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        <channel>
                <title>Petter Reinholdtsen</title>
                <description></description>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
                <atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
        
        <item>
                <title>How to stay with sysvinit in Debian Jessie</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_stay_with_sysvinit_in_Debian_Jessie.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 22 Nov 2014 01:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;By now, it is well known that Debian Jessie will not be using
sysvinit as its boot system by default.  But how can one keep using
sysvinit in Jessie?  It is fairly easy, and here are a few recipes,
courtesy of
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.vitavonni.de/blog/201410/2014102101-avoiding-systemd.html&quot;&gt;Erich
Schubert&lt;/a&gt; and
&lt;a href=&quot;http://smcv.pseudorandom.co.uk/2014/still_universal/&quot;&gt;Simon
McVittie&lt;/a&gt;.

&lt;p&gt;If you already are using Wheezy and want to upgrade to Jessie and
keep sysvinit as your boot system, create a file
&lt;tt&gt;/etc/apt/preferences.d/use-sysvinit&lt;/tt&gt; with this content before
you upgrade:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
Package: systemd-sysv
Pin: release o=Debian
Pin-Priority: -1
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This file content will tell apt and aptitude to not consider
installing systemd-sysv as part of any installation and upgrade
solution when resolving dependencies, and thus tell it to avoid
systemd as a default boot system.  The end result should be that the
upgraded system keep using sysvinit.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you are installing Jessie for the first time, there is no way to
get sysvinit installed by default (debootstrap used by
debian-installer have no option for this), but one can tell the
installer to switch to sysvinit before the first boot.  Either by
using a kernel argument to the installer, or by adding a line to the
preseed file used.  First, the kernel command line argument:

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
preseed/late_command=&quot;in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core&quot;
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Next, the line to use in a preseed file:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
d-i preseed/late_command string in-target apt-get install -y sysvinit-core
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;One can of course also do this after the first boot by installing
the sysvinit-core package.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I recommend only using sysvinit if you really need it, as the
sysvinit boot sequence in Debian have several hardware specific bugs
on Linux caused by the fact that it is unpredictable when hardware
devices show up during boot.  But on the other hand, the new default
boot system still have a few rough edges I hope will be fixed before
Jessie is released.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Hvordan vurderer regjeringen H.264-patentutfordringen?</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_vurderer_regjeringen_H_264_patentutfordringen_.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_vurderer_regjeringen_H_264_patentutfordringen_.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sun, 16 Nov 2014 10:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;For en stund tilbake spurte jeg Fornyingsdepartementet om hvilke
juridiske vurderinger rundt patentproblemstillingen som var gjort da
H.264 ble tatt inn i &lt;a href=&quot;http://standard.difi.no/&quot;&gt;statens
referansekatalog over standarder&lt;/a&gt;.  Stig Hornnes i FAD tipset meg
om følgende som står i oppsumeringen til høringen om
referansekatalogen versjon 2.0, som jeg siden ved hjelp av en
innsynsforespørsel fikk tak i
&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/200901-standardkatalog-v2?action=AttachFile&amp;do=get&amp;target=kongelig-resolusjon.pdf&quot;&gt;PDF-utgaven av&lt;/a&gt;
datert 2009-06-03 (saksnummer 200803291, saksbehandler Henrik
Linnestad).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Der står det følgende om problemstillingen:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;4.4 Patentproblematikk&lt;/strong&gt;

&lt;p&gt;NUUG og Opera ser det som særlig viktig at forslagene knyttet til
lyd og video baserer seg på de royalty-frie standardene Vorbis, Theora
og FLAC.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Kommentarene relaterer seg til at enkelte standarder er åpne, men
inneholder tekniske prosedyrer som det i USA (og noen andre land som
Japan) er gitt patentrettigheter til. I vårt tilfelle berører dette
spesielt standardene Mp3 og H.264, selv om Politidirektoratet peker på
at det muligens kan være tilsvarende problematikk også for Theora og
Vorbis.  Dette medfører at det i USA kan kreves royalties for bruk av
tekniske løsninger knyttet til standardene, et krav som også
håndheves. Patenter kan imidlertid bare hevdes i de landene hvor
patentet er gitt, så amerikanske patenter gjelder ikke andre steder
enn USA.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Spesielt for utvikling av fri programvare er patenter
problematisk. GPL, en &quot;grunnleggende&quot; lisens for distribusjon av fri
programvare, avviser at programvare kan distribueres under denne
lisensen hvis det inneholder referanser til patenterte rutiner som
utløser krav om royalties. Det er imidlertid uproblematisk å
distribuere fri programvareløsninger under GPL som benytter de
aktuelle standardene innen eller mellom land som ikke anerkjenner
patentene. Derfor finner vi også flere implementeringer av Mp3 og
H.264 som er fri programvare, lisensiert under GPL.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I Norge og EU er patentlovgivningen langt mer restriktiv enn i USA,
men det er også her mulig å få patentert metoder for løsning av et
problem som relaterer seg til databehandling. Det er AIF bekjent ikke
relevante patenter i EU eller Norge hva gjelder H.264 og Mp3, men
muligheten for at det finnes patenter uten at det er gjort krav om
royalties eller at det senere vil gis slike patenter kan ikke helt
avvises.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;AIF mener det er et behov for å gi offentlige virksomheter mulighet
til å benytte antatt royaltyfrie åpne standarder som et likeverdig
alternativ eller i tillegg til de markedsledende åpne standardene.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det ser dermed ikke ut til at de har vurdert patentspørsmålet i
sammenheng med opphavsrettsvilkår slik de er formulert for f.eks.
Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid og Sorenson-verktøyene,
der det kreves brukstillatelse for patenter som ikke er gyldige i
Norge for å bruke disse verktøyene til annet en personlig og ikke
kommersiell aktivitet når det gjelder H.264-video.  Jeg må nok lete
videre etter svar på det spørsmålet.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>A Debian package for SMTP via Tor (aka SMTorP) using exim4</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_Debian_package_for_SMTP_via_Tor__aka_SMTorP__using_exim4.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Mon, 10 Nov 2014 13:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;The right to communicate with your friends and family in private,
without anyone snooping, is a right every citicen have in a liberal
democracy.  But this right is under serious attack these days.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A while back it occurred to me that one way to make the dragnet
surveillance conducted by NSA, GCHQ, FRA and others (and confirmed by
the whisleblower Snowden) more expensive for Internet email,
is to deliver all email using SMTP via Tor.  Such SMTP option would be
a nice addition to the FreedomBox project if we could send email
between FreedomBox machines without leaking metadata about the emails
to the people peeking on the wire.  I
&lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2014-October/006493.html&quot;&gt;proposed
this on the FreedomBox project mailing list in October&lt;/a&gt; and got a
lot of useful feedback and suggestions.  It also became obvious to me
that this was not a novel idea, as the same idea was tested and
documented by Johannes Berg as early as 2006, and both
&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/pagekite/Mailpile/wiki/SMTorP&quot;&gt;the
Mailpile&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://dee.su/cables&quot;&gt;the Cables&lt;/a&gt; