Main Server Chassis
5240  18 Expansion Chassis
5241  19 Sub Chassis
5242  20 Bus Expansion Chassis
5243  21 Peripheral Chassis
5244  22 RAID Chassis
5245  23 Rack Mount Chassis
5246  24 Sealed-case PC
5247  25 Multi-system
5248  26 CompactPCI
5249  27 AdvancedTCA
5250  28 Blade
5251  29 Blade Enclosing
5252 </pre>
5253
5254 <p>The chassis type values are not always accurately set in the DMI
5255 table.  For example my home server is a tower, but the DMI modalias
5256 claim it is a desktop.</p>
5257
5258 <p><strong>SerIO subtype</strong></p>
5259
5260 <p>This type is used for PS/2 mouse plugs.  One example is from my
5261 test machine:</p>
5262
5263 <p><blockquote>
5264 serio:ty01pr00id00ex00
5265 </blockquote></p>
5266
5267 <p>The values present are</p>
5268
5269 <pre>
5270   ty  01  (type)
5271   pr  00  (prototype)
5272   id  00  (id)
5273   ex  00  (extra)
5274 </pre>
5275
5276 <p>This type is supported by the psmouse driver.  I am not sure what
5277 the valid values are.</p>
5278
5279 <p><strong>Other subtypes</strong></p>
5280
5281 <p>There are heaps of other modalias subtypes according to
5282 file2alias.c.  There is the rest of the list from that source: amba,
5283 ap, bcma, ccw, css, eisa, hid, i2c, ieee1394, input, ipack, isapnp,
5284 mdio, of, parisc, pcmcia, platform, scsi, sdio, spi, ssb, vio, virtio,
5285 vmbus, x86cpu and zorro.  I did not spend time documenting all of
5286 these, as they do not seem relevant for my intended use with mapping
5287 hardware to packages when new stuff is inserted during run time.</p>
5288
5289 <p><strong>Looking up kernel modules using modalias values</strong></p>
5290
5291 <p>To check which kernel modules provide support for a given modalias,
5292 one can use the following shell script:</p>
5293
5294 <pre>
5295   for id in $(find /sys -name modalias -print0 | xargs -0 cat | sort -u); do \
5296     echo "$id" ; \
5297     /sbin/modprobe --show-depends "$id"|sed 's/^/  /' ; \
5298   done
5299 </pre>
5300
5301 <p>The output can look like this (only the first few entries as the
5302 list is very long on my test machine):</p>
5303
5304 <pre>
5305   acpi:ACPI0003:
5306     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/ac.ko
5307   acpi:device:
5308   FATAL: Module acpi:device: not found.
5309   acpi:IBM0068:
5310     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/char/nvram.ko
5311     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/leds/led-class.ko
5312     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko
5313     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/platform/x86/thinkpad_acpi.ko
5314   acpi:IBM0071:PNP0511:
5315     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
5316     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
5317     insmod /lib/modules/2.6.32-5-686/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
5318   [...]
5319 </pre>
5320
5321 <p>If you want to help implementing a system to let us propose what
5322 packages to install when new hardware is plugged into a Debian
5323 machine, please send me an email or talk to me on
5324 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-devel">#debian-devel</a>.</p>
5325
5326 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-15:</strong> Rewrite "cat $(find ...)" to
5327 "find ... -print0 | xargs -0 cat" to make sure it handle directories
5328 in /sys/ with space in them.</p>
5329
5330       </div>
5331       <div class="tags">
5332
5333
5334         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>.
5335
5336
5337       </div>
5338     </div>
5339     <div class="padding"></div>
5340
5341     <div class="entry">
5342       <div class="title">
5343         <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>
5344       </div>
5345       <div class="date">
5346         10th January 2013
5347       </div>
5348       <div class="body">
5349         <p>As part of my investigation on how to improve the support in Debian
5350 for hardware dongles, I dug up my old Mark and Spencer USB Rocket
5351 Launcher and updated the Debian package
5352 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/pymissile">pymissile</a> to make
5353 sure udev will fix the device permissions when it is plugged in.  I
5354 also added a "Modaliases" header to test it in the Debian archive and
5355 hopefully make the package be proposed by jockey in Ubuntu when a user
5356 plug in his rocket launcher.  In the process I moved the source to a
5357 git repository under collab-maint, to make it easier for any DD to
5358 contribute.  <a href="http://code.google.com/p/pymissile/">Upstream</a>
5359 is not very active, but the software still work for me even after five
5360 years of relative silence.  The new git repository is not listed in
5361 the uploaded package yet, because I want to test the other changes a
5362 bit more before I upload the new version.  If you want to check out
5363 the new version with a .desktop file included, visit the
5364 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=collab-maint/pymissile.git">gitweb
5365 view</a> or use "<tt>git clone
5366 git://anonscm.debian.org/collab-maint/pymissile.git</tt>".</p>
5367
5368       </div>
5369       <div class="tags">
5370
5371
5372         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>.
5373
5374
5375       </div>
5376     </div>
5377     <div class="padding"></div>
5378
5379     <div class="entry">
5380       <div class="title">
5381         <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>
5382       </div>
5383       <div class="date">
5384          9th January 2013
5385       </div>
5386       <div class="body">
5387         <p>One thing that annoys me with Debian and Linux distributions in
5388 general, is that there is a great package management system with the
5389 ability to automatically install software packages by downloading them
5390 from the distribution mirrors, but no way to get it to automatically
5391 install the packages I need to use the hardware I plug into my
5392 machine.  Even if the package to use it is easily available from the
5393 Linux distribution.  When I plug in a LEGO Mindstorms NXT, it could
5394 suggest to automatically install the python-nxt, nbc and t2n packages
5395 I need to talk to it.  When I plug in a Yubikey, it could propose the
5396 yubikey-personalization package.  The information required to do this
5397 is available, but no-one have pulled all the pieces together.</p>
5398
5399 <p>Some years ago, I proposed to
5400 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg01206.html">use
5401 the discover subsystem to implement this</a>.  The idea is fairly
5402 simple:
5403
5404 <ul>
5405
5406 <li>Add a desktop entry in /usr/share/autostart/ pointing to a program
5407   starting when a user log in.</li>
5408
5409 <li>Set this program up to listen for kernel events emitted when new
5410   hardware is inserted into the computer.</li>
5411
5412 <li>When new hardware is inserted, look up the hardware ID in a
5413   database mapping to packages, and take note of any non-installed
5414   packages.</li>
5415
5416 <li>Show a message to the user proposing to install the discovered
5417   package, and make it easy to install it.</li>
5418
5419 </ul>
5420
5421 <p>I am not sure what the best way to implement this is, but my
5422 initial idea was to use dbus events to discover new hardware, the
5423 discover database to find packages and
5424 <a href="http://www.packagekit.org/">PackageKit</a> to install
5425 packages.</p>
5426
5427 <p>Yesterday, I found time to try to implement this idea, and the
5428 draft package is now checked into
5429 <a href="http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/debian-edu/trunk/src/hw-support-handler/">the
5430 Debian Edu subversion repository</a>.  In the process, I updated the
5431 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover-data.html">discover-data</a>
5432 package to map the USB ids of LEGO Mindstorms and Yubikey devices to
5433 the relevant packages in Debian, and uploaded a new version
5434 2.2013.01.09 to unstable.  I also discovered that the current
5435 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/discover.html">discover</a>
5436 package in Debian no longer discovered any USB devices, because
5437 /proc/bus/usb/devices is no longer present.  I ported it to use
5438 libusb as a fall back option to get it working.  The fixed package
5439 version 2.1.2-6 is now in experimental (didn't upload it to unstable
5440 because of the freeze).</p>
5441
5442 <p>With this prototype in place, I can insert my Yubikey, and get this
5443 desktop notification to show up (only once, the first time it is
5444 inserted):</p>
5445
5446 <p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-01-09-hw-autoinstall.png"></p>
5447
5448 <p>For this prototype to be really useful, some way to automatically
5449 install the proposed packages by pressing the "Please install
5450 program(s)" button should to be implemented.</p>
5451
5452 <p>If this idea seem useful to you, and you want to help make it
5453 happen, please help me update the discover-data database with mappings
5454 from hardware to Debian packages.  Check if 'discover-pkginstall -l'
5455 list the package you would like to have installed when a given
5456 hardware device is inserted into your computer, and report bugs using
5457 reportbug if it isn't.  Or, if you know of a better way to provide
5458 such mapping, please let me know.</p>
5459
5460 <p>This prototype need more work, and there are several questions that
5461 should be considered before it is ready for production use.  Is dbus
5462 the correct way to detect new hardware?  At the moment I look for HAL
5463 dbus events on the system bus, because that is the events I could see
5464 on my Debian Squeeze KDE desktop.  Are there better events to use?
5465 How should the user be notified?  Is the desktop notification
5466 mechanism the best option, or should the background daemon raise a
5467 popup instead?  How should packages be installed?  When should they
5468 not be installed?</p>
5469
5470 <p>If you want to help getting such feature implemented in Debian,
5471 please send me an email. :)</p>
5472
5473       </div>
5474       <div class="tags">
5475
5476
5477         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>.
5478
5479
5480       </div>
5481     </div>
5482     <div class="padding"></div>
5483
5484     <div class="entry">
5485       <div class="title">
5486         <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>
5487       </div>
5488       <div class="date">
5489          2nd January 2013
5490       </div>
5491       <div class="body">
5492         <p>During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for
5493 <a href="http://mindstorms.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx">LEGO Mindstorm
5494 NXT</a>.  My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I
5495 discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were
5496 already in Debian Squeeze.  If Debian support for LEGO is something
5497 you care about, please join me on the IRC channel
5498 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> (server
5499 irc.debian.org).  There is a lot that could be done to improve the
5500 Debian support for LEGO designers.  For example both CAD software
5501 and Mindstorm compilers are missing. :)</p>
5502
5503 <p>Update 2012-01-03: A
5504 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">project page</a>
5505 including links to Lego related packages is now available.</p>
5506
5507       </div>
5508       <div class="tags">
5509
5510
5511         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>.
5512
5513
5514       </div>
5515     </div>
5516     <div class="padding"></div>
5517
5518     <div class="entry">
5519       <div class="title">
5520         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Christmas_present_for_Skolelinux___Debian_Edu.html">A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
5521       </div>
5522       <div class="date">
5523         28th December 2012
5524       </div>
5525       <div class="body">
5526         <p>I was happy to discover a few days ago that the
5527 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a>
5528 project also this year received a Christmas present from Another
5529 Agency in Trondheim.  NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account
5530 December 24th.  I want to express our thanks for this very welcome
5531 present.  As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on
5532 funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer
5533 gatherings, this donation was most welcome.  One developer gathering
5534 cost around NOK 15&nbsp;000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the
5535 development pace we want.  Thus, I hope their example this year is
5536 followed by many others. :)</p>
5537
5538 <p>The public list of donors can be found on
5539 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">the
5540 donation page</a> for the project, which also contain instructions if
5541 you want to donate to the project.</p>
5542
5543       </div>
5544       <div class="tags">
5545
5546
5547         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>.
5548
5549
5550       </div>
5551     </div>
5552     <div class="padding"></div>
5553
5554     <div class="entry">
5555       <div class="title">
5556         <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>
5557       </div>
5558       <div class="date">
5559         25th December 2012
5560       </div>
5561       <div class="body">
5562         <p>Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new
5563 year!  I hope next year will prove to be a good year.</p>
5564
5565 <p><a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a>, the digital
5566 decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins
5567 between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting
5568 experiment.  And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in
5569 <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> is about to improve a bit.
5570 The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">new debian source
5571 package</a> (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting
5572 in <a href="http://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html">the NEW queue</A>
5573 for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package
5574 name.</p>
5575
5576 <p>And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin
5577 team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze
5578 using the following steps to get a set of working packages:</p>
5579
5580 <blockquote><pre>
5581 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
5582 cd bitcoin
5583 DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
5584 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
5585 </pre></blockquote>
5586
5587 <p>You might have to install some build dependencies as well.  The
5588 list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and
5589 bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment.  Note that the
5590 client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need
5591 around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment.  Make sure your
5592 ~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download
5593 all the blocks.  The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so
5594 there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will
5595 not be able to get all the features out of the client.</p>
5596
5597 <p>As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my
5598 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
5599 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5600
5601       </div>
5602       <div class="tags">
5603
5604
5605         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>.
5606
5607
5608       </div>
5609     </div>
5610     <div class="padding"></div>
5611
5612     <div class="entry">
5613       <div class="title">
5614         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_word_on_bitcoin_support_in_Debian.html">A word on bitcoin support in Debian</a>
5615       </div>
5616       <div class="date">
5617         21st December 2012
5618       </div>
5619       <div class="body">
5620         <p>It has been a while since I wrote about
5621 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>, the decentralised
5622 peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I
5623 have been busy elsewhere.  But two days ago, I started looking at the
5624 state of <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/bitcoin">bitcoin in
5625 Debian</a> again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet.  The package
5626 is now maintained by a
5627 <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-bitcoin/">team of
5628 people</a>, and the grunt work had already been done by this team.  We
5629 owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :)
5630 But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in
5631 Wheezy.  It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from
5632 backports).  The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking
5633 it from entering testing.  To try to help the team and improve the
5634 situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug
5635 reports.  I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt
5636 Corallo in a
5637 <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bitcoin/+archive/bitcoin">PPA for
5638 Ubuntu</a>, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the
5639 Debian package.</p>
5640
5641 <p>After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on
5642 IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to
5643 improve the package.  It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from
5644 me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client
5645 package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion
5646 setup.  As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created
5647 <a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-bitcoin-devel/Week-of-Mon-20121217/000041.html">a
5648 patch to backport</a> the latest version.  Jonas is going to look at
5649 it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a
5650 new version to unstable.
5651
5652 <p>I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the
5653 centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system.  I
5654 find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting
5655 transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and
5656 that the major credit card companies can block legal money
5657 transactions to Wikileaks.  But for bitcoin to succeed, more people
5658 need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when
5659 they sell products and services.  Improving the bitcoin support in
5660 Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough.
5661 Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to
5662 pay with bitcoin is still not very good.  The bitcoin: URI is a step
5663 in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in
5664 use.  Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a
5665 quick transaction.  I believe there are other clients available, but
5666 have not tested them.</p>
5667
5668 <p>My
5669 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Now_accepting_bitcoins___anonymous_and_distributed_p2p_crypto_money.html">experiment
5670 with bitcoins</a> showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin.
5671 I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two
5672 years ago, as can be
5673 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">seen
5674 on the blockexplorer service</a>.  Thank you everyone for your
5675 donation.  The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that
5676 bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the
5677 number of users have gone up since then.  If you use bitcoin and want
5678 to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to
5679 the same address as last time,
5680 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
5681
5682       </div>
5683       <div class="tags">
5684
5685
5686         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>.
5687
5688
5689       </div>
5690     </div>
5691     <div class="padding"></div>
5692
5693     <div class="entry">
5694       <div class="title">
5695         <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>
5696       </div>
5697       <div class="date">
5698         18th December 2012
5699       </div>
5700       <div class="body">
5701         <p>A few days ago I came across
5702 <a href="http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/hledger/">a blog post from Joey
5703 Hess</a> describing <a href="http://ledger-cli.org/">ledger</a> and
5704 hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting.  I found it
5705 interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where
5706 accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with
5707 the different web based systems we use.  I find it hard to find what I
5708 look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of
5709 the systems.  Ledger seem different.  The accounting data is kept in
5710 text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there
5711
5712 are at least <a href="https://github.com/ledger/ledger/wiki/Ports">five
5713 different implementations</a> able to read the format.  An example
5714 entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to
5715 generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:</p>
5716
5717 <blockquote><pre>
5718 2004-05-27 Book Store
5719       Expenses:Books                 $20.00
5720       Liabilities:Visa
5721 </pre></blockquote>
5722
5723 <p>The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and
5724 look for others using it.  I found blog posts from
5725 <a href="http://blog.spang.cc/posts/hledger_rocks_my_world/">Christine
5726 Spang</a>,
5727 <a href="http://bugsplat.info/2010-05-23-keeping-finances-with-ledger.html">Pete
5728 Keen</a>,
5729 <a href="http://blog.andrewcantino.com/blog/2010/11/06/command-line-accounting-with-ledger-and-reckon/">Andrew
5730 Cantino</a> and
5731 <a href="http://blog.iphoting.com/blog/2012/11/29/command-line-double-entry-accounting/">Ronald
5732 Ip</a> describing how they use it, as well as a post from
5733 <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/ledger-cli/r0oWjwbQ9Bo">Bradley
5734 M. Kuhn</a> at the Software Freedom Conservancy.  All seemed like good
5735 recommendations fitting my need.</p>
5736
5737 <p>The <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/l/ledger.html">ledger</a>
5738 package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the
5739 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/haskell-hledger.html">hledger</a>
5740 package only is available in Debian Sid.  As I use Squeeze, ledger
5741 seemed the best choice to get started.</p>
5742
5743 <p>To get some real data to test on, I wrote a
5744 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/tools/lodo2ledger">web scraper</a> for
5745 <a href="http://www.lodo.no/">LODO</a>, the accounting system used by
5746 the <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> association, and started to
5747 play with the data set.  I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I
5748 am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example
5749 using the "<tt>ledger balance</tt>" command.  But I will have to
5750 gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit
5751 for the organisations I am involved in.</p>
5752
5753       </div>
5754       <div class="tags">
5755
5756
5757         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>.
5758
5759
5760       </div>
5761     </div>
5762     <div class="padding"></div>
5763
5764     <div class="entry">
5765       <div class="title">
5766         <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>
5767       </div>
5768       <div class="date">
5769          6th December 2012
5770       </div>
5771       <div class="body">
5772         <p>Where I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of
5773 Oslo</a>, we use the
5774 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/cerebrum/">Cerebrum user
5775 administration system</a> to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc.
5776 I've known since the system was written that the server is providing
5777 an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC">XML-RPC</a> API, but
5778 I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we
5779 always use the bofh command line client at work.  Until today.  I want
5780 to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up
5781 virtual machines.  Here are a few notes on how to use it with
5782 Python.</p>
5783
5784 <p>I started by looking at the source of the Java
5785 <a href="http://cerebrum.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/cerebrum/trunk/cerebrum/clients/jbofh/">bofh
5786 client</a>, to figure out how it connected to the API server.  I also
5787 googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found
5788 <a href="http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XML-RPC-HOWTO/xmlrpc-howto-python.html">a
5789 simple example in</a> the XML-RPC howto.</p>
5790
5791 <p>This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of
5792 commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the
5793 user currently logged in:</p>
5794
5795 <blockquote><pre>
5796 #!/usr/bin/env python
5797 import getpass
5798 import xmlrpclib
5799 server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
5800 username = getpass.getuser()
5801 password = getpass.getpass()
5802 server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
5803 #print server.get_commands(sessionid)
5804 sessionid = server.login(username, password)
5805 print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
5806 result = server.logout(sessionid)
5807 print result
5808 </pre></blockquote>
5809
5810 <p>Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS
5811 and DHCP updates I wanted to do.</p>
5812
5813       </div>
5814       <div class="tags">
5815
5816
5817         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>.
5818
5819
5820       </div>
5821     </div>
5822     <div class="padding"></div>
5823
5824     <div class="entry">
5825       <div class="title">
5826         <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>
5827       </div>
5828       <div class="date">
5829         17th November 2012
5830       </div>
5831       <div class="body">
5832         <p>While working on a
5833 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
5834 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
5835 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
5836 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
5837 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
5838 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
5839
5840 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
5841 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
5842 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
5843 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
5844 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
5845 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
5846 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
5847 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
5848 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
5849 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
5850 arguments.</p>
5851
5852 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
5853 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
5854 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
5855 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
5856 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
5857 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
5858 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
5859 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
5860
5861 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
5862 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
5863 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
5864 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
5865 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
5866 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
5867 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
5868 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
5869 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
5870 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
5871 correct right holder.</p>
5872
5873 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
5874 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
5875 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
5876 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
5877 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
5878 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
5879 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
5880 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
5881 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
5882 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
5883 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
5884 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
5885 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
5886 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
5887
5888 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
5889 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
5890 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
5891
5892 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
5893 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
5894
5895       </div>
5896       <div class="tags">
5897
5898
5899         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>.
5900
5901
5902       </div>
5903     </div>
5904     <div class="padding"></div>
5905
5906     <div class="entry">
5907       <div class="title">
5908         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
5909       </div>
5910       <div class="date">
5911         14th November 2012
5912       </div>
5913       <div class="body">
5914         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
5915 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
5916 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
5917 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
5918 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
5919 the people behind the German
5920 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
5921 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
5922 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
5923
5924 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
5925
5926 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
5927 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
5928 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
5929
5930 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
5931 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
5932 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
5933 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
5934 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
5935 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
5936
5937 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
5938 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
5939 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
5940 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
5941 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
5942 relationship management and the communication processes in the
5943 project.</p>
5944
5945 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
5946 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
5947 and a yoga teacher.</p>
5948
5949 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
5950 project?</strong></p>
5951
5952 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
5953
5954 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
5955 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
5956 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
5957 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
5958 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
5959 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
5960 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
5961 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
5962 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
5963 parents.</p>
5964
5965 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
5966 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
5967 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
5968 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
5969 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
5970 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
5971 Germany.</p>
5972
5973 <p>For information about our school project you can read
5974 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
5975 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
5976
5977 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5978 Edu?</strong></p>
5979
5980 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
5981 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
5982
5983 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
5984 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
5985 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
5986 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
5987 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
5988 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
5989 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
5990 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
5991 teachers, parents...</p>
5992
5993 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
5994 Edu?</strong></p>
5995
5996 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
5997 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
5998
5999 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
6000 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
6001 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
6002 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
6003 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
6004
6005 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
6006 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
6007 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
6008 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
6009 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
6010 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
6011 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
6012
6013 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6014
6015 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
6016 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
6017 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
6018 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
6019
6020 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6021 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6022
6023 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
6024 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
6025 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
6026 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
6027 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
6028
6029 <ul>
6030
6031 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
6032 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
6033 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
6034
6035 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
6036 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
6037 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
6038 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
6039 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
6040 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
6041 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
6042
6043 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
6044 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
6045 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
6046 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
6047
6048 </ul>
6049
6050       </div>
6051       <div class="tags">
6052
6053
6054         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>.
6055
6056
6057       </div>
6058     </div>
6059     <div class="padding"></div>
6060
6061     <div class="entry">
6062       <div class="title">
6063         <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>
6064       </div>
6065       <div class="date">
6066          4th November 2012
6067       </div>
6068       <div class="body">
6069         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
6070 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
6071 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
6072 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
6073 see how a member of the bitcoin community
6074 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
6075 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
6076 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
6077 competition.  My thoughts go to the
6078 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
6079 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
6080 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
6081 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
6082 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
6083
6084 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
6085 that the community already seem to have
6086 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
6087 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
6088 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
6089 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
6090 wealth is available.</p>
6091
6092       </div>
6093       <div class="tags">
6094
6095
6096         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>.
6097
6098
6099       </div>
6100     </div>
6101     <div class="padding"></div>
6102
6103     <div class="entry">
6104       <div class="title">
6105         <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>
6106       </div>
6107       <div class="date">
6108         26th October 2012
6109       </div>
6110       <div class="body">
6111         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
6112 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
6113 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
6114 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
6115 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
6116 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
6117 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
6118 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
6119 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
6120 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
6121 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
6122 it every time.</p>
6123
6124 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
6125 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
6126 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
6127 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
6128 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
6129 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
6130 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
6131 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
6132 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
6133 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
6134 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
6135 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
6136
6137 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
6138 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
6139 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
6140 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
6141 article: First the unplanned outage:
6142
6143 <blockquote><pre>
6144 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
6145 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
6146 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
6147 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
6148 Duration:    40 minutes
6149 Scope:       Exchange 2003
6150 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
6151              a cluster failover.
6152
6153 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
6154              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
6155 Technician:  [xxx]
6156 </pre></blockquote>
6157
6158 Next the planned outage:
6159
6160 <blockquote><pre>
6161 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
6162 Severity:    Major (Planned)
6163 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
6164 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
6165 Duration:    10 hours
6166 Scope:       H2 Transport
6167 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
6168              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
6169              4510s.
6170 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
6171              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
6172              connectivity.
6173 Technician:  [xxx]
6174 </pre></blockquote>
6175
6176 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
6177 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
6178 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
6179 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
6180 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
6181 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
6182 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
6183
6184 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
6185 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
6186 university too.  We do register
6187 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
6188 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
6189 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
6190 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
6191 for other sites to consider too?</p>
6192
6193       </div>
6194       <div class="tags">
6195
6196
6197         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>.
6198
6199
6200       </div>
6201     </div>
6202     <div class="padding"></div>
6203
6204     <div class="entry">
6205       <div class="title">
6206         <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>
6207       </div>
6208       <div class="date">
6209         22nd October 2012
6210       </div>
6211       <div class="body">
6212         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
6213 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
6214 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
6215 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
6216 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
6217 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
6218 background information is available in Norwegian from
6219 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
6220 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
6221 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
6222 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
6223 willing to
6224 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
6225 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
6226 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
6227 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
6228 sounded like
6229 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
6230 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
6231 later.</p>
6232
6233 <p>And thought this action is
6234 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
6235 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
6236 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
6237 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
6238 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
6239 rights.</p>
6240
6241 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
6242 unacceptable terms.  For example
6243 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
6244 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
6245 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
6246 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
6247 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
6248
6249 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
6250 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
6251 restored the account of the user, as reported by
6252 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
6253 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
6254 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
6255 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
6256 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
6257 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
6258 reading two opinions from
6259 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
6260 Phipps</a> and
6261 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
6262 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
6263 details about the original story.</p>
6264
6265       </div>
6266       <div class="tags">
6267
6268
6269         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>.
6270
6271
6272       </div>
6273     </div>
6274     <div class="padding"></div>
6275
6276     <div class="entry">
6277       <div class="title">
6278         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
6279       </div>
6280       <div class="date">
6281         18th October 2012
6282       </div>
6283       <div class="body">
6284         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
6285 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
6286 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
6287 across a marvellous drawing by
6288 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
6289 visualising some of what is going on.
6290
6291 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
6292 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
6293
6294 <blockquote>
6295 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
6296 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
6297 </blockquote>
6298
6299 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
6300 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
6301 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
6302 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
6303 Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly
6304 transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p>
6305
6306       </div>
6307       <div class="tags">
6308
6309
6310         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>.
6311
6312
6313       </div>
6314     </div>
6315     <div class="padding"></div>
6316
6317     <div class="entry">
6318       <div class="title">
6319         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
6320       </div>
6321       <div class="date">
6322         12th October 2012
6323       </div>
6324       <div class="body">
6325         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
6326 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
6327 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
6328 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
6329 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
6330 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
6331 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
6332 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
6333 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
6334 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
6335 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
6336 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
6337 matter".</p>
6338
6339 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
6340 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
6341 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
6342 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
6343 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
6344 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
6345 to argue its side.</p>
6346
6347 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
6348 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
6349 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
6350 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
6351
6352 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
6353 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
6354 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
6355
6356       </div>
6357       <div class="tags">
6358
6359
6360         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>.
6361
6362
6363       </div>
6364     </div>
6365     <div class="padding"></div>
6366
6367     <div class="entry">
6368       <div class="title">
6369         <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>
6370       </div>
6371       <div class="date">
6372          3rd October 2012
6373       </div>
6374       <div class="body">
6375         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
6376 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
6377 the computer science book collection available in his local
6378 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
6379 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
6380 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
6381 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
6382 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
6383 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
6384 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
6385 recently published books.</p>
6386
6387 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
6388 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
6389 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
6390 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
6391 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
6392 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
6393 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
6394 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
6395 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
6396 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
6397 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
6398 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
6399 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
6400 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
6401 for the library that evening.</p>
6402
6403 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
6404 going to know that for example
6405 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
6406 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
6407 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
6408 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
6409 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
6410 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
6411 book right away.</p>
6412
6413       </div>
6414       <div class="tags">
6415
6416
6417         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
6418
6419
6420       </div>
6421     </div>
6422     <div class="padding"></div>
6423
6424     <div class="entry">
6425       <div class="title">
6426         <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>
6427       </div>
6428       <div class="date">
6429         23rd September 2012
6430       </div>
6431       <div class="body">
6432         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
6433 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
6434 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
6435 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
6436 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
6437 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
6438
6439 When I started, I
6440 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
6441 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
6442 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
6443 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
6444 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
6445 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
6446 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
6447
6448 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
6449
6450 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
6451 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
6452 the project files currently available from
6453 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
6454
6455 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
6456 the updated
6457 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
6458 and
6459 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
6460 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
6461 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
6462 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
6463
6464       </div>
6465       <div class="tags">
6466
6467
6468         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>.
6469
6470
6471       </div>
6472     </div>
6473     <div class="padding"></div>
6474
6475     <div class="entry">
6476       <div class="title">
6477         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
6478       </div>
6479       <div class="date">
6480         17th September 2012
6481       </div>
6482       <div class="body">
6483         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
6484 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
6485 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
6486 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
6487 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
6488 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
6489 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
6490
6491 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
6492
6493 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
6494 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
6495 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
6496 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
6497 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
6498 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
6499 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
6500 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
6501 training is anyway very important</p>
6502
6503 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
6504 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
6505 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
6506 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
6507 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
6508
6509 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
6510 project?</strong></p>
6511
6512 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
6513 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
6514 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
6515 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
6516 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
6517 hole.</p>
6518
6519 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6520 Edu?</strong></p>
6521
6522 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
6523 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
6524 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
6525 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
6526 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
6527 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
6528 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
6529 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
6530 hassle.</p>
6531
6532 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
6533 Edu?</strong></p>
6534
6535 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
6536 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
6537 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
6538 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
6539 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
6540 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
6541 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
6542 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
6543
6544 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
6545
6546 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
6547 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
6548 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
6549 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
6550 has the same...</p>
6551
6552 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
6553 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
6554 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
6555 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
6556
6557 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
6558 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
6559
6560 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
6561 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
6562 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
6563
6564 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
6565 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
6566 don't.</p>
6567
6568 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
6569 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
6570 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
6571 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
6572 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
6573 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
6574 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
6575
6576       </div>
6577       <div class="tags">
6578
6579
6580         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>.
6581
6582
6583       </div>
6584     </div>
6585     <div class="padding"></div>
6586
6587     <div class="entry">
6588       <div class="title">
6589         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
6590       </div>
6591       <div class="date">
6592         15th September 2012
6593       </div>
6594       <div class="body">
6595         <p>After the
6596 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
6597 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
6598 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
6599 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
6600 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
6601 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
6602 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
6603 was
6604 <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
6605 formal working group should be formed.</p>
6606
6607 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
6608 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
6609 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
6610 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
6611 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
6612 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
6613 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
6614 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
6615
6616 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
6617 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
6618 IETF.</p>
6619
6620       </div>
6621       <div class="tags">
6622
6623
6624         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>.
6625
6626
6627       </div>
6628     </div>
6629     <div class="padding"></div>
6630
6631     <div class="entry">
6632       <div class="title">
6633         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
6634       </div>
6635       <div class="date">
6636         12th September 2012
6637       </div>
6638       <div class="body">
6639         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
6640 publication of of
6641 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
6642 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
6643 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
6644 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
6645 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
6646 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
6647 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
6648 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
6649 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
6650 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
6651
6652 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
6653 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
6654 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
6655 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
6656
6657 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
6658 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
6659
6660       </div>
6661       <div class="tags">
6662
6663
6664         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>.
6665
6666
6667       </div>
6668     </div>
6669     <div class="padding"></div>
6670
6671     <div class="entry">
6672       <div class="title">
6673         <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>
6674       </div>
6675       <div class="date">
6676          7th September 2012
6677       </div>
6678       <div class="body">
6679         <p>As I
6680 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
6681 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
6682 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
6683 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
6684 repository for the project</a>.</p>
6685
6686 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
6687 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
6688 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
6689 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
6690
6691 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
6692 PostScript formats at
6693 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
6694 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
6695
6696       </div>
6697       <div class="tags">
6698
6699
6700         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>.
6701
6702
6703       </div>
6704     </div>
6705     <div class="padding"></div>
6706
6707     <div class="entry">
6708       <div class="title">
6709         <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>
6710       </div>
6711       <div class="date">
6712         23rd August 2012
6713       </div>
6714       <div class="body">
6715         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
6716 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
6717 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
6718 revisit the great site
6719 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
6720 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
6721 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
6722
6723       </div>
6724       <div class="tags">
6725
6726
6727         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>.
6728
6729
6730       </div>
6731     </div>
6732     <div class="padding"></div>
6733
6734     <div class="entry">
6735       <div class="title">
6736         <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>
6737       </div>
6738       <div class="date">
6739         17th August 2012
6740       </div>
6741       <div class="body">
6742         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
6743 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
6744 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
6745 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
6746 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
6747 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
6748 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
6749 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
6750 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
6751 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
6752 summer I
6753 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
6754 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
6755 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
6756
6757 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
6758 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
6759 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
6760 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
6761 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
6762 progress:</p>
6763
6764 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
6765
6766 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
6767 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
6768 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
6769 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
6770 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
6771 english version of the docbook source.</p>
6772
6773 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
6774 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
6775 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
6776 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
6777 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
6778 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
6779 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
6780 project files currently available from <a
6781 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
6782
6783 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
6784 the updated
6785 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
6786 and
6787 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
6788 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
6789 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
6790 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
6791
6792       </div>
6793       <div class="tags">
6794
6795
6796         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>.
6797
6798
6799       </div>
6800     </div>
6801     <div class="padding"></div>
6802
6803     <div class="entry">
6804       <div class="title">
6805         <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>
6806       </div>
6807       <div class="date">
6808         10th August 2012
6809       </div>
6810       <div class="body">
6811         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
6812 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
6813 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
6814 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
6815 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
6816 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
6817 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
6818 case for the language
6819 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
6820 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
6821
6822 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
6823 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
6824 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
6825 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
6826 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
6827
6828 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
6829 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
6830 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
6831 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
6832 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
6833 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
6834 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
6835 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
6836 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
6837 alias for 'nb'.</p>
6838
6839 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
6840 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
6841 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
6842 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
6843 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
6844 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
6845 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
6846 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
6847 at the same time. :(</p>
6848
6849 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
6850 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
6851 processors. :(</p>
6852
6853 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
6854
6855       </div>
6856       <div class="tags">
6857
6858
6859         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>.
6860
6861
6862       </div>
6863     </div>
6864     <div class="padding"></div>
6865
6866     <div class="entry">
6867       <div class="title">
6868         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
6869       </div>
6870       <div class="date">
6871         31st July 2012
6872       </div>
6873       <div class="body">
6874         <p>I tried to send this text to the
6875 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
6876 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
6877 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
6878 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
6879 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
6880 out.</p>
6881
6882 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
6883 learning curve at the moment.</p>
6884
6885 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
6886 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
6887 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
6888 available from
6889 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
6890 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
6891 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
6892 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
6893 Squeeze.</p>
6894
6895 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
6896 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
6897 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
6898 problems.</p>
6899
6900 <ul>
6901
6902 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
6903    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
6904    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
6905    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
6906    index references spanning several pages (See
6907    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
6908    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
6909    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
6910
6911 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
6912    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
6913    #683163</a>).</li>
6914
6915 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
6916    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
6917    footnote and text body, see
6918    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
6919    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
6920    refs listed are not right).</li>
6921
6922 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
6923
6924 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
6925    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
6926
6927 </ul>
6928
6929 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
6930 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
6931 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
6932
6933 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
6934
6935       </div>
6936       <div class="tags">
6937
6938
6939         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>.
6940
6941
6942       </div>
6943     </div>
6944     <div class="padding"></div>
6945
6946     <div class="entry">
6947       <div class="title">
6948         <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>
6949       </div>
6950       <div class="date">
6951         21st July 2012
6952       </div>
6953       <div class="body">
6954         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
6955 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
6956 norwegian version</a> of the book
6957 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
6958 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
6959 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
6960 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
6961 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
6962
6963 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
6964 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
6965 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
6966 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
6967 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
6968 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
6969 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
6970 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
6971 print. :)</p>
6972
6973 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
6974 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
6975 language.</p>
6976
6977       </div>
6978       <div class="tags">
6979
6980
6981         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>.
6982
6983
6984       </div>
6985     </div>
6986     <div class="padding"></div>
6987
6988     <div class="entry">
6989       <div class="title">
6990         <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>
6991       </div>
6992       <div class="date">
6993         16th July 2012
6994       </div>
6995       <div class="body">
6996         <p>I am currently working on a
6997 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
6998 to translate</a> the book
6999 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
7000 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
7001 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
7002 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
7003 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
7004 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
7005 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
7006
7007 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
7008 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
7009 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
7010 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
7011 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
7012 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
7013 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
7014 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
7015 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
7016
7017       </div>
7018       <div class="tags">
7019
7020
7021         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>.
7022
7023
7024       </div>
7025     </div>
7026     <div class="padding"></div>
7027
7028     <div class="entry">
7029       <div class="title">
7030         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
7031       </div>
7032       <div class="date">
7033          9th July 2012
7034       </div>
7035       <div class="body">
7036         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
7037 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
7038 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
7039 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
7040 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
7041 to adjust and scale the just released
7042 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
7043 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
7044 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
7045
7046 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7047
7048 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
7049 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
7050 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
7051 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
7052 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
7053 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
7054 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
7055 perspective when working with IT.</p>
7056
7057 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
7058 project?</strong></p>
7059
7060 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
7061 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
7062 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
7063 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
7064 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
7065 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
7066
7067 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7068 Edu?</strong></p>
7069
7070 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
7071 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
7072 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
7073 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
7074 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
7075 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
7076 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
7077 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
7078 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
7079 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
7080 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
7081 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
7082 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
7083 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
7084 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
7085 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
7086 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
7087 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
7088 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
7089 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
7090 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
7091 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
7092 quicker to update.
7093
7094 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7095 Edu?</strong></p>
7096
7097 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
7098 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
7099 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
7100 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
7101 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
7102 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
7103
7104 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
7105 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
7106 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
7107 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
7108 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
7109 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
7110 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
7111 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
7112 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
7113 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
7114 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
7115 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
7116 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
7117 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
7118 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
7119
7120 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
7121 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
7122 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
7123 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
7124 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
7125 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
7126 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
7127 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
7128
7129 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
7130 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
7131 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
7132 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
7133 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
7134 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
7135 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
7136 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
7137 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
7138 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
7139 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
7140 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
7141 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
7142 sound file.</p>
7143
7144 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
7145 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
7146 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
7147 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
7148 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
7149 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
7150 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
7151 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
7152 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
7153
7154 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7155
7156 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
7157 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
7158 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
7159 )</p>
7160
7161 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7162 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7163
7164 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
7165 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
7166 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
7167 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
7168 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
7169 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
7170 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
7171 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
7172 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
7173 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
7174 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
7175 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
7176 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
7177 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
7178 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
7179
7180 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
7181 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
7182 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
7183 management with Airtime</a>,
7184 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
7185 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
7186 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
7187 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
7188 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
7189
7190       </div>
7191       <div class="tags">
7192
7193
7194         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>.
7195
7196
7197       </div>
7198     </div>
7199     <div class="padding"></div>
7200
7201     <div class="entry">
7202       <div class="title">
7203         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
7204       </div>
7205       <div class="date">
7206          8th July 2012
7207       </div>
7208       <div class="body">
7209         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
7210 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
7211 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
7212 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
7213 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
7214 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
7215 Steinberg in his blog post
7216 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
7217 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
7218 spending of your tax money.</p>
7219
7220 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
7221 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
7222 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
7223 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
7224 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
7225 purchases.</p>
7226
7227       </div>
7228       <div class="tags">
7229
7230
7231         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>.
7232
7233
7234       </div>
7235     </div>
7236     <div class="padding"></div>
7237
7238     <div class="entry">
7239       <div class="title">
7240         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
7241       </div>
7242       <div class="date">
7243          7th July 2012
7244       </div>
7245       <div class="body">
7246         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
7247 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
7248 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
7249 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
7250 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
7251 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
7252 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
7253 receive.  The software is
7254
7255 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
7256 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
7257 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
7258 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
7259 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
7260 Windows</a>.</p>
7261
7262 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
7263 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
7264
7265 <p><ul>
7266
7267   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
7268     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
7269
7270   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
7271     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
7272     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
7273     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
7274     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
7275     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
7276     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
7277     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
7278     </li>
7279
7280   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
7281     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
7282
7283   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
7284     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
7285
7286   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
7287     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
7288
7289   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
7290
7291   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
7292     formats </li>
7293
7294   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
7295     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
7296     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
7297     (as separate sets)</li>
7298
7299   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
7300     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
7301     percentage)</li>
7302
7303   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
7304     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
7305     memory):
7306     <ul>
7307       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
7308       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
7309       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
7310       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
7311       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
7312       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
7313       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
7314       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
7315       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
7316       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
7317           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
7318           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
7319           activity)</li>
7320       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
7321       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
7322     </ul></li>
7323
7324   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
7325     <ul>
7326       <li>Break periods</li>
7327       <li>For teacher(s):
7328         <ul>
7329           <li>Not available periods</li>
7330           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
7331           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
7332           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
7333           <li>Min hours daily</li>
7334           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
7335
7336           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
7337             days per week</li>
7338         </ul></li>
7339       <li>For students (sets):
7340         <ul>
7341           <li>Not available periods</li>
7342           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
7343           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
7344           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
7345           <li>Min hours daily</li>
7346           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
7347
7348           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
7349             days per week</li>
7350         </ul></li>
7351       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
7352         <ul>
7353           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
7354           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
7355           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
7356           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
7357           <li>End(s) students day</li>
7358           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
7359           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
7360             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
7361           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
7362           <li>Not overlapping</li>
7363           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
7364           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
7365         </ul></li>
7366     </ul></li>
7367
7368   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
7369     <ul>
7370       <li>Room not available periods</li>
7371       <li>For teacher(s):
7372         <ul>
7373           <li>Home room(s)</li>
7374           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
7375           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
7376         </ul>
7377       </li>
7378
7379       <li>For students (sets):
7380         <ul>
7381           <li>Home room(s)</li>
7382           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
7383           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
7384         </ul>
7385       </li>
7386       <li>Preferred room(s):
7387         <ul>
7388           <li>For a subject</li>
7389           <li>For an activity tag</li>
7390           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
7391           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
7392         </ul>
7393       </li>
7394
7395       <li>For a set of activities:
7396         <ul>
7397           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
7398         </ul>
7399       </li>
7400     </ul>
7401   </li>
7402 </ul></p>
7403
7404 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
7405 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
7406 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
7407 manually, check it out.
7408
7409 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
7410 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
7411 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
7412 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
7413 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
7414 section</a>.</p>
7415
7416       </div>
7417       <div class="tags">
7418
7419
7420         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>.
7421
7422
7423       </div>
7424     </div>
7425     <div class="padding"></div>
7426
7427     <div class="entry">
7428       <div class="title">
7429         <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>
7430       </div>
7431       <div class="date">
7432          3rd July 2012
7433       </div>
7434       <div class="body">
7435         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
7436 project (Norwegian version of
7437 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
7438 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
7439 a problem with the municipalities using
7440 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
7441 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
7442 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
7443 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
7444 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
7445 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
7446 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
7447 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
7448 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
7449 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
7450 the From: header.</p>
7451
7452 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
7453 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
7454 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
7455 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
7456 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
7457 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
7458 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
7459 behaviour.</p>
7460
7461 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
7462 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
7463 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
7464 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
7465 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
7466 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
7467 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
7468
7469       </div>
7470       <div class="tags">
7471
7472
7473         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>.
7474
7475
7476       </div>
7477     </div>
7478     <div class="padding"></div>
7479
7480     <div class="entry">
7481       <div class="title">
7482         <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>
7483       </div>
7484       <div class="date">
7485         26th June 2012
7486       </div>
7487       <div class="body">
7488         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
7489 another interview with the people behind
7490 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
7491 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
7492 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
7493 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
7494 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
7495 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
7496 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
7497
7498 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7499
7500 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
7501 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
7502 ICT in schools</p>
7503
7504 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
7505 project?</strong></p>
7506
7507 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
7508 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
7509 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
7510 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
7511
7512 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7513 Edu?</strong></p>
7514
7515 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
7516 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
7517 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
7518 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
7519
7520 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7521 Edu?</strong></p>
7522
7523 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
7524 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
7525 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
7526 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
7527 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
7528 technologies in school.</p>
7529
7530 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7531
7532 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
7533 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
7534 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
7535
7536 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
7537 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
7538
7539 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
7540 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
7541 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
7542 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
7543
7544 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
7545 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
7546 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
7547
7548 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
7549 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
7550 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
7551 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
7552 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
7553 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
7554 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
7555 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
7556 working there.</p>
7557
7558       </div>
7559       <div class="tags">
7560
7561
7562         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>.
7563
7564
7565       </div>
7566     </div>
7567     <div class="padding"></div>
7568
7569     <div class="entry">
7570       <div class="title">
7571         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
7572       </div>
7573       <div class="date">
7574         24th June 2012
7575       </div>
7576       <div class="body">
7577         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
7578 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
7579 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
7580 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
7581 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
7582 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
7583 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
7584 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
7585 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
7586 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
7587 missing in my book.</p>
7588
7589 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
7590 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
7591 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
7592 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
7593 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
7594 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
7595 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
7596
7597       </div>
7598       <div class="tags">
7599
7600
7601         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>.
7602
7603
7604       </div>
7605     </div>
7606     <div class="padding"></div>
7607
7608     <div class="entry">
7609       <div class="title">
7610         <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>
7611       </div>
7612       <div class="date">
7613         11th June 2012
7614       </div>
7615       <div class="body">
7616         <p>During my work on
7617 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
7618 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
7619 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
7620 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
7621 explanation.</p>
7622
7623 <p><ul>
7624
7625 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
7626 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
7627 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
7628 system depend on tasksel tasks in
7629 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
7630 installation.</li>
7631
7632 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
7633 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
7634 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
7635 at least try to enable it for these services:
7636 <ul>
7637
7638   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
7639     quotas.</li>
7640   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
7641   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
7642   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
7643   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
7644   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
7645
7646 </ul></li>
7647
7648 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
7649 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
7650 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
7651 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
7652
7653 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
7654 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
7655 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
7656
7657 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
7658 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
7659 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
7660 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
7661 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
7662 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
7663
7664 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
7665 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
7666 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
7667 in Wheezy.
7668
7669 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
7670 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
7671 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
7672
7673 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
7674 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
7675 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
7676 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
7677
7678 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
7679 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
7680 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
7681 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
7682
7683 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
7684 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
7685 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
7686
7687 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
7688 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
7689 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
7690
7691 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
7692 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
7693 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
7694 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
7695 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
7696
7697 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
7698 <ul>
7699
7700 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
7701 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
7702 <li>and probably more?</li>
7703 </ul></li>
7704
7705 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
7706 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
7707 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
7708 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
7709 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
7710 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
7711 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
7712 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
7713
7714
7715 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
7716 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
7717 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
7718 use.</li>
7719
7720 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
7721 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
7722 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
7723 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
7724 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
7725
7726 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
7727 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
7728 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
7729 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
7730 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
7731 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
7732
7733 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
7734 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
7735 There are at least three implementations,
7736 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
7737 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
7738 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
7739 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
7740 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
7741 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
7742 given room.</li>
7743
7744 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
7745 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
7746 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
7747 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
7748 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
7749 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
7750 investigated.</li>
7751
7752 </ul></p>
7753
7754 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
7755 version.</p>
7756
7757       </div>
7758       <div class="tags">
7759
7760
7761         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>.
7762
7763
7764       </div>
7765     </div>
7766     <div class="padding"></div>
7767
7768     <div class="entry">
7769       <div class="title">
7770         <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>
7771       </div>
7772       <div class="date">
7773          9th June 2012
7774       </div>
7775       <div class="body">
7776         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
7777 <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
7778 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
7779 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
7780 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
7781 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
7782 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
7783 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
7784 be willing to pay for.</p>
7785
7786 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
7787 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
7788 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
7789 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
7790 Orwell</a>.</p>
7791
7792       </div>
7793       <div class="tags">
7794
7795
7796         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>.
7797
7798
7799       </div>
7800     </div>
7801     <div class="padding"></div>
7802
7803     <div class="entry">
7804       <div class="title">
7805         <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>
7806       </div>
7807       <div class="date">
7808          6th June 2012
7809       </div>
7810       <div class="body">
7811         <p>A few days ago
7812 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
7813 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
7814 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
7815 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
7816 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
7817 code for HP, Dell and IBM
7818 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
7819 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
7820 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
7821 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
7822 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
7823
7824 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
7825 output:
7826
7827 <blockquote><pre>
7828 % 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>
7829 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": ""})
7830 %
7831 </pre></blockquote>
7832
7833 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
7834 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
7835 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
7836
7837       </div>
7838       <div class="tags">
7839
7840
7841         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>.
7842
7843
7844       </div>
7845     </div>
7846     <div class="padding"></div>
7847
7848     <div class="entry">
7849       <div class="title">
7850         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
7851       </div>
7852       <div class="date">
7853          2nd June 2012
7854       </div>
7855       <div class="body">
7856         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
7857 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
7858 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
7859 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
7860 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
7861 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
7862
7863 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
7864
7865 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
7866 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
7867 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
7868 by Angela).</p>
7869
7870 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
7871 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
7872 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
7873 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
7874 becoming an osteopath.</p>
7875
7876 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
7877 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
7878 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
7879 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
7880 skills with communication skills.</p>
7881
7882 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
7883 project?</strong></p>
7884
7885 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
7886 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
7887 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
7888 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
7889 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
7890
7891 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
7892 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
7893 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
7894 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
7895 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
7896 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
7897 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
7898 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
7899 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
7900
7901 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
7902 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
7903 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
7904
7905 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
7906
7907 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
7908 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
7909 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
7910 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
7911 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
7912 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
7913 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
7914 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
7915 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
7916 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
7917 point.</p>
7918
7919 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
7920 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
7921 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
7922 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
7923 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
7924 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
7925
7926 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
7927 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
7928 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
7929 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
7930 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
7931 spare time.</p>
7932
7933 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
7934 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
7935 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
7936 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
7937 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
7938
7939 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
7940 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
7941 avoidance do exist.</p>
7942
7943 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
7944 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
7945 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
7946 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
7947 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
7948 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
7949 and probably a gain for all.</p>
7950
7951 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7952 Edu?</strong></p>
7953
7954 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
7955 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
7956 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
7957 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
7958 project communication, honest communication within the group of
7959 developers, etc.</p>
7960
7961 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
7962 Edu?</strong></p>
7963
7964 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
7965
7966 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
7967 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
7968 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
7969 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
7970 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
7971 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
7972 contribute).</p>
7973
7974 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
7975 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
7976 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
7977 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
7978 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
7979 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
7980 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
7981 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
7982 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
7983 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
7984
7985 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
7986
7987 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
7988
7989 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
7990 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
7991 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
7992
7993 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
7994 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
7995 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
7996 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
7997
7998 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
7999 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
8000 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
8001 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
8002 whiteboard.</p>
8003
8004 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
8005
8006 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8007 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8008
8009 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
8010 enrol people.</p>
8011
8012       </div>
8013       <div class="tags">
8014
8015
8016         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>.
8017
8018
8019       </div>
8020     </div>
8021     <div class="padding"></div>
8022
8023     <div class="entry">
8024       <div class="title">
8025         <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>
8026       </div>
8027       <div class="date">
8028          1st June 2012
8029       </div>
8030       <div class="body">
8031         <p>A few years ago I wrote
8032 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
8033 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
8034 I have learned from colleges here at the
8035 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
8036 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
8037 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
8038 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
8039 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
8040
8041 <p><pre>
8042 use strict;
8043 use warnings;
8044 use SOAP::Lite;
8045 use Data::Dumper;
8046 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
8047 my $App = 'test';
8048 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
8049 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
8050 my $s = SOAP::Lite
8051     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
8052     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
8053     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
8054     ;
8055 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
8056     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
8057     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
8058     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
8059 );
8060 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
8061 </pre></p>
8062
8063 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
8064
8065 <p><pre>
8066 $VAR1 = {
8067           'Asset' => {
8068                      'Entitlements' => {
8069                                        'EntitlementData' => [
8070                                                             {
8071                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
8072                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
8073                                                               'Provider' => '',
8074                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
8075                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
8076                                                             },
8077                                                             {
8078                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
8079                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
8080                                                               'Provider' => '',
8081                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
8082                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
8083                                                             },
8084                                                             {
8085                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
8086                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
8087                                                               'Provider' => '',
8088                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
8089                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
8090                                                             }
8091                                                           ]
8092                                      },
8093                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
8094                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
8095                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
8096                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
8097                                           'Buid' => '2323',
8098                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
8099                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
8100                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
8101                                         }
8102                    }
8103         };
8104 </pre></p>
8105
8106 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
8107 service outside the
8108 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
8109 documentation</a>, and according to
8110 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
8111 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
8112 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
8113
8114 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
8115 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
8116
8117       </div>
8118       <div class="tags">
8119
8120
8121         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>.
8122
8123
8124       </div>
8125     </div>
8126     <div class="padding"></div>
8127
8128     <div class="entry">
8129       <div class="title">
8130         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
8131       </div>
8132       <div class="date">
8133         31st May 2012
8134       </div>
8135       <div class="body">
8136         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
8137 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
8138 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
8139 running Debian Squeeze, where
8140 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
8141 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
8142 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
8143 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
8144 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
8145 another day.</p>
8146
8147 <p>After calibration, I get a
8148 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
8149 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
8150 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
8151 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
8152 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
8153 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
8154 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
8155 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
8156 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
8157 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
8158 and a simple</p>
8159
8160 <p><pre>
8161 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
8162 </pre></p>
8163
8164 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
8165 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
8166 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
8167 enough for now.</p>
8168
8169       </div>
8170       <div class="tags">
8171
8172
8173         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8174
8175
8176       </div>
8177     </div>
8178     <div class="padding"></div>
8179
8180     <div class="entry">
8181       <div class="title">
8182         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
8183       </div>
8184       <div class="date">
8185         27th May 2012
8186       </div>
8187       <div class="body">
8188         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
8189 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
8190 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
8191 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
8192 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
8193 since then, helping to make sure the
8194 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
8195 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
8196
8197 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8198
8199 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
8200 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
8201 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
8202 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
8203 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
8204 our computer network.</p>
8205
8206 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
8207 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
8208 (4 months).</p>
8209
8210 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8211 project?</strong></p>
8212
8213 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
8214 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
8215 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
8216 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
8217 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
8218 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
8219 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
8220 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
8221 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
8222 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
8223 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
8224 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
8225 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
8226 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
8227
8228 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8229 Edu?</strong></p>
8230
8231 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
8232 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
8233 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
8234 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
8235 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
8236 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
8237 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
8238 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
8239
8240 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8241 Edu?</strong></p>
8242
8243 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
8244 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
8245 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
8246 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
8247 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
8248 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
8249 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
8250 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
8251 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
8252 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
8253 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
8254 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
8255
8256 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8257
8258 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
8259 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
8260 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
8261
8262 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8263 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8264
8265 <p><ol>
8266
8267 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
8268 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
8269 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
8270 developing.</li>
8271
8272 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
8273 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
8274 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
8275 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
8276 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
8277
8278 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
8279 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
8280 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
8281
8282 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
8283 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
8284 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
8285 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
8286
8287 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
8288 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
8289 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
8290
8291 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
8292
8293 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
8294 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
8295 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
8296 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
8297
8298 </ol></p>
8299
8300       </div>
8301       <div class="tags">
8302
8303
8304         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>.
8305
8306
8307       </div>
8308     </div>
8309     <div class="padding"></div>
8310
8311     <div class="entry">
8312       <div class="title">
8313         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
8314       </div>
8315       <div class="date">
8316         26th May 2012
8317       </div>
8318       <div class="body">
8319         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
8320 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
8321 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
8322 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
8323 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
8324
8325 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
8326 <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>
8327 comment:</p>
8328
8329 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
8330 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
8331 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
8332 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
8333 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
8334 </blockquote></p>
8335
8336 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
8337 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
8338 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
8339 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
8340 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
8341 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
8342 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
8343 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
8344 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
8345 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
8346 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
8347 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
8348 of wasted effort.</p>
8349
8350 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
8351 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
8352 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
8353
8354 <p>See
8355 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
8356 and
8357 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
8358 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
8359 </blockquote></p>
8360
8361       </div>
8362       <div class="tags">
8363
8364
8365         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>.
8366
8367
8368       </div>
8369     </div>
8370     <div class="padding"></div>
8371
8372     <div class="entry">
8373       <div class="title">
8374         <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>
8375       </div>
8376       <div class="date">
8377         18th May 2012
8378       </div>
8379       <div class="body">
8380         <p>In january, I
8381 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
8382 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
8383 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
8384 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
8385 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
8386 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
8387 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
8388 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
8389 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
8390 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
8391
8392 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
8393 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
8394 drivers. :)</p>
8395
8396       </div>
8397       <div class="tags">
8398
8399
8400         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8401
8402
8403       </div>
8404     </div>
8405     <div class="padding"></div>
8406
8407     <div class="entry">
8408       <div class="title">
8409         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
8410       </div>
8411       <div class="date">
8412         13th May 2012
8413       </div>
8414       <div class="body">
8415         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
8416 publish another interview with the people behind
8417 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
8418 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
8419 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
8420 details get right before release.
8421
8422 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8423
8424 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
8425 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
8426 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
8427 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
8428 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
8429 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
8430 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
8431 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
8432
8433 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
8434 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
8435 home since 2006.</p>
8436
8437 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8438 project?</strong></p>
8439
8440 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
8441 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
8442 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
8443 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
8444 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
8445 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
8446
8447 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
8448 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
8449 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
8450 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
8451 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
8452 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
8453 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
8454 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
8455 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
8456 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
8457 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
8458 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
8459 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
8460 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
8461 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
8462 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
8463
8464 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8465 Edu?</strong></p>
8466
8467 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
8468 for me as today.</p>
8469
8470 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
8471
8472 <p><ul>
8473
8474 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
8475 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
8476
8477 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
8478 cost.</li>
8479
8480 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
8481 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
8482 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
8483 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
8484 server</li>
8485
8486 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
8487 school.</li>
8488
8489 </ul></p>
8490
8491 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
8492 came up in this way:</p>
8493
8494 <p><ul>
8495
8496 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
8497 now.</li>
8498
8499 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
8500 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
8501 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
8502
8503 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
8504 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
8505 interfaces used in the past.</li>
8506
8507 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
8508 different needs.</li>
8509
8510 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
8511
8512 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
8513 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
8514 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
8515
8516 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
8517 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
8518
8519 </ul></p>
8520
8521 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8522 Edu?</strong></p>
8523
8524 <p><ul>
8525
8526 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
8527 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
8528 whole municipality areas.</li>
8529
8530 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
8531 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
8532 politicians.</li>
8533
8534 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
8535
8536 </ul></p>
8537
8538 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8539
8540 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
8541 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
8542 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
8543 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
8544 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
8545 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
8546
8547 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
8548 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
8549 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
8550 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
8551 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
8552
8553 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8554 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8555
8556 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
8557 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
8558 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
8559
8560       </div>
8561       <div class="tags">
8562
8563
8564         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>.
8565
8566
8567       </div>
8568     </div>
8569     <div class="padding"></div>
8570
8571     <div class="entry">
8572       <div class="title">
8573         <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>
8574       </div>
8575       <div class="date">
8576         30th April 2012
8577       </div>
8578       <div class="body">
8579         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
8580 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
8581
8582 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
8583 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
8584 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
8585 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
8586 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
8587 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
8588 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
8589 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
8590 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
8591 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
8592 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
8593 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
8594 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
8595 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
8596 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
8597 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
8598
8599 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
8600 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
8601 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
8602 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
8603 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
8604 finally found a Danish supplier
8605 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
8606 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
8607 days ago.</p>
8608
8609 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
8610 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
8611 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
8612 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
8613 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
8614 toys.</p>
8615
8616       </div>
8617       <div class="tags">
8618
8619
8620         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
8621
8622
8623       </div>
8624     </div>
8625     <div class="padding"></div>
8626
8627     <div class="entry">
8628       <div class="title">
8629         <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>
8630       </div>
8631       <div class="date">
8632         26th April 2012
8633       </div>
8634       <div class="body">
8635         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
8636 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
8637 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
8638 that the video editor application included with
8639 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
8640 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
8641 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
8642
8643 <p><blockquote>
8644 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
8645 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
8646 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
8647 </blockquote></p>
8648
8649 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
8650
8651 <p><blockquote>
8652 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
8653 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
8654 </blockquote></p>
8655
8656 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
8657 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
8658 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
8659 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
8660 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
8661 video.  AMR is
8662 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
8663 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
8664 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
8665 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
8666 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
8667 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
8668 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
8669
8670 <p>I know why I prefer
8671 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
8672 standards</a> also for video.</p>
8673
8674       </div>
8675       <div class="tags">
8676
8677
8678         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
8679
8680
8681       </div>
8682     </div>
8683     <div class="padding"></div>
8684
8685     <div class="entry">
8686       <div class="title">
8687         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
8688       </div>
8689       <div class="date">
8690         19th April 2012
8691       </div>
8692       <div class="body">
8693         <p>Here in Norway, the
8694 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
8695 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
8696 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
8697 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
8698 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
8699 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
8700 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
8701 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
8702 on the same level.</p>
8703
8704 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
8705 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
8706 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
8707 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
8708 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
8709 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
8710 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
8711 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
8712 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
8713 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
8714 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
8715 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
8716 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
8717 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
8718 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
8719 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
8720 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
8721 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
8722
8723 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
8724 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
8725 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
8726 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
8727 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
8728 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
8729 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
8730 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
8731
8732 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
8733 from Simon Phipps
8734 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
8735 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
8736
8737 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
8738 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
8739 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
8740 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
8741 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
8742 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
8743 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
8744 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
8745 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
8746
8747       </div>
8748       <div class="tags">
8749
8750
8751         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>.
8752
8753
8754       </div>
8755     </div>
8756     <div class="padding"></div>
8757
8758     <div class="entry">
8759       <div class="title">
8760         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
8761       </div>
8762       <div class="date">
8763         15th April 2012
8764       </div>
8765       <div class="body">
8766         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
8767 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
8768 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
8769 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
8770 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
8771 up in the recently released
8772 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
8773 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
8774
8775 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8776
8777 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
8778 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
8779 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
8780 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
8781 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
8782 information technology and science/technology.</p>
8783
8784 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8785 project?</strong></p>
8786
8787 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
8788 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
8789 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
8790 contributing.</p>
8791
8792 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8793 Edu?</strong></p>
8794
8795 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
8796 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
8797 Debian Project!</p>
8798
8799 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8800 Edu?</strong></p>
8801
8802 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
8803 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
8804 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
8805 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
8806 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
8807 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
8808 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
8809
8810 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
8811 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
8812
8813 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8814
8815 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
8816 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
8817 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
8818 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
8819
8820 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8821 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8822
8823 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
8824 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
8825 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
8826 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
8827 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
8828 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
8829 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
8830
8831 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
8832 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
8833 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
8834 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
8835 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
8836 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
8837 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
8838 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
8839
8840       </div>
8841       <div class="tags">
8842
8843
8844         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>.
8845
8846
8847       </div>
8848     </div>
8849     <div class="padding"></div>
8850
8851     <div class="entry">
8852       <div class="title">
8853         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
8854       </div>
8855       <div class="date">
8856          8th April 2012
8857       </div>
8858       <div class="body">
8859         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
8860 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
8861 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
8862 contributor to the
8863 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
8864 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
8865
8866 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
8867
8868 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
8869 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
8870
8871 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
8872 project?</strong></p>
8873
8874 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
8875 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
8876 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
8877 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
8878 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
8879 "localisation".</p>
8880
8881 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8882 Edu?</strong></p>
8883
8884 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
8885 Edu?</strong></p>
8886
8887 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
8888 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
8889 education system.</p>
8890
8891 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
8892 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
8893 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
8894 money on the latest hardware.</p>
8895
8896 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
8897
8898 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
8899 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
8900 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
8901
8902 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
8903 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
8904
8905 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
8906 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
8907 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
8908
8909       </div>
8910       <div class="tags">
8911
8912
8913         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>.
8914
8915
8916       </div>
8917     </div>
8918     <div class="padding"></div>
8919
8920     <div class="entry">
8921       <div class="title">
8922         <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>
8923       </div>
8924       <div class="date">
8925          6th April 2012
8926       </div>
8927       <div class="body">
8928         <p>Recently I have spent time with
8929 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
8930 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
8931 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
8932 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
8933 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
8934 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
8935 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
8936 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
8937
8938 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
8939 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
8940 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
8941 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
8942 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
8943 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
8944 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
8945 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
8946
8947 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
8948 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
8949 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
8950 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
8951 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
8952 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
8953 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
8954 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
8955
8956 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
8957 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
8958 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
8959 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
8960 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
8961 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
8962 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
8963 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
8964 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
8965 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
8966
8967 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
8968 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
8969 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
8970 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
8971
8972 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
8973 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
8974
8975       </div>
8976       <div class="tags">
8977
8978
8979         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>.
8980
8981
8982       </div>
8983     </div>
8984     <div class="padding"></div>
8985
8986     <div class="entry">
8987       <div class="title">
8988         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
8989       </div>
8990       <div class="date">
8991          5th April 2012
8992       </div>
8993       <div class="body">
8994         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
8995 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
8996 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
8997 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
8998 for schools.  Check out his article
8999 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
9000 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
9001
9002       </div>
9003       <div class="tags">
9004
9005
9006         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>.
9007
9008
9009       </div>
9010     </div>
9011     <div class="padding"></div>
9012
9013     <div class="entry">
9014       <div class="title">
9015         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
9016       </div>
9017       <div class="date">
9018          1st April 2012
9019       </div>
9020       <div class="body">
9021         <p>Germany is a core area for the
9022 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
9023 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
9024 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
9025
9026 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9027
9028 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
9029 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
9030 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
9031 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
9032 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
9033 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
9034 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
9035 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
9036
9037 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
9038 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
9039 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
9040 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
9041 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
9042 the end of April this year.</p>
9043
9044 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9045 project?</strong></p>
9046
9047 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
9048 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
9049 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
9050 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
9051 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
9052 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
9053 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
9054 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
9055 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
9056 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
9057 Skolelinux.</p>
9058
9059 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
9060 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
9061 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
9062 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
9063 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
9064 the admin teachers.</p>
9065
9066 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9067 Edu?</strong></p>
9068
9069 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
9070 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
9071 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
9072
9073 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
9074 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
9075 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
9076 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
9077 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
9078
9079 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9080 Edu?</strong></p>
9081
9082 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
9083
9084 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9085
9086 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
9087 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
9088 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
9089 LibreOffice.</p>
9090
9091 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9092 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9093
9094 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
9095 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
9096 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
9097
9098       </div>
9099       <div class="tags">
9100
9101
9102         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>.
9103
9104
9105       </div>
9106     </div>
9107     <div class="padding"></div>
9108
9109     <div class="entry">
9110       <div class="title">
9111         <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>
9112       </div>
9113       <div class="date">
9114         25th March 2012
9115       </div>
9116       <div class="body">
9117         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
9118
9119 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
9120 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
9121 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
9122 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
9123 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
9124 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
9125 and download as a
9126 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
9127 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
9128
9129 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
9130   <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"' />
9131     <p>Download video as
9132       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
9133 </video></p>
9134
9135       </div>
9136       <div class="tags">
9137
9138
9139         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>.
9140
9141
9142       </div>
9143     </div>
9144     <div class="padding"></div>
9145
9146     <div class="entry">
9147       <div class="title">
9148         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
9149       </div>
9150       <div class="date">
9151         19th March 2012
9152       </div>
9153       <div class="body">
9154         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
9155 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
9156 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
9157 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
9158 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
9159
9160 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9161
9162 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
9163 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
9164 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
9165 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
9166 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
9167 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
9168 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
9169 installations.</p>
9170
9171 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9172 project?</strong></p>
9173
9174 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
9175 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
9176 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
9177 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
9178 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
9179 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
9180 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
9181 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
9182 these things we decided to try it.</p>
9183
9184 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9185 Edu?</strong></p>
9186
9187 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
9188 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
9189 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
9190 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
9191 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
9192 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
9193 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
9194 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
9195
9196 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9197 Edu?</strong></p>
9198
9199 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
9200 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
9201 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
9202 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
9203 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
9204
9205 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9206
9207 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
9208 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
9209 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
9210 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
9211 that counts...)</p>
9212
9213 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9214 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9215
9216 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
9217 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
9218 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
9219 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
9220 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
9221 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
9222 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
9223 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
9224 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
9225 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
9226 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
9227
9228 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
9229 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
9230 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
9231
9232       </div>
9233       <div class="tags">
9234
9235
9236         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>.
9237
9238
9239       </div>
9240     </div>
9241     <div class="padding"></div>
9242
9243     <div class="entry">
9244       <div class="title">
9245         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
9246       </div>
9247       <div class="date">
9248         16th March 2012
9249       </div>
9250       <div class="body">
9251         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
9252 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
9253 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
9254 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
9255
9256 <ol>
9257
9258 <li>The documentation is written in a
9259 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
9260 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
9261 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
9262 docbook XML.</li>
9263
9264 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
9265 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
9266 with the translated text.</li>
9267
9268 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
9269 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
9270 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
9271 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
9272 images.</li>
9273
9274 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
9275 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
9276
9277 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
9278 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
9279
9280 </ol>
9281
9282 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
9283 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
9284 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
9285 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
9286 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
9287
9288 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
9289 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
9290 package</a>.</p>
9291
9292       </div>
9293       <div class="tags">
9294
9295
9296         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>.
9297
9298
9299       </div>
9300     </div>
9301     <div class="padding"></div>
9302
9303     <div class="entry">
9304       <div class="title">
9305         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
9306       </div>
9307       <div class="date">
9308         11th March 2012
9309       </div>
9310       <div class="body">
9311         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
9312 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
9313 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
9314 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
9315 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
9316 you have not done so already.</p>
9317
9318 <p>I plan to present the new version at
9319 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
9320 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
9321 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
9322
9323       </div>
9324       <div class="tags">
9325
9326
9327         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>.
9328
9329
9330       </div>
9331     </div>
9332     <div class="padding"></div>
9333
9334     <div class="entry">
9335       <div class="title">
9336         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
9337       </div>
9338       <div class="date">
9339          9th March 2012
9340       </div>
9341       <div class="body">
9342         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
9343 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
9344 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
9345 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
9346 more international audience.</p>
9347
9348 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
9349 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
9350 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
9351 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
9352 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
9353 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
9354 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
9355
9356
9357 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
9358
9359 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
9360 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
9361 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
9362 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
9363 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
9364 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
9365 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
9366 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
9367 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
9368 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
9369 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
9370
9371 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
9372 project?</strong></p>
9373
9374 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
9375 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
9376 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
9377 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
9378 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
9379 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
9380 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
9381 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
9382 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
9383 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
9384 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
9385 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
9386 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
9387
9388 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9389 Edu?</strong></p>
9390
9391 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
9392 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
9393 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
9394 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
9395 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
9396 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
9397 Japan.</p>
9398
9399 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
9400 Edu?</strong></p>
9401
9402 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
9403 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
9404 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
9405 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
9406 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
9407 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
9408 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
9409 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
9410 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
9411 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
9412 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
9413 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
9414 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
9415 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
9416 help.</p>
9417
9418 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
9419
9420 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
9421 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
9422 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
9423 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
9424 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
9425 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
9426 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
9427 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
9428 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
9429 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
9430 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
9431
9432 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
9433 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
9434
9435 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
9436 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
9437 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
9438 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
9439 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
9440 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
9441 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
9442 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
9443 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
9444 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
9445 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
9446 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
9447
9448       </div>
9449       <div class="tags">
9450
9451
9452         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>.
9453
9454
9455       </div>
9456     </div>
9457     <div class="padding"></div>
9458
9459     <div class="entry">
9460       <div class="title">
9461         <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>
9462       </div>
9463       <div class="date">
9464          7th March 2012
9465       </div>
9466       <div class="body">
9467         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
9468
9469 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
9470 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
9471 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
9472 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
9473 download as a
9474 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
9475 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
9476
9477 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
9478   <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"' />
9479     <p>Download video as
9480       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
9481 </video></p>
9482
9483       </div>
9484       <div class="tags">
9485
9486
9487         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>.
9488
9489
9490       </div>
9491     </div>
9492     <div class="padding"></div>
9493
9494     <div class="entry">
9495       <div class="title">
9496         <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>
9497       </div>
9498       <div class="date">
9499          4th March 2012
9500       </div>
9501       <div class="body">
9502         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
9503 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
9504 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
9505 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
9506 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
9507 need a software solution for your school.</p>
9508
9509       </div>
9510       <div class="tags">
9511
9512
9513         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>.
9514
9515
9516       </div>
9517     </div>
9518     <div class="padding"></div>
9519
9520     <div class="entry">
9521       <div class="title">
9522         <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>
9523       </div>
9524       <div class="date">
9525          3rd March 2012
9526       </div>
9527       <div class="body">
9528         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
9529 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
9530 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
9531 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
9532 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
9533 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
9534 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
9535 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
9536 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
9537 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
9538 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
9539 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
9540 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
9541 year...</p>
9542
9543 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
9544 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
9545 name,
9546 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
9547 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
9548 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
9549 mean). I've been following
9550 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
9551 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
9552 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
9553 Check it out. :)</p>
9554
9555       </div>
9556       <div class="tags">
9557
9558
9559         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>.
9560
9561
9562       </div>
9563     </div>
9564     <div class="padding"></div>
9565
9566     <div class="entry">
9567       <div class="title">
9568         <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>
9569       </div>
9570       <div class="date">
9571         27th February 2012
9572       </div>
9573       <div class="body">
9574         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
9575 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
9576 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
9577 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
9578 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
9579 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
9580 need a software solution for your school.</p>
9581
9582       </div>
9583       <div class="tags">
9584
9585
9586         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>.
9587
9588
9589       </div>
9590     </div>
9591     <div class="padding"></div>
9592
9593     <div class="entry">
9594       <div class="title">
9595         <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>
9596       </div>
9597       <div class="date">
9598         19th February 2012
9599       </div>
9600       <div class="body">
9601         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
9602 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
9603 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
9604 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
9605 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
9606 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
9607 solution for your school.</p>
9608
9609       </div>
9610       <div class="tags">
9611
9612
9613         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>.
9614
9615
9616       </div>
9617     </div>
9618     <div class="padding"></div>
9619
9620     <div class="entry">
9621       <div class="title">
9622         <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>
9623       </div>
9624       <div class="date">
9625         14th February 2012
9626       </div>
9627       <div class="body">
9628         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
9629 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
9630 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
9631 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
9632 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
9633 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
9634 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
9635 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
9636 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
9637
9638 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
9639 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
9640 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
9641 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
9642 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
9643
9644 <blockquote><pre>
9645 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
9646 do
9647     printf "Failed disk $d: "
9648     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
9649 done
9650 </blockquote></pre>
9651
9652 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
9653 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
9654
9655 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
9656
9657 <blockquote><pre>
9658 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
9659 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
9660 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
9661 </blockquote></pre>
9662
9663 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
9664 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
9665 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
9666 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
9667 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
9668 mounted inside my box.</p>
9669
9670 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
9671 Software RAID in the
9672 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
9673 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
9674 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
9675 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
9676 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
9677 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
9678
9679       </div>
9680       <div class="tags">
9681
9682
9683         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>.
9684
9685
9686       </div>
9687     </div>
9688     <div class="padding"></div>
9689
9690     <div class="entry">
9691       <div class="title">
9692         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
9693       </div>
9694       <div class="date">
9695         13th February 2012
9696       </div>
9697       <div class="body">
9698         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
9699 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
9700 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
9701 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
9702 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
9703 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
9704 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
9705 change the global proxy setting by editing
9706 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
9707 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
9708
9709 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
9710 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
9711 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
9712
9713 <blockquote><pre>
9714 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
9715 {
9716    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
9717        isPlainHostName(host) ||
9718        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
9719       return "DIRECT";
9720    else
9721       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
9722 }
9723 </pre></blockquote>
9724
9725 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
9726
9727 <blockquote><pre>
9728 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
9729 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
9730 </pre></blockquote>
9731
9732 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
9733 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
9734 would be used for
9735 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
9736 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
9737 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
9738 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
9739 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
9740 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
9741 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
9742 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
9743 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
9744 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
9745
9746 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
9747 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
9748 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
9749 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
9750 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
9751 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
9752
9753 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
9754 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
9755 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
9756 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
9757 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
9758 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
9759 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
9760 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
9761 the network setup changes.</p>
9762
9763 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
9764 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
9765 draft</a> and a
9766 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
9767 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
9768
9769       </div>
9770       <div class="tags">
9771
9772
9773         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>.
9774
9775
9776       </div>
9777     </div>
9778     <div class="padding"></div>
9779
9780     <div class="entry">
9781       <div class="title">
9782         <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>
9783       </div>
9784       <div class="date">
9785          5th February 2012
9786       </div>
9787       <div class="body">
9788         <p>Since the Lenny version of
9789 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
9790 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
9791 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
9792 in the morning.  This is done using the
9793 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
9794
9795 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
9796 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
9797 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
9798 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
9799 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
9800 the
9801 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
9802 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
9803 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
9804 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
9805 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
9806
9807 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
9808 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
9809 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
9810 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
9811 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
9812 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
9813 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
9814
9815 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
9816 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
9817 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
9818 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
9819 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
9820
9821       </div>
9822       <div class="tags">
9823
9824
9825         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>.
9826
9827
9828       </div>
9829     </div>
9830     <div class="padding"></div>
9831
9832     <div class="entry">
9833       <div class="title">
9834         <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>
9835       </div>
9836       <div class="date">
9837          4th February 2012
9838       </div>
9839       <div class="body">
9840         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
9841 publish the third beta version of
9842 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
9843 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
9844 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
9845 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
9846 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
9847 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
9848 on the project announcement list.</p>
9849
9850 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
9851 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
9852
9853 <ul>
9854
9855 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
9856   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
9857   the installation.</li>
9858
9859 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
9860   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
9861
9862 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
9863   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
9864   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
9865
9866 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
9867   for the local system administrator is created during installation
9868   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
9869   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
9870   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
9871   up to date on the system.</li>
9872
9873 </ul>
9874
9875 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
9876 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
9877 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
9878 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
9879
9880 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
9881 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
9882 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
9883 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
9884 will see you there?</p>
9885
9886       </div>
9887       <div class="tags">
9888
9889
9890         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>.
9891
9892
9893       </div>
9894     </div>
9895     <div class="padding"></div>
9896
9897     <div class="entry">
9898       <div class="title">
9899         <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>
9900       </div>
9901       <div class="date">
9902         27th January 2012
9903       </div>
9904       <div class="body">
9905         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
9906 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
9907 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
9908 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
9909 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
9910 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
9911 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
9912
9913 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
9914 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
9915 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
9916 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
9917 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
9918 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
9919 not taken care of by this.</p>
9920
9921 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
9922 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
9923 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
9924 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
9925 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
9926 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
9927 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
9928 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
9929 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
9930 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
9931 firmware packages.</p>
9932
9933 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
9934 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
9935 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
9936 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
9937 initrd with extra firmware, the
9938 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
9939 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
9940 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
9941
9942 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
9943 network cards working.  For this,
9944 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
9945 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
9946 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
9947
9948 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
9949 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
9950 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
9951
9952 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
9953 try.</p>
9954
9955       </div>
9956       <div class="tags">
9957
9958
9959         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>.
9960
9961
9962       </div>
9963     </div>
9964     <div class="padding"></div>
9965
9966     <div class="entry">
9967       <div class="title">
9968         <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>
9969       </div>
9970       <div class="date">
9971         25th January 2012
9972       </div>
9973       <div class="body">
9974         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
9975 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
9976 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
9977 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
9978 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
9979
9980 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
9981 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
9982 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
9983 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
9984 this is done, log on to the central server and run
9985 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
9986 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
9987 will look similar to this:</p>
9988
9989 <p><blockquote><pre>
9990 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
9991 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
9992 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.
9993
9994 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
9995
9996 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9997 enter password: *******
9998 %
9999 </pre></blockquote></p>
10000
10001 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
10002 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
10003 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
10004 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
10005 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
10006 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
10007 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
10008 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
10009 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
10010 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
10011 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
10012 automatically.</p>
10013
10014 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
10015 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
10016
10017 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
10018 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
10019 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
10020
10021       </div>
10022       <div class="tags">
10023
10024
10025         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>.
10026
10027
10028       </div>
10029     </div>
10030     <div class="padding"></div>
10031
10032     <div class="entry">
10033       <div class="title">
10034         <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>
10035       </div>
10036       <div class="date">
10037         10th January 2012
10038       </div>
10039       <div class="body">
10040         <p>In the Squeeze version of
10041 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
10042 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
10043 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
10044 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
10045 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
10046 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
10047 first time.</p>
10048
10049 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
10050 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
10051 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
10052 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
10053
10054 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
10055 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
10056 new setting.</p>
10057
10058 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
10059 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
10060 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
10061
10062       </div>
10063       <div class="tags">
10064
10065
10066         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>.
10067
10068
10069       </div>
10070     </div>
10071     <div class="padding"></div>
10072
10073     <div class="entry">
10074       <div class="title">
10075         <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>
10076       </div>
10077       <div class="date">
10078          7th January 2012
10079       </div>
10080       <div class="body">
10081         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
10082 the second beta version of
10083 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
10084 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
10085 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
10086 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
10087 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
10088 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
10089 on the project announcement list.</p>
10090
10091       </div>
10092       <div class="tags">
10093
10094
10095         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>.
10096
10097
10098       </div>
10099     </div>
10100     <div class="padding"></div>
10101
10102     <div class="entry">
10103       <div class="title">
10104         <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>
10105       </div>
10106       <div class="date">
10107          3rd January 2012
10108       </div>
10109       <div class="body">
10110         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
10111 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
10112 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
10113 interesting.</p>
10114
10115 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
10116 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
10117 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
10118 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
10119 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
10120 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
10121 wrap up its tasks.</p>
10122
10123 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
10124 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
10125 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
10126 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
10127 because I was typing.</P>
10128
10129 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
10130 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
10131 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
10132 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
10133 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
10134 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
10135 generate entropy.</p>
10136
10137 <p>The fix is in
10138 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
10139 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
10140 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
10141 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
10142
10143       </div>
10144       <div class="tags">
10145
10146
10147         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>.
10148
10149
10150       </div>
10151     </div>
10152     <div class="padding"></div>
10153
10154     <div class="entry">
10155       <div class="title">
10156         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
10157       </div>
10158       <div class="date">
10159         21st November 2011
10160       </div>
10161       <div class="body">
10162         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
10163 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
10164 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
10165 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
10166 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
10167 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
10168 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
10169 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
10170 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
10171 the tools to do so.</p>
10172
10173 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
10174 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
10175 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
10176 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
10177
10178 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
10179 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
10180 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
10181 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
10182 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
10183 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
10184 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
10185 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
10186
10187 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
10188 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
10189 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
10190
10191 <p><pre>
10192 #!/usr/bin/perl
10193 use strict;
10194 use warnings;
10195 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
10196 BEGIN {
10197     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
10198     my %rhelmodules = (
10199         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
10200         );
10201     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
10202         eval "use $module;";
10203         if ($@) {
10204             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
10205             system("yum install -y $pkg");
10206             eval "use $module;";
10207         }
10208     }
10209 }
10210 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
10211
10212 upgrade_dell();
10213
10214 exit 0;
10215
10216 sub run_firmware_script {
10217     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
10218     unless ($script) {
10219         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
10220         exit 1
10221     }
10222     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
10223
10224     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
10225         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
10226     } else {
10227         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
10228     }
10229 }
10230
10231 sub run_firmware_scripts {
10232     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
10233     # Run firmware packages
10234     for my $dir (@dirs) {
10235         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
10236         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
10237         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
10238             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
10239             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
10240         }
10241         closedir $dh;
10242     }
10243 }
10244
10245 sub download {
10246     my $url = shift;
10247     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
10248     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
10249 }
10250
10251 sub upgrade_dell {
10252     my @dirs;
10253     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
10254     chomp $product;
10255
10256     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
10257
10258         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
10259         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
10260
10261         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
10262             CLEANUP => 1
10263             );
10264         chdir($tmpdir);
10265         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
10266         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
10267         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
10268         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
10269         my $fwopts = "-q";
10270         if (@paths) {
10271             for my $url (@paths) {
10272                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
10273             }
10274             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
10275         } else {
10276             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
10277             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
10278         }
10279         chdir('/');
10280     } else {
10281         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
10282         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
10283     }
10284 }
10285
10286 sub fetch_dell_fw {
10287     my $path = shift;
10288     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
10289     download($url);
10290 }
10291
10292 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
10293 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
10294 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
10295 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
10296     my $filename = shift;
10297
10298     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
10299     chomp $product;
10300     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
10301
10302     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
10303
10304     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
10305     my @paths;
10306     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
10307         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
10308         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
10309         my $oscode;
10310         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
10311             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
10312         } else {
10313             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
10314         }
10315         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
10316         {
10317             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
10318         }
10319     }
10320     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
10321         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
10322
10323         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
10324         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
10325
10326         my $cpath = $component->{path};
10327         for my $path (@paths) {
10328             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
10329                 push(@paths, $cpath);
10330             }
10331         }
10332     }
10333     return @paths;
10334 }
10335 </pre>
10336
10337 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
10338 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
10339 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
10340 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
10341 outdated.</p>
10342
10343       </div>
10344       <div class="tags">
10345
10346
10347         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>.
10348
10349
10350       </div>
10351     </div>
10352     <div class="padding"></div>
10353
10354     <div class="entry">
10355       <div class="title">
10356         <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>
10357       </div>
10358       <div class="date">
10359          7th October 2011
10360       </div>
10361       <div class="body">
10362         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
10363 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
10364 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
10365 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
10366 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
10367 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
10368 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
10369 models.</p>
10370
10371 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
10372 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
10373 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
10374 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
10375
10376 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
10377 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
10378 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
10379 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
10380 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
10381 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
10382 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
10383 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
10384 distributed.</p>
10385
10386 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
10387
10388 <ul>
10389
10390 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
10391   other relevant equipment.</li>
10392
10393 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
10394
10395 </ul>
10396
10397 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
10398 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
10399 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
10400 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
10401 books available.</p>
10402
10403 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
10404 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
10405 libraries. :)</p>
10406
10407       </div>
10408       <div class="tags">
10409
10410
10411         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>.
10412
10413
10414       </div>
10415     </div>
10416     <div class="padding"></div>
10417
10418     <div class="entry">
10419       <div class="title">
10420         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
10421       </div>
10422       <div class="date">
10423         17th September 2011
10424       </div>
10425       <div class="body">
10426         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
10427 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
10428 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
10429 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
10430 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
10431 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
10432 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
10433 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
10434
10435 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
10436
10437 <blockquote><pre>
10438 #!/bin/sh
10439 # apt-get install lsdvd
10440 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
10441 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
10442 </pre></blockquote>
10443
10444 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
10445 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
10446 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
10447 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
10448
10449 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
10450 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
10451 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
10452 back as an ISO.
10453
10454 <blockquote><pre>
10455 #!/bin/sh
10456 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
10457 set -e
10458 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
10459 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
10460 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
10461 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
10462 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
10463 </pre></blockquote>
10464
10465 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
10466
10467 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
10468 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
10469 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
10470 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
10471 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
10472
10473 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
10474 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
10475 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
10476 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
10477 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
10478 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
10479
10480       </div>
10481       <div class="tags">
10482
10483
10484         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>.
10485
10486
10487       </div>
10488     </div>
10489     <div class="padding"></div>
10490
10491     <div class="entry">
10492       <div class="title">
10493         <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>
10494       </div>
10495       <div class="date">
10496          4th August 2011
10497       </div>
10498       <div class="body">
10499         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
10500 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
10501 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
10502 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
10503 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
10504 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
10505 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
10506 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
10507 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
10508
10509 <p><blockquote>
10510 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
10511 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
10512 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
10513 </blockquote></p>
10514
10515 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
10516 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
10517 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
10518 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
10519 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
10520 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
10521 hard to explain.</p>
10522
10523 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
10524 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
10525 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
10526 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
10527 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
10528 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
10529 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
10530 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
10531 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
10532 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
10533 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
10534 mode).</p>
10535
10536 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
10537 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
10538 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
10539 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
10540 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
10541 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
10542 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
10543 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
10544 after visiting single user mode.</p>
10545
10546 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
10547 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
10548 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
10549 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
10550 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
10551 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
10552 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
10553 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
10554
10555 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
10556 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
10557 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
10558
10559       </div>
10560       <div class="tags">
10561
10562
10563         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>.
10564
10565
10566       </div>
10567     </div>
10568     <div class="padding"></div>
10569
10570     <div class="entry">
10571       <div class="title">
10572         <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>
10573       </div>
10574       <div class="date">
10575         30th July 2011
10576       </div>
10577       <div class="body">
10578         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
10579 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
10580 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
10581 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
10582 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
10583 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
10584 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
10585 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
10586 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
10587 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
10588 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
10589 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
10590 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
10591
10592 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
10593 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
10594 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
10595 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
10596 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
10597 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
10598 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
10599 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
10600 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
10601
10602 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
10603 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
10604 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
10605 is presented.</p>
10606
10607 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
10608 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
10609 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
10610 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
10611 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
10612 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
10613 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
10614 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
10615 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
10616 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
10617 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
10618 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
10619 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
10620 find time to push this forward.</p>
10621
10622       </div>
10623       <div class="tags">
10624
10625
10626         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>.
10627
10628
10629       </div>
10630     </div>
10631     <div class="padding"></div>
10632
10633     <div class="entry">
10634       <div class="title">
10635         <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>
10636       </div>
10637       <div class="date">
10638         29th July 2011
10639       </div>
10640       <div class="body">
10641         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
10642 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
10643 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
10644 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
10645 issues.</p>
10646
10647 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
10648 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
10649 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
10650
10651 <ol>
10652
10653 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
10654 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
10655 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
10656 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
10657 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
10658 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
10659 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
10660 Debian.</li>
10661
10662 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
10663 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
10664 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
10665 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
10666 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
10667 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
10668 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
10669 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
10670 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
10671 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
10672 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
10673 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
10674 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
10675
10676 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
10677 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
10678 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
10679 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
10680 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
10681 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
10682 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
10683 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
10684 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
10685 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
10686
10687 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
10688 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
10689 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
10690 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
10691 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
10692 latter behaviour.</li>
10693
10694 </ol>
10695
10696 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
10697 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
10698 it do not matter much.</p>
10699
10700 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
10701 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
10702 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
10703
10704       </div>
10705       <div class="tags">
10706
10707
10708         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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
10709
10710
10711       </div>
10712     </div>
10713     <div class="padding"></div>
10714
10715     <div class="entry">
10716       <div class="title">
10717         <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>
10718       </div>
10719       <div class="date">
10720         26th July 2011
10721       </div>
10722       <div class="body">
10723         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
10724 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
10725 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
10726 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
10727 security support for a few years.</p>
10728
10729 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
10730 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
10731 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
10732 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
10733 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
10734 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
10735 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
10736 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
10737 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
10738 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
10739 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
10740 easier in the future.</p>
10741
10742 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
10743 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
10744 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
10745 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
10746 do not have time for.</p>
10747
10748       </div>
10749       <div class="tags">
10750
10751
10752         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>.
10753
10754
10755       </div>
10756     </div>
10757     <div class="padding"></div>
10758
10759     <div class="entry">
10760       <div class="title">
10761         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
10762       </div>
10763       <div class="date">
10764         20th June 2011
10765       </div>
10766       <div class="body">
10767         <p>Reading
10768 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
10769 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
10770 parts of the
10771 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
10772 and
10773 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
10774 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
10775 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
10776 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
10777
10778       </div>
10779       <div class="tags">
10780
10781
10782         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>.
10783
10784
10785       </div>
10786     </div>
10787     <div class="padding"></div>
10788
10789     <div class="entry">
10790       <div class="title">
10791         <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>
10792       </div>
10793       <div class="date">
10794         30th April 2011
10795       </div>
10796       <div class="body">
10797         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
10798 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
10799 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
10800 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
10801 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
10802 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
10803 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
10804 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
10805 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
10806 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
10807
10808 <p>Where is it?  Visit
10809 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
10810 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
10811 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
10812 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
10813
10814       </div>
10815       <div class="tags">
10816
10817
10818         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>.
10819
10820
10821       </div>
10822     </div>
10823     <div class="padding"></div>
10824
10825     <div class="entry">
10826       <div class="title">
10827         <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>
10828       </div>
10829       <div class="date">
10830         29th April 2011
10831       </div>
10832       <div class="body">
10833         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
10834 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
10835 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
10836 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
10837 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
10838 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
10839 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
10840 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
10841 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
10842 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
10843 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
10844 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
10845 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
10846
10847 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
10848 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
10849 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
10850 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
10851 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
10852 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
10853 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
10854 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
10855 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
10856 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
10857 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
10858 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
10859 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
10860
10861 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
10862 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
10863 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
10864 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
10865 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
10866 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
10867 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
10868 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
10869 it.</p>
10870
10871 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
10872 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
10873 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
10874 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
10875 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
10876 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
10877 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
10878
10879 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
10880 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
10881 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
10882 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
10883 and range= options.</p>
10884
10885 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
10886 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
10887 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
10888 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
10889 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
10890 to best handle this.  I've noticed
10891 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
10892 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
10893 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
10894 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
10895
10896 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
10897 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
10898 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
10899 discussions instead of only
10900 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
10901 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
10902 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
10903 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
10904 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
10905 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
10906
10907       </div>
10908       <div class="tags">
10909
10910
10911         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>.
10912
10913
10914       </div>
10915     </div>
10916     <div class="padding"></div>
10917
10918     <div class="entry">
10919       <div class="title">
10920         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
10921       </div>
10922       <div class="date">
10923          6th April 2011
10924       </div>
10925       <div class="body">
10926         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
10927 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
10928 A few days ago the project
10929 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
10930 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
10931 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
10932 into Gnash.</p>
10933
10934       </div>
10935       <div class="tags">
10936
10937
10938         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>.
10939
10940
10941       </div>
10942     </div>
10943     <div class="padding"></div>
10944
10945     <div class="entry">
10946       <div class="title">
10947         <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>
10948       </div>
10949       <div class="date">
10950          3rd April 2011
10951       </div>
10952       <div class="body">
10953         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
10954 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
10955 update in English.</p>
10956
10957 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
10958 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
10959 of the British service
10960 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
10961 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
10962 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
10963 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
10964 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
10965 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
10966 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
10967 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
10968 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
10969 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
10970 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
10971 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
10972 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
10973
10974 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
10975 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
10976 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
10977 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
10978 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
10979 public infrastructure.</p>
10980
10981 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
10982 such service?</p>
10983
10984       </div>
10985       <div class="tags">
10986
10987
10988         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>.
10989
10990
10991       </div>
10992     </div>
10993     <div class="padding"></div>
10994
10995     <div class="entry">
10996       <div class="title">
10997         <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>
10998       </div>
10999       <div class="date">
11000         28th January 2011
11001       </div>
11002       <div class="body">
11003         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
11004 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
11005 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
11006 available on the Internet, and check our locally
11007 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
11008 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
11009 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
11010 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
11011 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
11012 out which security holes were present in our free software
11013 collection.</p>
11014
11015 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
11016 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
11017 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
11018 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
11019 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
11020 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
11021 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
11022 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
11023 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
11024 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
11025 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
11026 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
11027 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
11028 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
11029 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
11030 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
11031
11032 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
11033 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
11034 check out, one could look up
11035 <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
11036 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
11037 The most recent one is
11038 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
11039 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
11040 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
11041
11042 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
11043 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
11044 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
11045 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
11046 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
11047 security issues out.</p>
11048
11049 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
11050 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
11051 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
11052 RHEL is providing
11053 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
11054 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
11055 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
11056
11057 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
11058 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
11059 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
11060 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
11061 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
11062 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
11063 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
11064 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
11065 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
11066 established soon.</p>
11067
11068 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
11069 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
11070 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
11071 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
11072 for their packages.</p>
11073
11074       </div>
11075       <div class="tags">
11076
11077
11078         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>.
11079
11080
11081       </div>
11082     </div>
11083     <div class="padding"></div>
11084
11085     <div class="entry">
11086       <div class="title">
11087         <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>
11088       </div>
11089       <div class="date">
11090         23rd January 2011
11091       </div>
11092       <div class="body">
11093         <p>In the
11094 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
11095 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
11096 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
11097 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
11098 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
11099 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
11100 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
11101 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
11102 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
11103 one of my machines like this:</p>
11104
11105 <pre>
11106 loaded modules:
11107 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
11108 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
11109 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
11110 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
11111 10de:03ec pata_amd
11112 10de:03f6 sata_nv
11113 1022:1103 k8temp
11114 109e:036e bttv
11115 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
11116 11ab:4364 sky2
11117 </pre>
11118
11119 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
11120 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
11121
11122 <pre>
11123 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
11124     echo loaded pci modules:
11125     (
11126         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
11127         for address in * ; do
11128             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
11129                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
11130                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
11131                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
11132                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
11133                     echo "$id $module"
11134                 fi
11135             fi
11136         done
11137     )
11138     echo
11139 fi
11140 </pre>
11141
11142 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
11143 mappings:</p>
11144
11145 <pre>
11146 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
11147     echo loaded usb modules:
11148     (
11149         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
11150         for address in * ; do
11151             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
11152                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
11153                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
11154                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
11155                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
11156                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
11157                         echo "$id $module"
11158                     fi
11159                 fi
11160             fi
11161         done
11162     )
11163     echo
11164 fi
11165 </pre>
11166
11167 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
11168 well.</p>
11169
11170       </div>
11171       <div class="tags">
11172
11173
11174         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>.
11175
11176
11177       </div>
11178     </div>
11179     <div class="padding"></div>
11180
11181     <div class="entry">
11182       <div class="title">
11183         <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>
11184       </div>
11185       <div class="date">
11186         16th January 2011
11187       </div>
11188       <div class="body">
11189         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
11190 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
11191 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
11192 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
11193 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
11194 the Wikipedia article on
11195 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
11196 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
11197 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
11198 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
11199 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
11200 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
11201 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
11202 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
11203 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
11204 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
11205 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
11206 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
11207
11208 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
11209 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
11210 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
11211 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
11212 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
11213 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
11214 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
11215 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
11216 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
11217 from last week</a>.</p>
11218
11219 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
11220 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
11221 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
11222 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
11223 was without royalties and license terms, check out
11224 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
11225 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
11226
11227 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
11228 available from
11229 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
11230 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
11231 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
11232
11233 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
11234 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
11235 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
11236 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
11237
11238       </div>
11239       <div class="tags">
11240
11241
11242         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/video">video</a>.
11243
11244
11245       </div>
11246     </div>
11247     <div class="padding"></div>
11248
11249     <div class="entry">
11250       <div class="title">
11251         <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>
11252       </div>
11253       <div class="date">
11254         12th January 2011
11255       </div>
11256       <div class="body">
11257         <p>Today I discovered
11258 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
11259 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
11260 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
11261 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
11262 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
11263 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
11264 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
11265 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
11266 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
11267 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
11268 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
11269 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
11270 on the Google announcement is available from
11271 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
11272 A good read. :)</p>
11273
11274 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
11275 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
11276 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
11277 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
11278 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
11279 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
11280 browsers support H.264, and others support
11281 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
11282 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
11283 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
11284 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
11285 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
11286 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
11287 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
11288 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
11289
11290 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
11291 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
11292 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
11293 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
11294 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
11295 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
11296 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
11297
11298 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
11299 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
11300 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
11301 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
11302 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
11303 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
11304 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
11305
11306 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
11307 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
11308 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
11309 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
11310 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
11311 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
11312 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
11313
11314 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
11315 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
11316 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
11317 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
11318 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
11319 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
11320 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
11321 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
11322 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
11323 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
11324 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
11325 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
11326 I guess time will tell.</p>
11327
11328 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
11329 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
11330 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
11331
11332       </div>
11333       <div class="tags">
11334
11335
11336         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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
11337
11338
11339       </div>
11340     </div>
11341     <div class="padding"></div>
11342
11343     <div class="entry">
11344       <div class="title">
11345         <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>
11346       </div>
11347       <div class="date">
11348         30th December 2010
11349       </div>
11350       <div class="body">
11351         <p>After trying to
11352 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
11353 Ogg Theora</a> to
11354 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
11355 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
11356 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
11357 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
11358 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
11359 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
11360 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
11361
11362 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
11363 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
11364 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
11365 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
11366 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
11367 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
11368 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
11369
11370 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
11371 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
11372
11373       </div>
11374       <div class="tags">
11375
11376
11377         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>.
11378
11379
11380       </div>
11381     </div>
11382     <div class="padding"></div>
11383
11384     <div class="entry">
11385       <div class="title">
11386         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
11387       </div>
11388       <div class="date">
11389         27th December 2010
11390       </div>
11391       <div class="body">
11392         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
11393 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
11394 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
11395 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
11396 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
11397 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
11398 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
11399 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
11400
11401 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
11402 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
11403 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
11404 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
11405 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
11406 page</a>.</p>
11407
11408 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
11409 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
11410 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
11411 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
11412 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
11413 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
11414 specification on equal terms.</p>
11415
11416 <blockquote>
11417
11418 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
11419 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
11420 open standard:</p>
11421
11422 <ul>
11423
11424 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
11425 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
11426 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
11427 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
11428
11429 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
11430 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
11431 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
11432 nominal fee.</li>
11433
11434 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
11435 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
11436 free basis.</li>
11437
11438 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
11439
11440 </ul>
11441 </blockquote>
11442
11443 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
11444 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
11445 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
11446 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
11447 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
11448 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
11449 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
11450
11451 <blockquote>
11452
11453 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
11454
11455 <ol>
11456
11457 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
11458 tilgængelig.</li>
11459
11460 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
11461 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
11462
11463 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
11464 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
11465
11466 </ol>
11467
11468 </blockquote>
11469
11470 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
11471 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
11472
11473 <blockquote>
11474
11475 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
11476
11477 <ol>
11478
11479 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
11480 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
11481
11482 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
11483 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
11484 Standard themselves;</li>
11485
11486 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
11487 any party or in any business model;</li>
11488
11489 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
11490 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
11491 parties;</li>
11492
11493 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
11494 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
11495 parties.</li>
11496
11497 </ol>
11498
11499 </blockquote>
11500
11501 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
11502 its
11503 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
11504 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
11505
11506 <blockquote>
11507 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
11508
11509 <ul>
11510
11511 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
11512   democratic:
11513
11514          <ul>
11515
11516          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
11517             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
11518             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
11519             and managed.</li>
11520
11521          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
11522             method, can be changed through input from all
11523             participants.</li>
11524
11525          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
11526             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
11527
11528          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
11529             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
11530
11531          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
11532             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
11533             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
11534
11535          </ul>
11536
11537 </li>
11538
11539 </ul>
11540
11541 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
11542 <ul>
11543
11544 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
11545   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
11546   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
11547   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
11548   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
11549
11550 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
11551   a technical or economic barriers</li>
11552
11553 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
11554   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
11555   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
11556   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
11557   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
11558   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
11559   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
11560   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
11561   intended to function.</li>
11562
11563 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
11564   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
11565   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
11566
11567 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
11568   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
11569   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
11570   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
11571   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
11572   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
11573   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
11574   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
11575
11576       <ul>
11577
11578       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
11579         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
11580         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
11581
11582       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
11583         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
11584         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
11585         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
11586
11587       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
11588         licensor</li>
11589
11590       </ul>
11591 </li>
11592
11593 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
11594   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
11595   or restricted licensing terms</li>
11596
11597 </ul>
11598
11599 </blockquote>
11600
11601 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
11602 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
11603 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
11604 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
11605 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
11606 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
11607 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
11608 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
11609 Standards.</p>
11610
11611       </div>
11612       <div class="tags">
11613
11614
11615         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>.
11616
11617
11618       </div>
11619     </div>
11620     <div class="padding"></div>
11621
11622     <div class="entry">
11623       <div class="title">
11624         <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>
11625       </div>
11626       <div class="date">
11627         25th December 2010
11628       </div>
11629       <div class="body">
11630         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
11631 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
11632
11633 <blockquote>
11634
11635 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
11636 as follows:</p>
11637
11638 <ol>
11639
11640 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
11641 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
11642 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
11643
11644 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
11645 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
11646 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
11647 parties.</li>
11648
11649 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
11650 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
11651 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
11652
11653 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
11654 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
11655
11656 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
11657
11658 </ol>
11659
11660 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
11661 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
11662 products based on the standard.</p>
11663 </blockquote>
11664
11665 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
11666 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
11667 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
11668 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
11669 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
11670 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
11671 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
11672 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
11673
11674 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
11675
11676 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
11677 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
11678 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
11679 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
11680 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
11681 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
11682 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
11683 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
11684 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
11685 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
11686 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
11687 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
11688 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
11689 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
11690
11691 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
11692
11693 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
11694 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
11695 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
11696 documentation indicating this.</p>
11697
11698 <p>According to
11699 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
11700 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
11701 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
11702 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
11703 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
11704 report is correct.</p>
11705
11706 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
11707
11708 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
11709 container format</a> and both the
11710 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
11711 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
11712 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
11713
11714 <blockquote>
11715
11716 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
11717 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
11718 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
11719 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
11720 specification compliance.
11721
11722 </blockquote>
11723
11724 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
11725 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
11726 this is the term:<p>
11727
11728 <blockquote>
11729
11730 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
11731 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
11732 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
11733 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
11734 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
11735 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
11736 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
11737 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
11738 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
11739 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
11740 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
11741 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
11742
11743 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
11744 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
11745 </blockquote>
11746
11747 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
11748 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
11749 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
11750 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
11751 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
11752
11753 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
11754
11755 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
11756 Theora format.
11757 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
11758 and
11759 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
11760 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
11761 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
11762 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
11763 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
11764 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
11765 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
11766 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
11767
11768 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
11769
11770 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
11771
11772 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
11773
11774 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
11775 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
11776 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
11777 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
11778 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
11779 this.</p>
11780
11781 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
11782 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
11783
11784       </div>
11785       <div class="tags">
11786
11787
11788         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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.
11789
11790
11791       </div>
11792     </div>
11793     <div class="padding"></div>
11794
11795     <div class="entry">
11796       <div class="title">
11797         <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>
11798       </div>
11799       <div class="date">
11800         25th December 2010
11801       </div>
11802       <div class="body">
11803         <p>A few days ago
11804 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
11805 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
11806 2.0 of
11807 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
11808 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
11809 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
11810 Nothing very surprising there, given
11811 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
11812 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
11813 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
11814 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
11815 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
11816 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
11817 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
11818 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
11819 standard definition from its content.</p>
11820
11821 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
11822 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
11823 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
11824 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
11825 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
11826 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
11827 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
11828 background information about that story is available in
11829 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
11830 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
11831
11832 <blockquote>
11833 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
11834 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
11835 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
11836
11837 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
11838
11839 <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>
11840
11841 <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>
11842
11843 <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>
11844
11845 <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>
11846
11847 <p>
11848 <ul>
11849 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
11850 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
11851 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
11852 </ul>
11853 </p>
11854
11855 <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>
11856
11857 <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>
11858
11859 <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>
11860
11861 <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>
11862
11863 <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>
11864
11865
11866 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
11867 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
11868 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
11869 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
11870 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
11871 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
11872
11873 </p>
11874
11875 <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>
11876
11877 <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>
11878
11879 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
11880
11881 <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>
11882
11883 <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>
11884
11885 <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>
11886
11887 <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>
11888
11889 <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>
11890
11891 <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>
11892
11893 <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>
11894
11895 <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>
11896
11897 <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>
11898
11899 <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>
11900
11901 <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>
11902
11903 <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>
11904
11905 <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>
11906
11907 <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>
11908
11909 <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>
11910
11911 <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>
11912
11913 <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>
11914
11915 <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>
11916
11917 <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>
11918
11919 <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>
11920
11921 <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>
11922
11923 <p>On security:</p>
11924
11925 <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>
11926
11927 <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>
11928
11929 <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>
11930
11931 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
11932
11933 <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>
11934
11935 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
11936
11937 <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>
11938
11939 <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>
11940
11941 <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>
11942
11943 <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>
11944
11945 <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>
11946
11947 <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>
11948
11949 <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>
11950
11951 <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>
11952
11953 <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>
11954
11955 <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>
11956
11957 <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>
11958
11959 <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>
11960
11961 <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>
11962
11963 <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>
11964
11965 <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>
11966
11967 <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>
11968
11969 <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>
11970
11971 <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>
11972
11973 <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>
11974
11975 <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>
11976
11977 <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>
11978
11979 <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>
11980
11981 <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>
11982
11983 <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>
11984
11985 <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>
11986
11987 <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>
11988
11989 <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>
11990
11991 <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>
11992
11993 <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>
11994
11995 <p>Cordially,<br>
11996 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
11997 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
11998 </blockquote>
11999
12000       </div>
12001       <div class="tags">
12002
12003
12004         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>.
12005
12006
12007       </div>
12008     </div>
12009     <div class="padding"></div>
12010
12011     <div class="entry">
12012       <div class="title">
12013         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
12014       </div>
12015       <div class="date">
12016         25th December 2010
12017       </div>
12018       <div class="body">
12019         <p>Half a year ago I
12020 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
12021 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
12022 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
12023 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
12024
12025 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
12026 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
12027 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
12028 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
12029 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
12030 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
12031 got such a great test tool available.</p>
12032
12033       </div>
12034       <div class="tags">
12035
12036
12037         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>.
12038
12039
12040       </div>
12041     </div>
12042     <div class="padding"></div>
12043
12044     <div class="entry">
12045       <div class="title">
12046         <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>
12047       </div>
12048       <div class="date">
12049         22nd December 2010
12050       </div>
12051       <div class="body">
12052         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
12053 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
12054 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
12055 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
12056 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
12057 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
12058 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
12059 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
12060 university.</p>
12061
12062 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
12063 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
12064 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
12065 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
12066 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
12067 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
12068 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
12069 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
12070
12071 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
12072 I perform on a new model.</p>
12073
12074 <ul>
12075
12076 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
12077 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
12078 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
12079
12080 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
12081 installation, X.org is working.</li>
12082
12083 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
12084 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
12085 reported by the program.</li>
12086
12087 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
12088 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
12089 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
12090 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
12091 normally test this by playing
12092 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
12093 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
12094
12095 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
12096 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
12097
12098 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
12099 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
12100
12101 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
12102 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
12103
12104 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
12105 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
12106 few.</li>
12107
12108 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
12109 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
12110 notice this.</li>
12111
12112 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
12113 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
12114 resume.</li>
12115
12116 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
12117 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
12118 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
12119 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
12120 not.</li>
12121
12122 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
12123 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
12124 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
12125 existence.</li>
12126
12127 </ul>
12128
12129 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
12130 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
12131 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
12132 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
12133 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
12134 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
12135 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
12136 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
12137
12138       </div>
12139       <div class="tags">
12140
12141
12142         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>.
12143
12144
12145       </div>
12146     </div>
12147     <div class="padding"></div>
12148
12149     <div class="entry">
12150       <div class="title">
12151         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
12152       </div>
12153       <div class="date">
12154         11th December 2010
12155       </div>
12156       <div class="body">
12157         <p>As I continue to explore
12158 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
12159 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
12160 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
12161
12162 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
12163 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
12164 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
12165 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
12166 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
12167 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
12168 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
12169 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
12170 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
12171 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
12172 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
12173 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
12174 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
12175 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
12176 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
12177 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
12178 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
12179 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
12180 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
12181 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
12182
12183 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
12184 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
12185 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
12186 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
12187 If the Skolelinux foundation
12188 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
12189 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
12190 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
12191 Given that it is impossible to know if money can cross the border or
12192 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
12193 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
12194 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
12195 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
12196
12197 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
12198 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
12199 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
12200 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
12201 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
12202 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
12203 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
12204 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
12205 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
12206 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
12207 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
12208 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
12209 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
12210 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
12211 currencies.</p>
12212
12213 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
12214 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
12215 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
12216 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
12217 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
12218 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
12219 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
12220 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
12221 BitCoins.  Check out
12222 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
12223 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
12224 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
12225 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
12226 yet.</p>
12227
12228 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
12229 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
12230 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
12231 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
12232 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
12233
12234       </div>
12235       <div class="tags">
12236
12237
12238         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>.
12239
12240
12241       </div>
12242     </div>
12243     <div class="padding"></div>
12244
12245     <div class="entry">
12246       <div class="title">
12247         <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>
12248       </div>
12249       <div class="date">
12250         10th December 2010
12251       </div>
12252       <div class="body">
12253         <p>With this weeks lawless
12254 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
12255 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
12256 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
12257 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
12258 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
12259 A blog post from
12260 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
12261 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
12262 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
12263 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
12264 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
12265 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
12266 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
12267
12268 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
12269 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
12270 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
12271 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
12272 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
12273 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
12274 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
12275 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
12276 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
12277 Debian</a> soon.</p>
12278
12279 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
12280 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
12281 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
12282 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
12283 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
12284 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
12285 you can even get
12286 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
12287 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
12288 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
12289 on the current exchange rates.</p>
12290
12291 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
12292 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
12293 donations to the address
12294 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
12295
12296       </div>
12297       <div class="tags">
12298
12299
12300         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>.
12301
12302
12303       </div>
12304     </div>
12305     <div class="padding"></div>
12306
12307     <div class="entry">
12308       <div class="title">
12309         <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>
12310       </div>
12311       <div class="date">
12312          9th December 2010
12313       </div>
12314       <div class="body">
12315         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
12316 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
12317 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
12318 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
12319 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
12320 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
12321 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
12322 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
12323 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
12324 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
12325 operational.</p>
12326
12327 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
12328 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
12329 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
12330 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
12331 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
12332 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
12333 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
12334
12335       </div>
12336       <div class="tags">
12337
12338
12339         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>.
12340
12341
12342       </div>
12343     </div>
12344     <div class="padding"></div>
12345
12346     <div class="entry">
12347       <div class="title">
12348         <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>
12349       </div>
12350       <div class="date">
12351         29th November 2010
12352       </div>
12353       <div class="body">
12354         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
12355 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
12356 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
12357 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
12358 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
12359 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
12360
12361 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
12362 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
12363 will hold its
12364 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
12365 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
12366 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
12367 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
12368 vote this year.</p>
12369
12370       </div>
12371       <div class="tags">
12372
12373
12374         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>.
12375
12376
12377       </div>
12378     </div>
12379     <div class="padding"></div>
12380
12381     <div class="entry">
12382       <div class="title">
12383         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
12384       </div>
12385       <div class="date">
12386         27th November 2010
12387       </div>
12388       <div class="body">
12389         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
12390 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
12391 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
12392 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
12393 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
12394 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
12395 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
12396 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
12397
12398 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
12399 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
12400 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
12401 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
12402 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
12403 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
12404 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
12405 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
12406 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
12407 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
12408 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
12409
12410 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
12411 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
12412 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
12413 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
12414 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
12415 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
12416 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
12417 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
12418 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
12419 what is going on.</p>
12420
12421       </div>
12422       <div class="tags">
12423
12424
12425         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>.
12426
12427
12428       </div>
12429     </div>
12430     <div class="padding"></div>
12431
12432     <div class="entry">
12433       <div class="title">
12434         <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>
12435       </div>
12436       <div class="date">
12437         22nd November 2010
12438       </div>
12439       <div class="body">
12440         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
12441 upgrade testing of the
12442 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
12443 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
12444 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
12445 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
12446
12447 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
12448
12449 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12450
12451 <blockquote><p>
12452   apache2.2-bin
12453   aptdaemon
12454   baobab
12455   binfmt-support
12456   browser-plugin-gnash
12457   cheese-common
12458   cli-common
12459   cups-pk-helper
12460   dmz-cursor-theme
12461   empathy
12462   empathy-common
12463   freedesktop-sound-theme
12464   freeglut3
12465   gconf-defaults-service
12466   gdm-themes
12467   gedit-plugins
12468   geoclue
12469   geoclue-hostip
12470   geoclue-localnet
12471   geoclue-manual
12472   geoclue-yahoo
12473   gnash
12474   gnash-common
12475   gnome
12476   gnome-backgrounds
12477   gnome-cards-data
12478   gnome-codec-install
12479   gnome-core
12480   gnome-desktop-environment
12481   gnome-disk-utility
12482   gnome-screenshot
12483   gnome-search-tool
12484   gnome-session-canberra
12485   gnome-system-log
12486   gnome-themes-extras
12487   gnome-themes-more
12488   gnome-user-share
12489   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
12490   gstreamer0.10-tools
12491   gtk2-engines
12492   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
12493   gtk2-engines-smooth
12494   hamster-applet
12495   libapache2-mod-dnssd
12496   libapr1
12497   libaprutil1
12498   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
12499   libaprutil1-ldap
12500   libart2.0-cil
12501   libboost-date-time1.42.0
12502   libboost-python1.42.0
12503   libboost-thread1.42.0
12504   libchamplain-0.4-0
12505   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
12506   libcheese-gtk18
12507   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
12508   libcryptui0
12509   libdiscid0
12510   libelf1
12511   libepc-1.0-2
12512   libepc-common
12513   libepc-ui-1.0-2
12514   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
12515   libfreerdp0
12516   libgconf2.0-cil
12517   libgdata-common
12518   libgdata7
12519   libgdu-gtk0
12520   libgee2
12521   libgeoclue0
12522   libgexiv2-0
12523   libgif4
12524   libglade2.0-cil
12525   libglib2.0-cil
12526   libgmime2.4-cil
12527   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
12528   libgnome2.24-cil
12529   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
12530   libgpod-common
12531   libgpod4
12532   libgtk2.0-cil
12533   libgtkglext1
12534   libgtksourceview2.0-common
12535   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
12536   libmono-addins0.2-cil
12537   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
12538   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
12539   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
12540   libmono-posix2.0-cil
12541   libmono-security2.0-cil
12542   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
12543   libmono-system2.0-cil
12544   libmtp8
12545   libmusicbrainz3-6
12546   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
12547   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
12548   libopal3.6.8
12549   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
12550   libpt2.6.7
12551   libpython2.6
12552   librpm1
12553   librpmio1
12554   libsdl1.2debian
12555   libsrtp0
12556   libssh-4
12557   libtelepathy-farsight0
12558   libtelepathy-glib0
12559   libtidy-0.99-0
12560   media-player-info
12561   mesa-utils
12562   mono-2.0-gac
12563   mono-gac
12564   mono-runtime
12565   nautilus-sendto
12566   nautilus-sendto-empathy
12567   p7zip-full
12568   pkg-config
12569   python-aptdaemon
12570   python-aptdaemon-gtk
12571   python-axiom
12572   python-beautifulsoup
12573   python-bugbuddy
12574   python-clientform
12575   python-coherence
12576   python-configobj
12577   python-crypto
12578   python-cupshelpers
12579   python-elementtree
12580   python-epsilon
12581   python-evolution
12582   python-feedparser
12583   python-gdata
12584   python-gdbm
12585   python-gst0.10
12586   python-gtkglext1
12587   python-gtksourceview2
12588   python-httplib2
12589   python-louie
12590   python-mako
12591   python-markupsafe
12592   python-mechanize
12593   python-nevow
12594   python-notify
12595   python-opengl
12596   python-openssl
12597   python-pam
12598   python-pkg-resources
12599   python-pyasn1
12600   python-pysqlite2
12601   python-rdflib
12602   python-serial
12603   python-tagpy
12604   python-twisted-bin
12605   python-twisted-conch
12606   python-twisted-core
12607   python-twisted-web
12608   python-utidylib
12609   python-webkit
12610   python-xdg
12611   python-zope.interface
12612   remmina
12613   remmina-plugin-data
12614   remmina-plugin-rdp
12615   remmina-plugin-vnc
12616   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
12617   rhythmbox-plugins
12618   rpm-common
12619   rpm2cpio
12620   seahorse-plugins
12621   shotwell
12622   software-center
12623   system-config-printer-udev
12624   telepathy-gabble
12625   telepathy-mission-control-5
12626   telepathy-salut
12627   tomboy
12628   totem
12629   totem-coherence
12630   totem-mozilla
12631   totem-plugins
12632   transmission-common
12633   xdg-user-dirs
12634   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
12635   xserver-xephyr
12636 </p></blockquote>
12637
12638 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12639
12640 <blockquote><p>
12641   cheese
12642   ekiga
12643   eog
12644   epiphany-extensions
12645   evolution-exchange
12646   fast-user-switch-applet
12647   file-roller
12648   gcalctool
12649   gconf-editor
12650   gdm
12651   gedit
12652   gedit-common
12653   gnome-games
12654   gnome-games-data
12655   gnome-nettool
12656   gnome-system-tools
12657   gnome-themes
12658   gnuchess
12659   gucharmap
12660   guile-1.8-libs
12661   libavahi-ui0
12662   libdmx1
12663   libgalago3
12664   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
12665   libgtksourceview2.0-0
12666   liblircclient0
12667   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
12668   libspeexdsp1
12669   libsvga1
12670   rhythmbox
12671   seahorse
12672   sound-juicer
12673   system-config-printer
12674   totem-common
12675   transmission-gtk
12676   vinagre
12677   vino
12678 </p></blockquote>
12679
12680 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12681
12682 <blockquote><p>
12683   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
12684 </p></blockquote>
12685
12686 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12687
12688 <blockquote><p>
12689 [nothing]
12690 </p></blockquote>
12691
12692 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
12693
12694 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
12695
12696 <blockquote><p>
12697   ksmserver
12698 </p></blockquote>
12699
12700 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
12701
12702 <blockquote><p>
12703   kwin
12704   network-manager-kde
12705 </p></blockquote>
12706
12707 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
12708
12709 <blockquote><p>
12710   arts
12711   dolphin
12712   freespacenotifier
12713   google-gadgets-gst
12714   google-gadgets-xul
12715   kappfinder
12716   kcalc
12717   kcharselect
12718   kde-core
12719   kde-plasma-desktop
12720   kde-standard
12721   kde-window-manager
12722   kdeartwork
12723   kdeartwork-emoticons
12724   kdeartwork-style
12725   kdeartwork-theme-icon
12726   kdebase
12727   kdebase-apps
12728   kdebase-workspace
12729   kdebase-workspace-bin
12730   kdebase-workspace-data
12731   kdeeject
12732   kdelibs
12733   kdeplasma-addons
12734   kdeutils
12735   kdewallpapers
12736   kdf
12737   kfloppy
12738   kgpg
12739   khelpcenter4
12740   kinfocenter
12741   konq-plugins-l10n
12742   konqueror-nsplugins
12743   kscreensaver
12744   kscreensaver-xsavers
12745   ktimer
12746   kwrite
12747   libgle3
12748   libkde4-ruby1.8
12749   libkonq5
12750   libkonq5-templates
12751   libnetpbm10
12752   libplasma-ruby
12753   libplasma-ruby1.8
12754   libqt4-ruby1.8
12755   marble-data
12756   marble-plugins
12757   netpbm
12758   nuvola-icon-theme
12759   plasma-dataengines-workspace
12760   plasma-desktop
12761   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
12762   plasma-runners-addons
12763   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
12764   plasma-scriptengine-python
12765   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
12766   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
12767   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
12768   plasma-scriptengines
12769   plasma-wallpapers-addons
12770   plasma-widget-folderview
12771   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
12772   ruby
12773   sweeper
12774   update-notifier-kde
12775   xscreensaver-data-extra
12776   xscreensaver-gl
12777   xscreensaver-gl-extra
12778   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
12779 </p></blockquote>
12780
12781 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
12782
12783 <blockquote><p>
12784   ark
12785   google-gadgets-common
12786   google-gadgets-qt
12787   htdig
12788   kate
12789   kdebase-bin
12790   kdebase-data
12791   kdepasswd
12792   kfind
12793   klipper
12794   konq-plugins
12795   konqueror
12796   ksysguard
12797   ksysguardd
12798   libarchive1
12799   libcln6
12800   libeet1
12801   libeina-svn-06
12802   libggadget-1.0-0b
12803   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
12804   libgps19
12805   libkdecorations4
12806   libkephal4
12807   libkonq4
12808   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
12809   libkscreensaver5
12810   libksgrd4
12811   libksignalplotter4
12812   libkunitconversion4
12813   libkwineffects1a
12814   libmarblewidget4
12815   libntrack-qt4-1
12816   libntrack0
12817   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
12818   libplasmaclock4a
12819   libplasmagenericshell4
12820   libprocesscore4a
12821   libprocessui4a
12822   libqalculate5
12823   libqedje0a
12824   libqtruby4shared2
12825   libqzion0a
12826   libruby1.8
12827   libscim8c2a
12828   libsmokekdecore4-3
12829   libsmokekdeui4-3
12830   libsmokekfile3
12831   libsmokekhtml3
12832   libsmokekio3
12833   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
12834   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
12835   libsmokekparts3
12836   libsmokektexteditor3
12837   libsmokekutils3
12838   libsmokenepomuk3
12839   libsmokephonon3
12840   libsmokeplasma3
12841   libsmokeqtcore4-3
12842   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
12843   libsmokeqtgui4-3
12844   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
12845   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
12846   libsmokeqtscript4-3
12847   libsmokeqtsql4-3
12848   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
12849   libsmokeqttest4-3
12850   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
12851   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
12852   libsmokeqtxml4-3
12853   libsmokesolid3
12854   libsmokesoprano3
12855   libtaskmanager4a
12856   libtidy-0.99-0
12857   libweather-ion4a
12858   libxklavier16
12859   libxxf86misc1
12860   okteta
12861   oxygencursors
12862   plasma-dataengines-addons
12863   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
12864   plasma-widget-lancelot
12865   plasma-widgets-addons
12866   plasma-widgets-workspace
12867   polkit-kde-1
12868   ruby1.8
12869   systemsettings
12870   update-notifier-common
12871 </p></blockquote>
12872
12873 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
12874 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
12875 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
12876 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
12877
12878       </div>
12879       <div class="tags">
12880
12881
12882         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>.
12883
12884
12885       </div>
12886     </div>
12887     <div class="padding"></div>
12888
12889     <div class="entry">
12890       <div class="title">
12891         <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>
12892       </div>
12893       <div class="date">
12894         22nd November 2010
12895       </div>
12896       <div class="body">
12897         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
12898 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
12899 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
12900 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
12901 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
12902 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
12903 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
12904 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
12905 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
12906
12907 <p>I found
12908 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
12909 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
12910 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
12911 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
12912 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
12913 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
12914
12915 <pre>
12916 #!/bin/sh
12917
12918 # Based on
12919 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
12920
12921 set -e
12922 set -x
12923
12924 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
12925     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
12926     exit 1
12927 else
12928     host="$1"
12929 fi
12930
12931 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
12932     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
12933     exit 1
12934 fi
12935
12936 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
12937 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
12938 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
12939 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
12940
12941 img=$host.img
12942 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
12943 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
12944
12945 parted $img mklabel msdos
12946 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
12947 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
12948 parted $img set 1 boot on
12949
12950 modprobe dm-mod
12951 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
12952 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
12953
12954 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
12955 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
12956 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
12957
12958 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
12959 losetup -d /dev/loop0
12960 </pre>
12961
12962 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
12963 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
12964
12965 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
12966 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
12967 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
12968 seem to work just fine.</p>
12969
12970       </div>
12971       <div class="tags">
12972
12973
12974         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>.
12975
12976
12977       </div>
12978     </div>
12979     <div class="padding"></div>
12980
12981     <div class="entry">
12982       <div class="title">
12983         <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>
12984       </div>
12985       <div class="date">
12986         20th November 2010
12987       </div>
12988       <div class="body">
12989         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
12990 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
12991 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
12992 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
12993
12994 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
12995 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
12996 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
12997
12998 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
12999
13000 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13001
13002 <blockquote><p>
13003   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
13004   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
13005   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
13006   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
13007   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
13008   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
13009   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
13010   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
13011   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
13012   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
13013   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
13014   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
13015   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
13016   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
13017   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
13018   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
13019   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
13020   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
13021   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
13022   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
13023   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
13024   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
13025   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
13026   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
13027   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
13028   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
13029   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
13030   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
13031   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
13032   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
13033   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
13034   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
13035   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
13036   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
13037   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
13038   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
13039   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
13040   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
13041   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
13042   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
13043   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
13044   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
13045   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
13046   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
13047   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
13048   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
13049   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
13050   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
13051   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
13052   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
13053   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
13054   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
13055   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
13056   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
13057   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
13058   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
13059   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
13060   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
13061   zip
13062 </p></blockquote>
13063
13064 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
13065
13066 <blockquote><p>
13067   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
13068   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
13069   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
13070   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
13071   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
13072   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
13073   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
13074   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
13075   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
13076   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
13077   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
13078   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
13079   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
13080   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
13081   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
13082   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
13083   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
13084   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
13085   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
13086   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
13087   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
13088   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
13089   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
13090   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
13091   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
13092   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
13093   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
13094   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
13095   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
13096 </p></blockquote>
13097
13098 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13099
13100 <blockquote><p>
13101   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
13102 </p></blockquote>
13103
13104 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13105
13106 <blockquote><p>
13107 [nothing]
13108 </p></blockquote>
13109
13110 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
13111
13112 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
13113
13114 <blockquote><p>
13115   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
13116   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
13117   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
13118   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
13119   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
13120   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
13121   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
13122   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
13123   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
13124   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
13125   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
13126   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
13127   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
13128   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
13129   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
13130   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
13131   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
13132   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
13133   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
13134   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
13135   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
13136   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
13137   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
13138   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
13139   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
13140   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
13141   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
13142   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
13143   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
13144   ttf-sazanami-gothic
13145 </p></blockquote>
13146
13147 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
13148
13149 <blockquote><p>
13150   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
13151   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
13152   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
13153   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
13154   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
13155   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
13156   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
13157   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
13158   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
13159   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
13160   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
13161   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
13162   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
13163   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
13164   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
13165   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
13166   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
13167   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
13168   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
13169   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
13170   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
13171   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
13172   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
13173   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
13174   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
13175   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
13176   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
13177   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
13178   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
13179   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
13180   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
13181   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
13182   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
13183 </p></blockquote>
13184
13185 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
13186
13187 <blockquote><p>
13188   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
13189   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
13190   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
13191   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
13192   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
13193   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
13194   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
13195 </p></blockquote>
13196
13197 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
13198
13199 <blockquote><p>
13200   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
13201 </p></blockquote>
13202
13203       </div>
13204       <div class="tags">
13205
13206
13207         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>.
13208
13209
13210       </div>
13211     </div>
13212     <div class="padding"></div>
13213
13214     <div class="entry">
13215       <div class="title">
13216         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
13217       </div>
13218       <div class="date">
13219         20th November 2010
13220       </div>
13221       <div class="body">
13222         <p>Answering
13223 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
13224 call from the Gnash project</a> for
13225 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
13226 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
13227 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
13228 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
13229 releases out more often.</p>
13230
13231 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
13232 I have considered setting up a <a
13233 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
13234 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
13235 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
13236 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
13237 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
13238 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
13239 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
13240 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
13241 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
13242 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
13243 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
13244 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
13245
13246       </div>
13247       <div class="tags">
13248
13249
13250         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>.
13251
13252
13253       </div>
13254     </div>
13255     <div class="padding"></div>
13256
13257     <div class="entry">
13258       <div class="title">
13259         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
13260       </div>
13261       <div class="date">
13262          9th November 2010
13263       </div>
13264       <div class="body">
13265         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
13266
13267 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
13268 3D linked in from
13269 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
13270 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
13271
13272       </div>
13273       <div class="tags">
13274
13275
13276         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>.
13277
13278
13279       </div>
13280     </div>
13281     <div class="padding"></div>
13282
13283     <div class="entry">
13284       <div class="title">
13285         <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>
13286       </div>
13287       <div class="date">
13288          7th November 2010
13289       </div>
13290       <div class="body">
13291         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
13292 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
13293 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
13294 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
13295 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
13296 working using this DVD.</p>
13297
13298 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
13299 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
13300 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
13301 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
13302 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
13303 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
13304 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
13305
13306 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
13307 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
13308 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
13309 Debian archive.</p>
13310
13311 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
13312 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
13313 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
13314 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
13315 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
13316 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
13317 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
13318 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
13319 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
13320 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
13321 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
13322 free X driver should work.</p>
13323
13324 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
13325 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
13326 DVD more useful again.</p>
13327
13328       </div>
13329       <div class="tags">
13330
13331
13332         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>.
13333
13334
13335       </div>
13336     </div>
13337     <div class="padding"></div>
13338
13339     <div class="entry">
13340       <div class="title">
13341         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
13342       </div>
13343       <div class="date">
13344         24th October 2010
13345       </div>
13346       <div class="body">
13347         <p>Some updates.</p>
13348
13349 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
13350 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
13351 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
13352 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
13353 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
13354 :)</p>
13355
13356 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
13357 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
13358 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
13359 It is called
13360 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
13361 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
13362 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
13363 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
13364 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
13365 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
13366
13367 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
13368 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
13369 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
13370 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
13371 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
13372 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
13373 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
13374 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
13375 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
13376 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
13377
13378       </div>
13379       <div class="tags">
13380
13381
13382         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>.
13383
13384
13385       </div>
13386     </div>
13387     <div class="padding"></div>
13388
13389     <div class="entry">
13390       <div class="title">
13391         <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>
13392       </div>
13393       <div class="date">
13394         19th October 2010
13395       </div>
13396       <div class="body">
13397         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
13398 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
13399 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
13400 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
13401 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
13402 AVM2 flash files.</p>
13403
13404 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
13405 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
13406 following text:</P>
13407
13408 <p><blockquote>
13409
13410   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
13411   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
13412
13413   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
13414
13415   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
13416
13417   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
13418   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
13419   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
13420   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
13421   days. The project web page is available from
13422   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
13423   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
13424   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
13425
13426   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
13427   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
13428   to get this to happen.</p>
13429
13430   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
13431   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
13432
13433 </blockquote></p>
13434
13435 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
13436 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
13437 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
13438 :)</p>
13439
13440       </div>
13441       <div class="tags">
13442
13443
13444         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>.
13445
13446
13447       </div>
13448     </div>
13449     <div class="padding"></div>
13450
13451     <div class="entry">
13452       <div class="title">
13453         <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>
13454       </div>
13455       <div class="date">
13456          9th October 2010
13457       </div>
13458       <div class="body">
13459         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
13460 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
13461 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
13462 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
13463 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
13464 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
13465 robots.</p>
13466
13467 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
13468 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
13469 a few less important features too.</p>
13470
13471 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
13472 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
13473 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
13474 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
13475
13476 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
13477 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
13478 source or binary package:</p>
13479
13480 <p><ul>
13481 <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>
13482 <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>
13483 <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>
13484 </ul></p>
13485
13486 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
13487 please let me know.</p>
13488
13489       </div>
13490       <div class="tags">
13491
13492
13493         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>.
13494
13495
13496       </div>
13497     </div>
13498     <div class="padding"></div>
13499
13500     <div class="entry">
13501       <div class="title">
13502         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
13503       </div>
13504       <div class="date">
13505          3rd October 2010
13506       </div>
13507       <div class="body">
13508         <p><ul>
13509
13510 <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
13511 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
13512
13513 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
13514 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
13515 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
13516
13517 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
13518 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
13519 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
13520 simple setup.
13521
13522 </ul></p>
13523
13524       </div>
13525       <div class="tags">
13526
13527
13528         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>.
13529
13530
13531       </div>
13532     </div>
13533     <div class="padding"></div>
13534
13535     <div class="entry">
13536       <div class="title">
13537         <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>
13538       </div>
13539       <div class="date">
13540          9th September 2010
13541       </div>
13542       <div class="body">
13543         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
13544 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
13545 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
13546 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
13547 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
13548 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
13549 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
13550 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
13551 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
13552
13553 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
13554 written:</p>
13555
13556 <blockquote>
13557 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
13558 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
13559 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
13560 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
13561 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
13562
13563 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
13564 standard.</p>
13565 </blockquote>
13566
13567 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
13568 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
13569 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
13570 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
13571
13572 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
13573 read
13574 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
13575 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
13576 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
13577 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
13578 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
13579 the issue.  The solution is to support the
13580 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
13581 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
13582 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
13583
13584       </div>
13585       <div class="tags">
13586
13587
13588         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/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>.
13589
13590
13591       </div>
13592     </div>
13593     <div class="padding"></div>
13594
13595     <div class="entry">
13596       <div class="title">
13597         <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>
13598       </div>
13599       <div class="date">
13600          4th September 2010
13601       </div>
13602       <div class="body">
13603         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
13604 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
13605 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
13606 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
13607 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
13608 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
13609 installed.</p>
13610
13611 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
13612 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
13613 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
13614 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
13615 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
13616 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
13617 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
13618 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
13619 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
13620
13621 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
13622 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
13623 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
13624 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
13625 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
13626 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
13627 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
13628 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
13629 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
13630 pages they want to visit.</p>
13631
13632 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
13633 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
13634 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
13635 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
13636 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
13637 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
13638 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
13639 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
13640 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
13641 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
13642 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
13643
13644       </div>
13645       <div class="tags">
13646
13647
13648         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>.
13649
13650
13651       </div>
13652     </div>
13653     <div class="padding"></div>
13654
13655     <div class="entry">
13656       <div class="title">
13657         <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>
13658       </div>
13659       <div class="date">
13660          1st September 2010
13661       </div>
13662       <div class="body">
13663         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
13664 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
13665 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
13666 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
13667 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
13668 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
13669 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
13670 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
13671 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
13672 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
13673 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
13674 drive around.</p>
13675
13676 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
13677 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
13678
13679 <p><pre>
13680 use Spykee;
13681 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
13682 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
13683 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
13684 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
13685 $spykee->left();
13686 sleep 2;
13687 $spykee->right();
13688 sleep 2;
13689 $spykee->forward();
13690 sleep 2;
13691 $spykee->back();
13692 sleep 2;
13693 $spykee->stop();
13694 </pre></p>
13695
13696 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
13697 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
13698 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
13699 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
13700 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
13701 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
13702 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
13703 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
13704 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
13705 going. :).</p>
13706
13707 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
13708 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
13709 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
13710 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
13711
13712       </div>
13713       <div class="tags">
13714
13715
13716         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>.
13717
13718
13719       </div>
13720     </div>
13721     <div class="padding"></div>
13722
13723     <div class="entry">
13724       <div class="title">
13725         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
13726       </div>
13727       <div class="date">
13728         30th August 2010
13729       </div>
13730       <div class="body">
13731         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
13732 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
13733 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
13734 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
13735 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
13736 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
13737 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
13738
13739 <pre>
13740 % ln foo bar
13741 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
13742 %
13743 </pre>
13744
13745 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
13746 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
13747 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
13748 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
13749 nevertheless. :)</p>
13750
13751 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
13752 git from
13753 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
13754
13755       </div>
13756       <div class="tags">
13757
13758
13759         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>.
13760
13761
13762       </div>
13763     </div>
13764     <div class="padding"></div>
13765
13766     <div class="entry">
13767       <div class="title">
13768         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
13769       </div>
13770       <div class="date">
13771         26th August 2010
13772       </div>
13773       <div class="body">
13774         <p>My file system sematics program
13775 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
13776 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
13777 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
13778 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
13779 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
13780 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
13781 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
13782 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
13783 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
13784 script:</p>
13785
13786 <pre>
13787 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
13788   mode_t retval = 0;
13789   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
13790   if (-1 != fd) {
13791     unlink(name);
13792     struct stat statbuf;
13793     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
13794       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
13795     }
13796     close(fd);
13797   }
13798   return retval;
13799 }
13800
13801 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
13802 int test_umask(void) {
13803   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
13804
13805   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
13806   mode_t newmode;
13807   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
13808     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
13809            newmode);
13810   }
13811   umask(007);
13812   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
13813     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
13814            newmode);
13815   }
13816
13817   umask (orig_umask);
13818   return 0;
13819 }
13820
13821 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
13822   [...]
13823   test_umask();
13824   return 0;
13825 }
13826 </pre>
13827
13828 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
13829
13830 <pre>
13831 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
13832 info: testing symlink creation
13833 info: testing subdirectory creation
13834 info: testing fcntl locking
13835   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
13836   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
13837   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
13838   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
13839   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
13840   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
13841 info: testing umask effect on file creation
13842 </pre>
13843
13844 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
13845 result:</p>
13846
13847 <pre>
13848 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
13849 info: testing symlink creation
13850 info: testing subdirectory creation
13851 info: testing fcntl locking
13852   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
13853   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
13854   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
13855   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
13856   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
13857   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
13858 info: testing umask effect on file creation
13859   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
13860   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
13861 </pre>
13862
13863 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
13864 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
13865 directory.</p>
13866
13867 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
13868 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
13869
13870 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
13871 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
13872 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
13873
13874       </div>
13875       <div class="tags">
13876
13877
13878         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>.
13879
13880
13881       </div>
13882     </div>
13883     <div class="padding"></div>
13884
13885     <div class="entry">
13886       <div class="title">
13887         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
13888       </div>
13889       <div class="date">
13890         15th August 2010
13891       </div>
13892       <div class="body">
13893         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
13894 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
13895 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
13896 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
13897 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
13898 long time.</p>
13899
13900       </div>
13901       <div class="tags">
13902
13903
13904         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>.
13905
13906
13907       </div>
13908     </div>
13909     <div class="padding"></div>
13910
13911     <div class="entry">
13912       <div class="title">
13913         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
13914       </div>
13915       <div class="date">
13916          9th August 2010
13917       </div>
13918       <div class="body">
13919         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
13920 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
13921 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
13922 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
13923 generated configuration.</p>
13924
13925 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
13926 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
13927 without any manual configuration.</p>
13928
13929 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
13930 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
13931 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
13932 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
13933 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
13934 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
13935 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
13936 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
13937 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
13938 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
13939 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
13940 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
13941 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
13942 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
13943 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
13944 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
13945 use.</p>
13946
13947 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
13948 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
13949 working properly out of the box:</p>
13950
13951 <ul>
13952 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
13953 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
13954 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
13955 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
13956 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
13957 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
13958 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
13959 </ul>
13960
13961 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
13962
13963 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
13964 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
13965 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
13966 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
13967 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
13968
13969 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
13970 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
13971 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
13972 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
13973 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
13974 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
13975 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
13976 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
13977
13978 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
13979 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
13980 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
13981 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
13982 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
13983 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
13984 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
13985 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
13986 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
13987 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
13988 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
13989 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
13990 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
13991 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
13992 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
13993 current DNS domain is used.</p>
13994
13995 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
13996 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
13997 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
13998 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
13999 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
14000 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
14001 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
14002 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
14003 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
14004 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
14005 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
14006 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
14007 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
14008
14009 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
14010 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
14011 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
14012 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
14013 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
14014 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
14015 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
14016 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
14017 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
14018 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
14019 do for now. :)</p>
14020
14021 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
14022 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
14023 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
14024 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
14025 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
14026 yet.</p>
14027
14028 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
14029 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14030
14031 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
14032 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
14033 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
14034 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
14035
14036       </div>
14037       <div class="tags">
14038
14039
14040         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>.
14041
14042
14043       </div>
14044     </div>
14045     <div class="padding"></div>
14046
14047     <div class="entry">
14048       <div class="title">
14049         <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>
14050       </div>
14051       <div class="date">
14052          8th August 2010
14053       </div>
14054       <div class="body">
14055         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
14056 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
14057 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
14058 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
14059 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
14060 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
14061 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
14062
14063 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
14064 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
14065 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
14066 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
14067 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
14068 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
14069 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
14070
14071 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
14072 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
14073 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
14074 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
14075 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
14076
14077 <pre>
14078 /*
14079  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
14080  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
14081  * directory.
14082  * License: GPL v2 or later
14083  *
14084  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
14085  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
14086 */
14087
14088 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
14089 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
14090 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
14091
14092 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
14093
14094 #include &lt;errno.h>
14095 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
14096 #include &lt;stdio.h>
14097 #include &lt;string.h>
14098 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
14099 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
14100 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
14101 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
14102 #include &lt;unistd.h>
14103
14104 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
14105 /*
14106  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
14107  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
14108  * below.
14109  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
14110  */
14111 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
14112 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
14113   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
14114 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
14115   char *zErrMsg;
14116   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
14117   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
14118   unlink(name);
14119   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
14120   if( rc ){
14121     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
14122     sqlite3_close(db);
14123     return -1;
14124   }
14125
14126   /* create tables */
14127   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
14128   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
14129     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
14130     sqlite3_close(db);
14131     return -1;
14132   }
14133   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
14134   sqlite3_close(db);
14135   return 0;
14136 }
14137 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
14138
14139 /*
14140  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
14141  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
14142  * done in the sqlite3 library.
14143  * See also
14144  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
14145  * POSIX specification
14146  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
14147  */
14148 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
14149   struct flock fl;
14150   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
14151   unlink(name);
14152   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
14153   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
14154
14155   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
14156   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
14157   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
14158   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
14159   fl.l_len    = 1;
14160   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
14161   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
14162
14163   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
14164   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
14165   fl.l_len    = 510;
14166   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
14167   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
14168
14169   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
14170   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
14171   fl.l_len    = 1;
14172   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
14173   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
14174
14175   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
14176   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
14177   fl.l_len    = 1;
14178   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
14179   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
14180
14181   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
14182   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
14183   fl.l_len    = 510;
14184   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
14185
14186   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
14187   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
14188   fl.l_len    = 2;
14189   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
14190   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
14191
14192   close(fd);
14193   return 0;
14194 }
14195
14196 /*
14197  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
14198  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
14199  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
14200  * slowing down file operations.
14201  */
14202 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
14203 #define LEVELS 5
14204   char *path = strdup("test");
14205   char *dirs[LEVELS];
14206   int level;
14207   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
14208   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
14209     char *newpath = NULL;
14210     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
14211       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
14212              path, strerror(errno));
14213       break;
14214     }
14215     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
14216     free(path);
14217     path = newpath;
14218   }
14219   return 0;
14220 }
14221
14222 /*
14223  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
14224  * KDE.
14225  */
14226 int test_symlinks(void) {
14227   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
14228   unlink("symlink");
14229   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
14230     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
14231   return 0;
14232 }
14233
14234 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
14235   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
14236   test_symlinks();
14237   test_subdirectory_creation();
14238 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
14239   test_sqlite_open();
14240 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
14241   test_gcompris_locking();
14242   return 0;
14243 }
14244 </pre>
14245
14246 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
14247 this:</p>
14248
14249 <pre>
14250 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
14251 info: testing symlink creation
14252 info: testing subdirectory creation
14253 info: sqlite worked
14254 info: testing fcntl locking
14255   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
14256   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
14257   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
14258   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
14259   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
14260   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
14261 </pre>
14262
14263 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
14264 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
14265 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
14266 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
14267 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
14268 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
14269 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
14270 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
14271
14272 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
14273 it. :)</p>
14274
14275 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
14276 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
14277 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
14278
14279       </div>
14280       <div class="tags">
14281
14282
14283         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>.
14284
14285
14286       </div>
14287     </div>
14288     <div class="padding"></div>
14289
14290     <div class="entry">
14291       <div class="title">
14292         <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>
14293       </div>
14294       <div class="date">
14295          7th August 2010
14296       </div>
14297       <div class="body">
14298         <p>A few days ago, I
14299 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
14300 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
14301 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
14302 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
14303 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
14304 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
14305 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
14306 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
14307 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
14308
14309 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
14310 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
14311 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
14312 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
14313 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
14314 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
14315 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
14316 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
14317 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
14318 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
14319 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
14320 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
14321 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
14322 gave it a IP address.</p>
14323
14324 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
14325 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
14326 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
14327 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
14328 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
14329 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
14330 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
14331 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
14332
14333 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
14334 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
14335 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
14336 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
14337 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
14338 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
14339
14340 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
14341 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
14342 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
14343 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
14344 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
14345 with UID and GID values.</p>
14346
14347 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
14348 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14349
14350       </div>
14351       <div class="tags">
14352
14353
14354         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>.
14355
14356
14357       </div>
14358     </div>
14359     <div class="padding"></div>
14360
14361     <div class="entry">
14362       <div class="title">
14363         <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>
14364       </div>
14365       <div class="date">
14366          3rd August 2010
14367       </div>
14368       <div class="body">
14369         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
14370 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
14371 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
14372 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
14373 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
14374 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
14375 servers.</p>
14376
14377 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
14378 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
14379 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
14380 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
14381 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
14382 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
14383 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
14384 .uio.no.</p>
14385
14386 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
14387 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
14388 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
14389 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
14390 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
14391 university servers.</p>
14392
14393 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
14394 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
14395 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
14396 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
14397 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
14398 uses.</p>
14399
14400       </div>
14401       <div class="tags">
14402
14403
14404         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>.
14405
14406
14407       </div>
14408     </div>
14409     <div class="padding"></div>
14410
14411     <div class="entry">
14412       <div class="title">
14413         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
14414       </div>
14415       <div class="date">
14416         27th July 2010
14417       </div>
14418       <div class="body">
14419         <p>I discovered this while doing
14420 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
14421 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
14422 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
14423 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
14424 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
14425
14426 <p>An example is from todays
14427 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
14428 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
14429 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
14430 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
14431 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
14432 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
14433 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
14434
14435 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
14436
14437 <blockquote><pre>
14438 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
14439  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
14440   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
14441 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
14442  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
14443 </pre></blockquote>
14444
14445 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
14446 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
14447 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
14448 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
14449 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
14450 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
14451 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
14452 of dependency loops.</p>
14453
14454 <p>Thanks to
14455 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
14456 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
14457 dependencies
14458 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
14459 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
14460
14461 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
14462 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
14463 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
14464 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
14465 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
14466 it.</p>
14467
14468       </div>
14469       <div class="tags">
14470
14471
14472         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>.
14473
14474
14475       </div>
14476     </div>
14477     <div class="padding"></div>
14478
14479     <div class="entry">
14480       <div class="title">
14481         <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>
14482       </div>
14483       <div class="date">
14484         27th July 2010
14485       </div>
14486       <div class="body">
14487         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
14488 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
14489 completed.</p>
14490
14491 <blockquote>
14492 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
14493 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
14494 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
14495 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
14496 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
14497 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
14498 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
14499 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
14500
14501 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
14502 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
14503 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
14504
14505 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
14506 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
14507 much.</p>
14508
14509 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
14510
14511 <ul>
14512 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
14513 <ul>
14514   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
14515          combination with some new artwork
14516   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
14517   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
14518   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
14519   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
14520   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
14521   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
14522   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
14523   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
14524   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
14525 </ul></li>
14526 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
14527     Enabled for:
14528 <ul>
14529   <li>PAM
14530   <li>LDAP
14531   <li>IMAP
14532   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
14533 </ul>
14534 </li>
14535 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
14536 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
14537     fetched from LDAP.</li>
14538 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
14539 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
14540 </ul>
14541 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
14542
14543 <ul>
14544 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
14545     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
14546     for testing.</li>
14547 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
14548     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
14549     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
14550 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
14551 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
14552 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
14553 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
14554     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
14555 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
14556     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
14557     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
14558 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
14559     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
14560     and help out with translations.</li>
14561 </ul>
14562
14563 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
14564
14565 <ul>
14566 <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>
14567 <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>
14568 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
14569 </ul>
14570 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
14571
14572 <ul>
14573 <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>
14574 <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>
14575 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
14576 </ul>
14577
14578 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
14579 get closer to the final release.</p>
14580
14581 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
14582
14583 <ul>
14584 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
14585 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
14586 </ul>
14587
14588 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
14589 <ul>
14590 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
14591 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
14592 </ul>
14593 <p>How to report bugs:
14594 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
14595
14596 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
14597 </blockquote>
14598
14599       </div>
14600       <div class="tags">
14601
14602
14603         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>.
14604
14605
14606       </div>
14607     </div>
14608     <div class="padding"></div>
14609
14610     <div class="entry">
14611       <div class="title">
14612         <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>
14613       </div>
14614       <div class="date">
14615         25th July 2010
14616       </div>
14617       <div class="body">
14618         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
14619 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
14620 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
14621 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
14622 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
14623
14624 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
14625 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
14626 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
14627 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
14628 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
14629 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
14630 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
14631
14632 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
14633 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
14634 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
14635 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
14636 up. :)</p>
14637
14638 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
14639 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
14640 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
14641
14642 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
14643 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
14644 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
14645 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
14646 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
14647 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
14648 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
14649 release another day.</p>
14650
14651 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
14652 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
14653
14654       </div>
14655       <div class="tags">
14656
14657
14658         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>.
14659
14660
14661       </div>
14662     </div>
14663     <div class="padding"></div>
14664
14665     <div class="entry">
14666       <div class="title">
14667         <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>
14668       </div>
14669       <div class="date">
14670         18th July 2010
14671       </div>
14672       <div class="body">
14673         <p>Thanks to
14674 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
14675 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
14676 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
14677 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
14678 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
14679 only available from the development server, until more experience is
14680 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
14681
14682 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
14683 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
14684 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
14685 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
14686 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
14687 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
14688 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
14689
14690       </div>
14691       <div class="tags">
14692
14693
14694         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>.
14695
14696
14697       </div>
14698     </div>
14699     <div class="padding"></div>
14700
14701     <div class="entry">
14702       <div class="title">
14703         <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>
14704       </div>
14705       <div class="date">
14706         17th July 2010
14707       </div>
14708       <div class="body">
14709         <p>This is a
14710 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
14711 on my
14712 <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
14713 work</a> on
14714 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
14715 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
14716
14717 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
14718 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
14719 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
14720 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
14721
14722 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
14723 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
14724 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
14725
14726 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
14727
14728 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
14729 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
14730 the web.
14731
14732 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
14733 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
14734 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
14735 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
14736 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
14737 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
14738
14739 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
14740 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
14741 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
14742 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
14743 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
14744 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
14745 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
14746 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
14747 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
14748 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
14749 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
14750 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
14751 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
14752 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
14753 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
14754 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
14755
14756 <blockquote><pre>
14757 ldapsearch -h ldap \
14758   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
14759   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
14760   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
14761   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
14762   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
14763   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
14764
14765 ldapsearch -h ldap \
14766   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
14767   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
14768   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
14769   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
14770   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
14771 </pre></blockquote>
14772
14773 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
14774 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
14775 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
14776 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14777 also exist.</p>
14778
14779 <blockquote><pre>
14780 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14781 objectclass: top
14782 objectclass: dnsdomain
14783 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
14784 dc: tjener
14785 arecord: 10.0.2.2
14786 associateddomain: tjener.intern
14787
14788 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14789 objectclass: top
14790 objectclass: dnsdomain2
14791 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
14792 dc: 2
14793 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
14794 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
14795 </pre></blockquote>
14796
14797 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
14798 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
14799 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
14800 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
14801 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
14802 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
14803 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
14804 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
14805 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
14806 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
14807 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
14808 instead.</p>
14809
14810 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
14811 like this:</p>
14812
14813 <blockquote><pre>
14814 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
14815   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
14816   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
14817   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
14818   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
14819   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
14820
14821 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
14822   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
14823 </pre></blockquote>
14824
14825 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
14826 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
14827 reverse lookups.</p>
14828
14829 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
14830 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
14831 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
14832 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
14833
14834 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
14835 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
14836 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
14837
14838 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
14839 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
14840 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
14841 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
14842 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
14843
14844 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
14845 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
14846 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
14847 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
14848 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
14849
14850 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
14851 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
14852 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
14853 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
14854 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
14855 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
14856
14857 <blockquote><pre>
14858 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
14859     SUP top
14860     AUXILIARY
14861     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
14862           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
14863           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
14864           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
14865           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
14866     ))
14867 </pre></blockquote>
14868
14869 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
14870 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
14871 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
14872 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
14873 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
14874 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
14875
14876 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
14877
14878 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
14879 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
14880 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
14881 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
14882 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
14883
14884 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
14885 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
14886 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
14887 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
14888
14889 <blockquote><pre>
14890 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
14891 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
14892 </pre></blockquote>
14893
14894 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
14895 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
14896 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
14897 search result is this entry:</p>
14898
14899 <blockquote><pre>
14900 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14901 cn: dhcp
14902 objectClass: top
14903 objectClass: dhcpServer
14904 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14905 </pre></blockquote>
14906
14907 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
14908 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
14909 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
14910 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
14911 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
14912 The search result is this entry:</p>
14913
14914 <blockquote><pre>
14915 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14916 cn: DHCP Config
14917 objectClass: top
14918 objectClass: dhcpService
14919 objectClass: dhcpOptions
14920 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14921 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
14922 dhcpStatements: authoritative
14923 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
14924 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
14925 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
14926 </pre></blockquote>
14927
14928 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
14929 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
14930 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
14931 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
14932 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
14933 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
14934 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
14935 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
14936 related computer objects.</p>
14937
14938 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
14939 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
14940 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
14941 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
14942 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
14943 like:</p>
14944
14945 <blockquote><pre>
14946 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
14947 cn: hostname
14948 objectClass: top
14949 objectClass: dhcpHost
14950 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
14951 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
14952 </pre></blockquote>
14953
14954 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
14955 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
14956 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
14957 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
14958 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
14959 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
14960 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
14961 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
14962 structural object class.
14963
14964 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
14965
14966 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
14967 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
14968 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
14969 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
14970 in the configuration.</p>
14971
14972 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
14973 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
14974 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
14975 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
14976 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
14977 structure.</p>
14978
14979 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
14980 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
14981
14982 <blockquote><pre>
14983 ou=services
14984   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
14985     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
14986     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
14987       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
14988         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
14989     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
14990       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
14991         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
14992     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
14993       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
14994 </pre></blockquote>
14995
14996 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
14997 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
14998 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
14999 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
15000
15001 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
15002 like this:</p>
15003
15004 <blockquote><pre>
15005 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15006 dc: hostname
15007 objectClass: top
15008 objectClass: dhcpHost
15009 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
15010 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
15011 associateddomain: hostname.intern
15012 arecord: 10.11.12.13
15013 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
15014 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
15015 </pre></blockquote>
15016
15017 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
15018 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
15019 auxiliary object class.</p>
15020
15021       </div>
15022       <div class="tags">
15023
15024
15025         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>.
15026
15027
15028       </div>
15029     </div>
15030     <div class="padding"></div>
15031
15032     <div class="entry">
15033       <div class="title">
15034         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
15035       </div>
15036       <div class="date">
15037         14th July 2010
15038       </div>
15039       <div class="body">
15040         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
15041 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
15042 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
15043 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
15044 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
15045
15046 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
15047 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
15048
15049 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
15050 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
15051 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
15052 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
15053 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
15054 to a slave DNS server.</p>
15055
15056 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
15057 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
15058 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
15059 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
15060 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
15061 seem to work.</p>
15062
15063 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
15064 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
15065 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
15066 this:</p>
15067
15068 <blockquote><pre>
15069   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15070   cn: hostname
15071   objectClass: dhcphost
15072   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
15073   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
15074   associateddomain: hostname.intern
15075   arecord: 10.11.12.13
15076   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
15077   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
15078   ldapconfigsound: Y
15079 </pre></blockquote>
15080
15081 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
15082 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
15083 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
15084 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
15085
15086 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
15087 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
15088 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
15089 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
15090 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
15091 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
15092 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
15093 might be a good place to put it.</p>
15094
15095 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
15096 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15097
15098       </div>
15099       <div class="tags">
15100
15101
15102         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>.
15103
15104
15105       </div>
15106     </div>
15107     <div class="padding"></div>
15108
15109     <div class="entry">
15110       <div class="title">
15111         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
15112       </div>
15113       <div class="date">
15114         11th July 2010
15115       </div>
15116       <div class="body">
15117         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
15118 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
15119 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
15120 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
15121
15122 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
15123 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
15124 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
15125 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
15126 LTSP clients.</p>
15127
15128 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
15129 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
15130 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
15131
15132 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
15133 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
15134 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
15135
15136 <blockquote><pre>
15137 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
15138 #
15139 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
15140 #
15141 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
15142 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
15143 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
15144 #
15145 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
15146 # existence of attribute names.
15147 #
15148 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
15149 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
15150 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
15151 #
15152 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
15153 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
15154 #
15155 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
15156 #     SUP top
15157 #     AUXILIARY
15158 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
15159
15160 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
15161 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
15162     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
15163     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
15164         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
15165         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
15166             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
15167             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
15168             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
15169             # bass value on to clients
15170             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
15171         done
15172     done
15173 fi
15174 </pre></blockquote>
15175
15176 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
15177 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
15178 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
15179 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
15180 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
15181
15182 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
15183 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15184
15185 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
15186 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
15187 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
15188 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
15189 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
15190 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
15191
15192       </div>
15193       <div class="tags">
15194
15195
15196         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>.
15197
15198
15199       </div>
15200     </div>
15201     <div class="padding"></div>
15202
15203     <div class="entry">
15204       <div class="title">
15205         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
15206       </div>
15207       <div class="date">
15208          9th July 2010
15209       </div>
15210       <div class="body">
15211         <p>Since
15212 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
15213 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
15214 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
15215 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
15216 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
15217 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
15218 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
15219 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
15220 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
15221 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
15222 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
15223 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
15224 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
15225
15226       </div>
15227       <div class="tags">
15228
15229
15230         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>.
15231
15232
15233       </div>
15234     </div>
15235     <div class="padding"></div>
15236
15237     <div class="entry">
15238       <div class="title">
15239         <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>
15240       </div>
15241       <div class="date">
15242          3rd July 2010
15243       </div>
15244       <div class="body">
15245         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
15246 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
15247 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
15248 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
15249 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
15250 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
15251 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
15252 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
15253
15254 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
15255 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
15256 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
15257 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
15258 publish the difference.</p>
15259
15260 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
15261
15262 <blockquote><p>
15263   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
15264   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
15265   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
15266   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
15267   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
15268   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
15269   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
15270   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
15271 </p></blockquote>
15272
15273 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
15274
15275 <blockquote><p>
15276   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
15277   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
15278   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
15279   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
15280   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
15281   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
15282   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
15283   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
15284   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
15285   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
15286   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
15287   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
15288   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
15289   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
15290   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
15291   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
15292   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
15293   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
15294   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
15295   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
15296 </p></blockquote>
15297
15298 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
15299
15300 <blockquote><p>
15301   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
15302   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
15303   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
15304   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
15305   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
15306   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
15307   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
15308   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
15309   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
15310   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
15311   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
15312   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
15313   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
15314   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
15315   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
15316   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
15317   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
15318   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
15319   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
15320   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
15321   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
15322 </p></blockquote>
15323
15324 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
15325
15326 <blockquote><p>
15327   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
15328   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
15329   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
15330 </p></blockquote>
15331
15332 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
15333 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
15334 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
15335 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
15336 the difference somewhat.
15337
15338       </div>
15339       <div class="tags">
15340
15341
15342         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>.
15343
15344
15345       </div>
15346     </div>
15347     <div class="padding"></div>
15348
15349     <div class="entry">
15350       <div class="title">
15351         <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>
15352       </div>
15353       <div class="date">
15354          1st July 2010
15355       </div>
15356       <div class="body">
15357         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
15358 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
15359 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
15360 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
15361 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
15362 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
15363 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
15364 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
15365 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
15366
15367 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
15368
15369 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
15370 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
15371 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
15372 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
15373 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
15374 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
15375 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
15376 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
15377 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
15378 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
15379 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
15380 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
15381 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
15382 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
15383 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
15384
15385 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
15386
15387 <blockquote><pre>
15388 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
15389 </pre></blockquote>
15390
15391 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
15392 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
15393 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
15394 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
15395 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
15396 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
15397 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
15398 on how to get this working.</p>
15399
15400 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
15401 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
15402 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
15403 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
15404 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
15405 instructions I found in the
15406 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
15407 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
15408
15409 <blockquote><pre>
15410         debug-level             0
15411         reload-count            unlimited
15412         paranoia                no
15413
15414         enable-cache            passwd          yes
15415         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
15416         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
15417         suggested-size          passwd          211
15418         check-files             passwd          yes
15419         persistent              passwd          yes
15420         shared                  passwd          yes
15421         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
15422         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
15423
15424         enable-cache            group           yes
15425         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
15426         negative-time-to-live   group           20
15427         suggested-size          group           211
15428         check-files             group           yes
15429         persistent              group           yes
15430         shared                  group           yes
15431         max-db-size             group           33554432
15432         auto-propagate          group           yes
15433
15434         enable-cache            hosts           no
15435         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
15436         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
15437         suggested-size          hosts           211
15438         check-files             hosts           yes
15439         persistent              hosts           yes
15440         shared                  hosts           yes
15441         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
15442
15443         enable-cache            services        yes
15444         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
15445         negative-time-to-live   services        20
15446         suggested-size          services        211
15447         check-files             services        yes
15448         persistent              services        yes
15449         shared                  services        yes
15450         max-db-size             services        33554432
15451 </pre></blockquote>
15452
15453 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
15454 automatically like the one provided in
15455 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
15456 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
15457 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
15458 look like this:</p>
15459
15460 <blockquote><pre>
15461 passwd:         files ldap
15462 group:          files ldap
15463 shadow:         files ldap
15464 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
15465 networks:       files
15466 protocols:      files
15467 services:       files
15468 ethers:         files
15469 rpc:            files
15470 netgroup:       files ldap
15471 </pre></blockquote>
15472
15473 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
15474 shadow and netgroup.</p>
15475
15476 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
15477 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
15478 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
15479 attributes cached.
15480
15481 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
15482   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
15483
15484 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
15485 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
15486 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
15487 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
15488 discovered sssd.</p>
15489
15490 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
15491
15492 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
15493 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
15494 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
15495 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
15496 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
15497 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
15498 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
15499 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
15500 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
15501 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
15502 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
15503 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
15504 version 1.2 is now in testing.
15505
15506 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
15507 roaming setup I want</p>
15508
15509 <blockquote><pre>
15510 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
15511 </pre></blockquote>
15512
15513 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
15514 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
15515
15516 <blockquote><pre>
15517 [sssd]
15518 config_file_version = 2
15519 reconnection_retries = 3
15520 sbus_timeout = 30
15521 services = nss, pam
15522 domains = INTERN
15523
15524 [nss]
15525 filter_groups = root
15526 filter_users = root
15527 reconnection_retries = 3
15528
15529 [pam]
15530 reconnection_retries = 3
15531
15532 [domain/INTERN]
15533 enumerate = false
15534 cache_credentials = true
15535
15536 id_provider = ldap
15537 auth_provider = ldap
15538 chpass_provider = ldap
15539
15540 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
15541 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
15542 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
15543 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
15544 </pre></blockquote>
15545
15546 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
15547 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
15548
15549 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
15550 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
15551 modify it manually.</p>
15552
15553 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
15554 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15555
15556       </div>
15557       <div class="tags">
15558
15559
15560         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>.
15561
15562
15563       </div>
15564     </div>
15565     <div class="padding"></div>
15566
15567     <div class="entry">
15568       <div class="title">
15569         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
15570       </div>
15571       <div class="date">
15572         28th June 2010
15573       </div>
15574       <div class="body">
15575         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
15576 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
15577 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
15578 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
15579 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
15580 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
15581 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
15582 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
15583 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
15584 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
15585
15586 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
15587 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
15588 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
15589 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
15590 released.</p>
15591
15592 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
15593 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
15594 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
15595 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
15596
15597 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
15598 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15599
15600 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
15601 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
15602 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
15603 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
15604 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
15605
15606       </div>
15607       <div class="tags">
15608
15609
15610         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>.
15611
15612
15613       </div>
15614     </div>
15615     <div class="padding"></div>
15616
15617     <div class="entry">
15618       <div class="title">
15619         <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>
15620       </div>
15621       <div class="date">
15622         24th June 2010
15623       </div>
15624       <div class="body">
15625         <p>A while back, I
15626 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
15627 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
15628 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
15629 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
15630
15631 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
15632 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
15633 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
15634 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
15635
15636 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
15637 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
15638 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
15639 Debian Edu.</p>
15640
15641 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
15642 the
15643 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
15644 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
15645 available today from IETF.</p>
15646
15647 <pre>
15648 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
15649 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
15650 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
15651  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
15652         NAME 'dhcpHost'
15653         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
15654 -       SUP top
15655 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
15656         MUST cn
15657         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
15658         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
15659 </pre>
15660
15661 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
15662 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
15663 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
15664
15665 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
15666 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
15667
15668       </div>
15669       <div class="tags">
15670
15671
15672         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>.
15673
15674
15675       </div>
15676     </div>
15677     <div class="padding"></div>
15678
15679     <div class="entry">
15680       <div class="title">
15681         <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>
15682       </div>
15683       <div class="date">
15684         16th June 2010
15685       </div>
15686       <div class="body">
15687         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
15688 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
15689 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
15690 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
15691 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
15692 this:
15693
15694 <blockquote><pre>
15695 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
15696 tasksel --new-install
15697 </pre></blockquote>
15698
15699 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
15700 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
15701 any output what so ever.
15702
15703 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
15704 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
15705 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
15706 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
15707 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
15708 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
15709 code like this:
15710
15711 <blockquote><pre>
15712 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
15713 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
15714 $cmd
15715 </pre></blockquote>
15716
15717 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
15718 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
15719 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
15720 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
15721 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
15722 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
15723 installation.</p>
15724
15725 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
15726 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
15727 like this.</p>
15728
15729       </div>
15730       <div class="tags">
15731
15732
15733         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>.
15734
15735
15736       </div>
15737     </div>
15738     <div class="padding"></div>
15739
15740     <div class="entry">
15741       <div class="title">
15742         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
15743       </div>
15744       <div class="date">
15745         13th June 2010
15746       </div>
15747       <div class="body">
15748         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
15749 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
15750 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
15751 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
15752 pages.</p>
15753
15754 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
15755 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
15756 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
15757 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
15758 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
15759 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
15760 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
15761 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
15762 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
15763 see how the project is doing.</p>
15764
15765 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
15766 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
15767 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
15768 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
15769 Windows.  This is great.</p>
15770
15771       </div>
15772       <div class="tags">
15773
15774
15775         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>.
15776
15777
15778       </div>
15779     </div>
15780     <div class="padding"></div>
15781
15782     <div class="entry">
15783       <div class="title">
15784         <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>
15785       </div>
15786       <div class="date">
15787         13th June 2010
15788       </div>
15789       <div class="body">
15790         <p>My
15791 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
15792 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
15793 finally made the upgrade logs available from
15794 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
15795 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
15796 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
15797 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
15798
15799 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
15800 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
15801 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
15802 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
15803 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
15804 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
15805 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
15806 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
15807
15808 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
15809 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
15810 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
15811 too surprising.</p>
15812
15813 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
15814 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
15815 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
15816 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
15817 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
15818 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
15819 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
15820 continue.</p>
15821
15822 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
15823 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
15824   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
15825   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
15826   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
15827   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
15828   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
15829   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
15830   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
15831   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
15832   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
15833   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
15834   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
15835   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
15836   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
15837   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
15838   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
15839   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
15840   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
15841   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
15842   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
15843   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
15844   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
15845   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
15846   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
15847   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
15848   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
15849   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
15850   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
15851   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
15852
15853 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
15854
15855 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
15856   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
15857   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
15858   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
15859   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
15860   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
15861   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
15862   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
15863   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
15864   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
15865   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
15866   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
15867   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
15868   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
15869   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
15870   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
15871   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
15872   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
15873   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
15874   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
15875   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
15876   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
15877   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
15878   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
15879   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
15880   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
15881   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
15882   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
15883   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
15884   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
15885   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
15886   zip</p>
15887
15888 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
15889
15890 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
15891   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
15892   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
15893   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
15894   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
15895   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
15896   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
15897   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
15898   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
15899   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
15900   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
15901   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
15902   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
15903   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
15904   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
15905   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
15906   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
15907   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
15908   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
15909   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
15910   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
15911   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
15912   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
15913   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
15914   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
15915   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
15916   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
15917   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
15918
15919 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
15920 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
15921   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
15922   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
15923   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
15924   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
15925   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
15926   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
15927   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
15928   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
15929   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
15930   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
15931   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
15932   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
15933   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
15934   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
15935   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
15936   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
15937   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
15938   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
15939   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
15940   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
15941   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
15942   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
15943   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
15944   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
15945   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
15946   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
15947   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
15948   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
15949   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
15950   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
15951   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
15952   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
15953   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
15954   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
15955   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
15956   xulrunner-1.9</p>
15957
15958
15959       </div>
15960       <div class="tags">
15961
15962
15963         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>.
15964
15965
15966       </div>
15967     </div>
15968     <div class="padding"></div>
15969
15970     <div class="entry">
15971       <div class="title">
15972         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
15973       </div>
15974       <div class="date">
15975         11th June 2010
15976       </div>
15977       <div class="body">
15978         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
15979 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
15980 have been discovered and reported in the process
15981 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
15982 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
15983 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
15984 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
15985 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
15986
15987 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
15988 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
15989 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
15990 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
15991 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
15992 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
15993
15994 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
15995 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
15996 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
15997 is created.  The bug report
15998 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
15999 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
16000 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
16001 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
16002 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
16003 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
16004 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
16005 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
16006 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
16007 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
16008 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
16009 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
16010 Debian Squeeze.</p>
16011
16012 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
16013 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
16014 trick:</p>
16015
16016 <blockquote><pre>
16017 #!/bin/sh
16018 set -ex
16019
16020 if [ "$1" ] ; then
16021     desktop=$1
16022 else
16023     desktop=gnome
16024 fi
16025
16026 from=lenny
16027 to=squeeze
16028
16029 exec &lt; /dev/null
16030 unset LANG
16031 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
16032 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
16033 fuser -mv .
16034 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
16035 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
16036 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
16037 #!/bin/sh
16038 exit 101
16039 EOF
16040 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
16041 exit_cleanup() {
16042     umount $tmpdir/proc
16043 }
16044 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
16045 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
16046 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
16047
16048 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
16049
16050 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
16051 # to return the correct answers.
16052 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
16053     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
16054
16055 # Include the desktop and laptop task
16056 for test in desktop laptop ; do
16057     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
16058 #!/bin/sh
16059 exit 2
16060 EOF
16061     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
16062 done
16063
16064 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
16065 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
16066 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
16067 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
16068
16069 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
16070 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
16071 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
16072 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
16073 fuser -mv
16074 </pre></blockquote>
16075
16076 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
16077 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
16078 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
16079 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
16080 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
16081 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
16082
16083 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
16084 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
16085 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
16086 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
16087 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
16088 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
16089 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
16090
16091 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
16092 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
16093 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
16094 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
16095 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
16096 packages.</p>
16097
16098       </div>
16099       <div class="tags">
16100
16101
16102         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>.
16103
16104
16105       </div>
16106     </div>
16107     <div class="padding"></div>
16108
16109     <div class="entry">
16110       <div class="title">
16111         <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>
16112       </div>
16113       <div class="date">
16114          6th June 2010
16115       </div>
16116       <div class="body">
16117         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
16118 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
16119 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
16120 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
16121 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
16122 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
16123 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
16124
16125 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
16126 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
16127 COLUMNS):</p>
16128
16129 <blockquote><pre>
16130 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
16131 previous=N
16132 PREVLEVEL=
16133 RUNLEVEL=
16134 runlevel=S
16135 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
16136 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
16137 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
16138 </pre></blockquote>
16139
16140 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
16141 script.</p>
16142
16143 <blockquote><pre>
16144 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
16145 previous=N
16146 PREVLEVEL=N
16147 RUNLEVEL=S
16148 runlevel=S
16149 </pre></blockquote>
16150
16151 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
16152 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
16153 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
16154
16155 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
16156 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
16157 choice.</p>
16158
16159       </div>
16160       <div class="tags">
16161
16162
16163         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>.
16164
16165
16166       </div>
16167     </div>
16168     <div class="padding"></div>
16169
16170     <div class="entry">
16171       <div class="title">
16172         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
16173       </div>
16174       <div class="date">
16175          6th June 2010
16176       </div>
16177       <div class="body">
16178         <p>Via the
16179 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
16180 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
16181 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
16182 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
16183 following the standards wars of today.</p>
16184
16185       </div>
16186       <div class="tags">
16187
16188
16189         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>.
16190
16191
16192       </div>
16193     </div>
16194     <div class="padding"></div>
16195
16196     <div class="entry">
16197       <div class="title">
16198         <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>
16199       </div>
16200       <div class="date">
16201          3rd June 2010
16202       </div>
16203       <div class="body">
16204         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
16205 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
16206 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
16207 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
16208 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
16209
16210 <blockquote><pre>
16211 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
16212   vendor                    count
16213   Dell Computer Corporation     1
16214     PowerEdge 1750              1
16215   IBM                           1
16216     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
16217   Intel                         2
16218   [no-dmi-info]                 3
16219 maintainer:~#
16220 </pre></blockquote>
16221
16222 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
16223 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
16224 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
16225 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
16226 option to list the individual machines.</p>
16227
16228 <p>A larger list is
16229 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
16230 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
16231 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
16232 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
16233 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
16234 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
16235 collector.</p>
16236
16237       </div>
16238       <div class="tags">
16239
16240
16241         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>.
16242
16243
16244       </div>
16245     </div>
16246     <div class="padding"></div>
16247
16248     <div class="entry">
16249       <div class="title">
16250         <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>
16251       </div>
16252       <div class="date">
16253          1st June 2010
16254       </div>
16255       <div class="body">
16256         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
16257 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
16258 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
16259 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
16260 wait.</p>
16261
16262 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
16263 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
16264 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
16265 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
16266 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
16267 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
16268
16269 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
16270 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
16271 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
16272 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
16273 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
16274 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
16275 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
16276 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
16277
16278 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
16279
16280       </div>
16281       <div class="tags">
16282
16283
16284         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>.
16285
16286
16287       </div>
16288     </div>
16289     <div class="padding"></div>
16290
16291     <div class="entry">
16292       <div class="title">
16293         <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>
16294       </div>
16295       <div class="date">
16296         27th May 2010
16297       </div>
16298       <div class="body">
16299         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
16300 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
16301 issues are known and should be solved:
16302
16303 <p><ul>
16304
16305 <li>The wicd package seen to
16306 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
16307 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
16308 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
16309 seem to be on the case.</li>
16310
16311 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
16312 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
16313 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
16314 maintainer is on the case.</li>
16315
16316 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
16317 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
16318 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
16319 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
16320 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
16321 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
16322 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
16323 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
16324
16325 </ul></p>
16326
16327 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
16328 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
16329 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
16330 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
16331
16332 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
16333 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
16334 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
16335 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
16336
16337 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
16338
16339       </div>
16340       <div class="tags">
16341
16342
16343         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>.
16344
16345
16346       </div>
16347     </div>
16348     <div class="padding"></div>
16349
16350     <div class="entry">
16351       <div class="title">
16352         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
16353       </div>
16354       <div class="date">
16355         22nd May 2010
16356       </div>
16357       <div class="body">
16358         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
16359 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
16360 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
16361 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
16362
16363 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
16364 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
16365 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
16366 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
16367 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
16368 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
16369 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
16370 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
16371 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
16372 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
16373 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
16374 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
16375 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
16376 going to work.</p>
16377
16378 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
16379 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
16380 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
16381 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
16382 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
16383 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
16384 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
16385 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
16386 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
16387 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
16388 Edu.</p>
16389
16390 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
16391 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
16392 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
16393 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
16394 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
16395 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
16396
16397 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
16398 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
16399
16400       </div>
16401       <div class="tags">
16402
16403
16404         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>.
16405
16406
16407       </div>
16408     </div>
16409     <div class="padding"></div>
16410
16411     <div class="entry">
16412       <div class="title">
16413         <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>
16414       </div>
16415       <div class="date">
16416         19th May 2010
16417       </div>
16418       <div class="body">
16419         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
16420 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
16421 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
16422 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
16423 into unstable.  The
16424 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
16425 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
16426 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
16427 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
16428 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
16429 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
16430 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
16431
16432 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
16433 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
16434 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
16435 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
16436 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
16437 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
16438 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
16439 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
16440
16441 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
16442 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
16443 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
16444 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
16445 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
16446 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
16447 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
16448
16449 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
16450 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
16451 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
16452 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
16453 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
16454 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
16455 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
16456 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
16457 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
16458 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
16459 on the home directory servers.</p>
16460
16461 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
16462 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
16463 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
16464 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
16465 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
16466 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
16467
16468 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
16469 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16470
16471       </div>
16472       <div class="tags">
16473
16474
16475         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>.
16476
16477
16478       </div>
16479     </div>
16480     <div class="padding"></div>
16481
16482     <div class="entry">
16483       <div class="title">
16484         <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>
16485       </div>
16486       <div class="date">
16487         14th May 2010
16488       </div>
16489       <div class="body">
16490         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
16491 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
16492 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
16493 expected, if I am to believe the
16494 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
16495 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
16496 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
16497 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
16498 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
16499 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
16500 version.</p>
16501
16502 More information about
16503 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
16504 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
16505 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
16506 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
16507
16508 <blockquote><pre>
16509 CONCURRENCY=none
16510 </pre></blockquote>
16511
16512 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
16513 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
16514 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
16515 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
16516
16517       </div>
16518       <div class="tags">
16519
16520
16521         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>.
16522
16523
16524       </div>
16525     </div>
16526     <div class="padding"></div>
16527
16528     <div class="entry">
16529       <div class="title">
16530         <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>
16531       </div>
16532       <div class="date">
16533         14th May 2010
16534       </div>
16535       <div class="body">
16536         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
16537 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
16538 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
16539 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
16540 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
16541 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
16542 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
16543 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
16544
16545 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
16546 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
16547 this on the collector host:</p>
16548
16549 <blockquote><pre>
16550 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
16551 </pre></blockquote>
16552
16553 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
16554 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
16555
16556 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
16557 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
16558 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
16559 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
16560 written yet.</p>
16561
16562       </div>
16563       <div class="tags">
16564
16565
16566         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>.
16567
16568
16569       </div>
16570     </div>
16571     <div class="padding"></div>
16572
16573     <div class="entry">
16574       <div class="title">
16575         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
16576       </div>
16577       <div class="date">
16578         13th May 2010
16579       </div>
16580       <div class="body">
16581         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
16582 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
16583 has been
16584 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
16585
16586 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
16587 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
16588 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
16589 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
16590 based boot system.  Tollef is
16591 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
16592 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
16593 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
16594 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
16595 at the moment do not.</p>
16596
16597 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
16598 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
16599 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
16600 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
16601 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
16602 way forward.</p>
16603
16604 <p>In the mean time, based on the
16605 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
16606 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
16607 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
16608 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
16609 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
16610 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
16611 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
16612 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
16613
16614       </div>
16615       <div class="tags">
16616
16617
16618         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>.
16619
16620
16621       </div>
16622     </div>
16623     <div class="padding"></div>
16624
16625     <div class="entry">
16626       <div class="title">
16627         <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>
16628       </div>
16629       <div class="date">
16630          6th May 2010
16631       </div>
16632       <div class="body">
16633         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
16634 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
16635 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
16636 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
16637 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
16638 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
16639 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
16640
16641 <blockquote><pre>
16642 CONCURRENCY=makefile
16643 </pre></blockquote>
16644
16645 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
16646 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
16647 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
16648 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
16649 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
16650 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
16651 make this happen.</p>
16652
16653 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
16654 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
16655 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
16656 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
16657 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
16658
16659 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
16660 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
16661 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
16662 fix the remaining issues.</p>
16663
16664 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
16665 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
16666 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
16667 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
16668
16669       </div>
16670       <div class="tags">
16671
16672
16673         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>.
16674
16675
16676       </div>
16677     </div>
16678     <div class="padding"></div>
16679
16680     <div class="entry">
16681       <div class="title">
16682         <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>
16683       </div>
16684       <div class="date">
16685          2nd May 2010
16686       </div>
16687       <div class="body">
16688         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
16689 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
16690 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
16691
16692 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
16693 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
16694 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
16695 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
16696 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
16697
16698 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
16699 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
16700
16701 <blockquote><pre>
16702 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
16703 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
16704 Password expires                                        : never
16705 Password inactive                                       : never
16706 Account expires                                         : never
16707 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
16708 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
16709 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
16710 root@tjener:~#
16711 </pre></blockquote>
16712
16713 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
16714 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
16715 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
16716 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
16717 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
16718 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
16719
16720 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
16721 intended:</p>
16722
16723 <blockquote><pre>
16724 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
16725 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
16726 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
16727 Password expires                                        : never
16728 Password inactive                                       : never
16729 Account expires                                         : never
16730 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
16731 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
16732 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
16733 root@tjener:~#
16734 </pre></blockquote>
16735
16736 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
16737 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
16738 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
16739
16740 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
16741 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
16742
16743 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
16744 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16745
16746 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
16747 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
16748 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
16749 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
16750 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
16751 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
16752 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
16753
16754 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
16755 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
16756 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
16757 change.</p>
16758
16759       </div>
16760       <div class="tags">
16761
16762
16763         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>.
16764
16765
16766       </div>
16767     </div>
16768     <div class="padding"></div>
16769
16770     <div class="entry">
16771       <div class="title">
16772         <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>
16773       </div>
16774       <div class="date">
16775         28th April 2010
16776       </div>
16777       <div class="body">
16778         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
16779 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
16780 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
16781 and go.</p>
16782
16783 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
16784 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
16785 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
16786 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
16787
16788 <ul>
16789
16790  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
16791    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
16792    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
16793    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
16794    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
16795    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
16796    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
16797    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
16798    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
16799    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
16800    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
16801    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
16802
16803  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
16804    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
16805    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
16806    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
16807    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
16808    or the Fedora developed
16809    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
16810    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
16811
16812  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
16813    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
16814    directory, using unison.</li>
16815
16816  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
16817    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
16818    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
16819    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
16820    implemented.</li>
16821
16822  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
16823    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
16824
16825  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
16826    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
16827    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
16828
16829 </ul>
16830
16831 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
16832 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
16833 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
16834 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
16835 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
16836 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
16837 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
16838 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
16839 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
16840
16841 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
16842 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
16843
16844       </div>
16845       <div class="tags">
16846
16847
16848         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>.
16849
16850
16851       </div>
16852     </div>
16853     <div class="padding"></div>
16854
16855     <div class="entry">
16856       <div class="title">
16857         <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>
16858       </div>
16859       <div class="date">
16860         19th April 2010
16861       </div>
16862       <div class="body">
16863         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
16864 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
16865 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
16866 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
16867 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
16868 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
16869 restrictions on the web, for example from
16870 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
16871 epub-version from
16872 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
16873 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
16874 strongly recommend this book.</p>
16875
16876       </div>
16877       <div class="tags">
16878
16879
16880         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>.
16881
16882
16883       </div>
16884     </div>
16885     <div class="padding"></div>
16886
16887     <div class="entry">
16888       <div class="title">
16889         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
16890       </div>
16891       <div class="date">
16892         14th April 2010
16893       </div>
16894       <div class="body">
16895         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
16896 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
16897 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
16898 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
16899 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
16900 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
16901 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
16902 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
16903 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
16904
16905 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
16906 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
16907 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
16908 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
16909 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
16910
16911 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
16912 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
16913
16914 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
16915 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
16916 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
16917 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
16918 to work properly.</p>
16919
16920 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
16921 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
16922 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
16923 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
16924 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
16925 time.</p>
16926
16927 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
16928 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
16929 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
16930 up in a few days.</p>
16931
16932       </div>
16933       <div class="tags">
16934
16935
16936         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>.
16937
16938
16939       </div>
16940     </div>
16941     <div class="padding"></div>
16942
16943     <div class="entry">
16944       <div class="title">
16945         <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>
16946       </div>
16947       <div class="date">
16948          6th March 2010
16949       </div>
16950       <div class="body">
16951         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
16952 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
16953 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
16954 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
16955 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
16956 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
16957
16958 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
16959 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
16960 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
16961 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
16962
16963 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
16964 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
16965 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
16966 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
16967 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
16968 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
16969
16970       </div>
16971       <div class="tags">
16972
16973
16974         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>.
16975
16976
16977       </div>
16978     </div>
16979     <div class="padding"></div>
16980
16981     <div class="entry">
16982       <div class="title">
16983         <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>
16984       </div>
16985       <div class="date">
16986         11th February 2010
16987       </div>
16988       <div class="body">
16989         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
16990 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
16991 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
16992 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
16993 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
16994 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
16995 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
16996
16997 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
16998
16999 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
17000 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
17001 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
17002 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
17003
17004       </div>
17005       <div class="tags">
17006
17007
17008         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>.
17009
17010
17011       </div>
17012     </div>
17013     <div class="padding"></div>
17014
17015     <div class="entry">
17016       <div class="title">
17017         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
17018       </div>
17019       <div class="date">
17020         27th January 2010
17021       </div>
17022       <div class="body">
17023         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
17024 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
17025 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
17026 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
17027 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
17028 further.</p>
17029
17030 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
17031 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
17032 configured to be a server for the
17033 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
17034 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
17035 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
17036 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
17037 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
17038 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
17039 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
17040 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
17041 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
17042 and Nagios configuration.</p>
17043
17044 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
17045 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
17046 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
17047 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
17048
17049 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
17050 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
17051 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
17052 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
17053 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
17054 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
17055 the machine.</p>
17056
17057 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
17058 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
17059 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
17060 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
17061
17062 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
17063 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
17064 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
17065 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
17066 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
17067 everything is taken care of.</p>
17068
17069       </div>
17070       <div class="tags">
17071
17072
17073         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>.
17074
17075
17076       </div>
17077     </div>
17078     <div class="padding"></div>
17079
17080     <div class="entry">
17081       <div class="title">
17082         <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>
17083       </div>
17084       <div class="date">
17085         12th August 2009
17086       </div>
17087       <div class="body">
17088         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
17089 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
17090 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
17091 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
17092
17093 <table>
17094 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
17095 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
17096 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
17097 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
17098 </table>
17099
17100 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
17101 got these numbers:</p>
17102
17103 <table>
17104 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
17105 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
17106 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
17107 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
17108 </table>
17109
17110 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
17111
17112 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
17113 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
17114 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
17115 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
17116 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
17117
17118
17119 <table>
17120 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
17121 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
17122 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
17123 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
17124 </table>
17125
17126 <p>And with 'site:no':
17127
17128 <table>
17129 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
17130 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
17131 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
17132 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
17133 </table>
17134
17135 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
17136 numbers.</p>
17137
17138       </div>
17139       <div class="tags">
17140
17141
17142         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>.
17143
17144
17145       </div>
17146     </div>
17147     <div class="padding"></div>
17148
17149     <div class="entry">
17150       <div class="title">
17151         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
17152       </div>
17153       <div class="date">
17154          8th August 2009
17155       </div>
17156       <div class="body">
17157         <p>According to <a
17158 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
17159 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
17160 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
17161 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
17162 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
17163 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
17164 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
17165 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
17166 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
17167 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
17168
17169 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
17170 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
17171 seminar this autumn.</p>
17172
17173       </div>
17174       <div class="tags">
17175
17176
17177         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>.
17178
17179
17180       </div>
17181     </div>
17182     <div class="padding"></div>
17183
17184     <div class="entry">
17185       <div class="title">
17186         <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>
17187       </div>
17188       <div class="date">
17189         27th July 2009
17190       </div>
17191       <div class="body">
17192         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
17193 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
17194 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
17195 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
17196 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
17197 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
17198 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
17199
17200 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
17201 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
17202 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
17203
17204       </div>
17205       <div class="tags">
17206
17207
17208         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>.
17209
17210
17211       </div>
17212     </div>
17213     <div class="padding"></div>
17214
17215     <div class="entry">
17216       <div class="title">
17217         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
17218       </div>
17219       <div class="date">
17220         22nd July 2009
17221       </div>
17222       <div class="body">
17223         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
17224 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
17225 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
17226 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
17227 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
17228 the package up to date.</p>
17229
17230 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
17231 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
17232 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
17233 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
17234 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
17235 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
17236 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
17237 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
17238 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
17239 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
17240 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
17241 working on the future release.</p>
17242
17243 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
17244 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
17245
17246       </div>
17247       <div class="tags">
17248
17249
17250         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>.
17251
17252
17253       </div>
17254     </div>
17255     <div class="padding"></div>
17256
17257     <div class="entry">
17258       <div class="title">
17259         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
17260       </div>
17261       <div class="date">
17262         24th June 2009
17263       </div>
17264       <div class="body">
17265         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
17266 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
17267 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
17268 funded
17269 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
17270 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
17271 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
17272 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
17273 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
17274 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
17275
17276 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
17277 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
17278 boot:</p>
17279
17280 <ul>
17281
17282 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
17283
17284 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
17285    clock is in UTC.</li>
17286
17287 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
17288    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
17289    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
17290
17291 </ul>
17292
17293 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
17294 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
17295 Villegas</a>.
17296
17297 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
17298 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
17299 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
17300 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
17301 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
17302 using this.</p>
17303
17304 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
17305 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
17306 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
17307 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
17308 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
17309 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
17310 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
17311
17312       </div>
17313       <div class="tags">
17314
17315
17316         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>.
17317
17318
17319       </div>
17320     </div>
17321     <div class="padding"></div>
17322
17323     <div class="entry">
17324       <div class="title">
17325         <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>
17326       </div>
17327       <div class="date">
17328          2nd May 2009
17329       </div>
17330       <div class="body">
17331         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
17332 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
17333 do not yet know them.</p>
17334
17335 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
17336 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
17337 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
17338 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
17339 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
17340 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
17341 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
17342 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
17343 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
17344 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
17345 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
17346
17347 <p>The second one is
17348 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
17349 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
17350 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
17351 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
17352 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
17353 and the company behind it is running
17354 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
17355 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
17356 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
17357 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
17358 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
17359 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
17360 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
17361 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
17362
17363 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
17364 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
17365 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
17366 surrounded by today.</p>
17367
17368       </div>
17369       <div class="tags">
17370
17371
17372         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>.
17373
17374
17375       </div>
17376     </div>
17377     <div class="padding"></div>
17378
17379     <div class="entry">
17380       <div class="title">
17381         <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>
17382       </div>
17383       <div class="date">
17384         28th April 2009
17385       </div>
17386       <div class="body">
17387         <p>Julien Blache
17388 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
17389 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
17390 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
17391 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
17392 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
17393 properties.</p>
17394
17395       </div>
17396       <div class="tags">
17397
17398
17399         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>.
17400
17401
17402       </div>
17403     </div>
17404     <div class="padding"></div>
17405
17406     <div class="entry">
17407       <div class="title">
17408         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
17409       </div>
17410       <div class="date">
17411          5th April 2009
17412       </div>
17413       <div class="body">
17414         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
17415 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
17416 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
17417 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
17418 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
17419 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
17420 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
17421 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
17422
17423 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
17424 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
17425 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
17426   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
17427   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
17428
17429 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
17430 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
17431 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
17432 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
17433
17434 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
17435 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
17436 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
17437 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
17438
17439 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
17440 set -e
17441 URL="$1"
17442 SAVEFILE="$2"
17443 DURATION="$3"
17444 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
17445   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
17446   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
17447 pid=$!
17448 sleep $DURATION
17449 kill $pid
17450 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
17451
17452       </div>
17453       <div class="tags">
17454
17455
17456         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>.
17457
17458
17459       </div>
17460     </div>
17461     <div class="padding"></div>
17462
17463     <div class="entry">
17464       <div class="title">
17465         <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>
17466       </div>
17467       <div class="date">
17468         30th March 2009
17469       </div>
17470       <div class="body">
17471         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
17472 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
17473 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
17474 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
17475 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
17476 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
17477 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
17478 application.</p>
17479
17480 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
17481 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
17482 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
17483 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
17484 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
17485 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
17486 blocked from doing so.</p>
17487
17488 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
17489 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
17490 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
17491 requirements change.</p>
17492
17493 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
17494 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
17495 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
17496
17497       </div>
17498       <div class="tags">
17499
17500
17501         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>.
17502
17503
17504       </div>
17505     </div>
17506     <div class="padding"></div>
17507
17508     <div class="entry">
17509       <div class="title">
17510         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
17511       </div>
17512       <div class="date">
17513         29th March 2009
17514       </div>
17515       <div class="body">
17516         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
17517 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
17518 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
17519 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
17520 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
17521 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
17522 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
17523 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
17524 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
17525 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
17526 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
17527 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
17528 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
17529 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
17530 now. :)</p>
17531
17532       </div>
17533       <div class="tags">
17534
17535
17536         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>.
17537
17538
17539       </div>
17540     </div>
17541     <div class="padding"></div>
17542
17543     <div class="entry">
17544       <div class="title">
17545         <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>
17546       </div>
17547       <div class="date">
17548         29th March 2009
17549       </div>
17550       <div class="body">
17551         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
17552 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
17553 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
17554 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
17555 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
17556 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
17557
17558 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
17559 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
17560 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
17561 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
17562 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
17563 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
17564 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
17565 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
17566 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
17567 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
17568 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
17569 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
17570 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
17571
17572 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
17573 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
17574 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
17575 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
17576
17577 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
17578 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
17579
17580 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
17581 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
17582 new IETF work group?</p>
17583
17584       </div>
17585       <div class="tags">
17586
17587
17588         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>.
17589
17590
17591       </div>
17592     </div>
17593     <div class="padding"></div>
17594
17595     <div class="entry">
17596       <div class="title">
17597         <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>
17598       </div>
17599       <div class="date">
17600         28th February 2009
17601       </div>
17602       <div class="body">
17603         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
17604 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
17605 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
17606 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
17607 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
17608 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
17609 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
17610 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
17611 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
17612 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
17613 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
17614 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
17615 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
17616 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
17617 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
17618 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
17619 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
17620 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
17621 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
17622 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
17623 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
17624 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
17625 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
17626 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
17627 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
17628 machine.</p>
17629
17630 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
17631 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
17632 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
17633 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
17634 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
17635 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
17636 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
17637
17638 <pre>
17639 use LWP::Simple;
17640 use POSIX;
17641 use WWW::Mechanize;
17642 use Date::Parse;
17643 [...]
17644 sub get_support_info {
17645     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
17646     my $str;
17647
17648     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
17649         # fetch website from Dell support
17650         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";
17651         my $webpage = get($url);
17652         return undef unless ($webpage);
17653
17654         my $daysleft = -1;
17655         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
17656         foreach my $line (@lines) {
17657             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
17658             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
17659             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
17660
17661             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
17662             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
17663             my $lastend = "";
17664             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
17665                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
17666
17667                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
17668                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
17669                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
17670                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
17671                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
17672                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
17673                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
17674             }
17675             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
17676             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
17677                 if ($lastend lt $today);
17678         }
17679     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
17680         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
17681         my $url =
17682             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
17683         $mech->get($url);
17684         my $fields = {
17685             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
17686             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
17687             'country' => 'NO',
17688             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
17689             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
17690         };
17691         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
17692                             fields      => $fields );
17693         # Next step is screen scraping
17694         my $content = $mech->content();
17695
17696         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
17697         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
17698         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
17699         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
17700
17701         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
17702
17703         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
17704             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
17705                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
17706             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
17707             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
17708                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
17709             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
17710                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
17711
17712             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
17713
17714             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
17715                 if ($end lt $today);
17716         }
17717     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
17718         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
17719         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
17720         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
17721             my $content =
17722                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
17723             if ($content) {
17724                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
17725                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
17726                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
17727                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
17728
17729                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
17730                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
17731
17732                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
17733
17734                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
17735                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
17736                     if ($end lt $today);
17737             }
17738         }
17739     }
17740     return $str;
17741 }
17742 </pre>
17743
17744 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
17745 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
17746 from dmidecode.</p>
17747
17748 <pre>
17749 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
17750                        "447707-B21");
17751 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
17752 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
17753                        "1234567");
17754 </pre>
17755
17756 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
17757 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
17758
17759 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
17760 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
17761 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
17762 do so.</p>
17763
17764       </div>
17765       <div class="tags">
17766
17767
17768         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>.
17769
17770
17771       </div>
17772     </div>
17773     <div class="padding"></div>
17774
17775     <div class="entry">
17776       <div class="title">
17777         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
17778       </div>
17779       <div class="date">
17780         20th February 2009
17781       </div>
17782       <div class="body">
17783         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
17784 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
17785 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
17786 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
17787 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
17788 the "missing" computer.</p>
17789
17790 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
17791 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
17792 code blocks as defined in the
17793 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
17794 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
17795 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
17796 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
17797 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
17798 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
17799 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
17800 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
17801 codes.</p>
17802
17803 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
17804 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
17805 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
17806 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
17807 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
17808 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
17809
17810 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
17811 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
17812 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
17813 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
17814 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
17815 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
17816 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
17817 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
17818 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
17819 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
17820
17821 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
17822 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
17823 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
17824
17825       </div>
17826       <div class="tags">
17827
17828
17829         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>.
17830
17831
17832       </div>
17833     </div>
17834     <div class="padding"></div>
17835
17836     <div class="entry">
17837       <div class="title">
17838         <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>
17839       </div>
17840       <div class="date">
17841         17th January 2009
17842       </div>
17843       <div class="body">
17844         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
17845 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
17846 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
17847 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
17848 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
17849 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
17850 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
17851 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
17852 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
17853 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
17854 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
17855 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
17856 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
17857 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
17858
17859 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
17860 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
17861 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
17862 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
17863 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
17864 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
17865 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
17866 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
17867 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
17868 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
17869 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
17870 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
17871 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
17872 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
17873 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
17874 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
17875 playing when the download is done.</p>
17876
17877 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
17878 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
17879 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
17880 too.</p>
17881
17882 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
17883 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
17884 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
17885 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
17886
17887       </div>
17888       <div class="tags">
17889
17890
17891         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>.
17892
17893
17894       </div>
17895     </div>
17896     <div class="padding"></div>
17897
17898     <div class="entry">
17899       <div class="title">
17900         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
17901       </div>
17902       <div class="date">
17903         28th December 2008
17904       </div>
17905       <div class="body">
17906         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
17907 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
17908 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
17909 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
17910 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
17911 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
17912 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
17913 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
17914 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
17915 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
17916 source, sink and mixer applications and
17917 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
17918 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
17919 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
17920 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
17921 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
17922 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
17923 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
17924 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
17925 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
17926
17927 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
17928 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
17929 larger stick as well.</p>
17930
17931       </div>
17932       <div class="tags">
17933
17934
17935         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>.
17936
17937
17938       </div>
17939     </div>
17940     <div class="padding"></div>
17941
17942     <div class="entry">
17943       <div class="title">
17944         <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>
17945       </div>
17946       <div class="date">
17947          7th December 2008
17948       </div>
17949       <div class="body">
17950         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
17951 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
17952 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
17953 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
17954 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
17955 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
17956 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
17957 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
17958
17959 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
17960 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
17961 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
17962 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
17963 of these cards.</p>
17964
17965       </div>
17966       <div class="tags">
17967
17968
17969         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>.
17970
17971
17972       </div>
17973     </div>
17974     <div class="padding"></div>
17975
17976     <div class="entry">
17977       <div class="title">
17978         <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>
17979       </div>
17980       <div class="date">
17981         25th November 2008
17982       </div>
17983       <div class="body">
17984         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
17985 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
17986 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
17987 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
17988 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
17989 notes are available on
17990 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
17991 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
17992 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
17993 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
17994 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
17995 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
17996 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
17997 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
17998 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
17999
18000 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
18001 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
18002
18003       </div>
18004       <div class="tags">
18005
18006
18007         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>.
18008
18009
18010       </div>
18011     </div>
18012     <div class="padding"></div>
18013
18014     <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>
18015     <div id="sidebar">
18016
18017
18018
18019 <h2>Archive</h2>
18020 <ul>
18021
18022 <li>2013
18023 <ul>
18024
18025 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
18026
18027 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
18028
18029 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
18030
18031 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
18032
18033 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
18034
18035 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
18036
18037 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
18038
18039 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
18040
18041 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
18042
18043 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
18044
18045 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (4)</a></li>
18046
18047 </ul></li>
18048
18049 <li>2012
18050 <ul>
18051
18052 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
18053
18054 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
18055
18056 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
18057
18058 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
18059
18060 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
18061
18062 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
18063
18064 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
18065
18066 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
18067
18068 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
18069
18070 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
18071
18072 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
18073
18074 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
18075
18076 </ul></li>
18077
18078 <li>2011
18079 <ul>
18080
18081 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
18082
18083 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
18084
18085 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
18086
18087 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
18088
18089 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
18090
18091 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
18092
18093 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
18094
18095 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
18096
18097 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
18098
18099 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
18100
18101 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
18102
18103 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
18104
18105 </ul></li>
18106
18107 <li>2010
18108 <ul>
18109
18110 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
18111
18112 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
18113
18114 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
18115
18116 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
18117
18118 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
18119
18120 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
18121
18122 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
18123
18124 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
18125
18126 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
18127
18128 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
18129
18130 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
18131
18132 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
18133
18134 </ul></li>
18135
18136 <li>2009
18137 <ul>
18138
18139 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
18140
18141 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
18142
18143 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
18144
18145 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
18146
18147 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
18148
18149 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
18150
18151 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
18152
18153 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
18154
18155 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
18156
18157 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
18158
18159 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
18160
18161 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
18162
18163 </ul></li>
18164
18165 <li>2008
18166 <ul>
18167
18168 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
18169
18170 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
18171
18172 </ul></li>
18173
18174 </ul>
18175
18176
18177
18178 <h2>Tags</h2>
18179 <ul>
18180
18181  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
18182
18183  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
18184
18185  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
18186
18187  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
18188
18189  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (7)</a></li>
18190
18191  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (13)</a></li>
18192
18193  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
18194
18195  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (90)</a></li>
18196
18197  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (142)</a></li>
18198
18199  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
18200
18201  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (10)</a></li>
18202
18203  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
18204
18205  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (227)</a></li>
18206
18207  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
18208
18209  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
18210
18211  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (12)</a></li>
18212
18213  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (5)</a></li>
18214
18215  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
18216
18217  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (37)</a></li>
18218
18219  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (7)</a></li>
18220
18221  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
18222
18223  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
18224
18225  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (6)</a></li>
18226
18227  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
18228
18229  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (5)</a></li>
18230
18231  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
18232
18233  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (236)</a></li>
18234
18235  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (158)</a></li>
18236
18237  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (8)</a></li>
18238
18239  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
18240
18241  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (45)</a></li>
18242
18243  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (67)</a></li>
18244
18245  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
18246
18247  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
18248
18249  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
18250
18251  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (8)</a></li>
18252
18253  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
18254
18255  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
18256
18257  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
18258
18259  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (32)</a></li>
18260
18261  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
18262
18263  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
18264
18265  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (43)</a></li>
18266
18267  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
18268
18269  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
18270
18271  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (20)</a></li>
18272
18273  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
18274
18275  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
18276
18277  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (39)</a></li>
18278
18279  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
18280
18281  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (28)</a></li>
18282
18283 </ul>
18284
18285
18286     </div>
18287     <p style="text-align: right">
18288  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
18289 </p>
18290
18291   </body>
18292 </html>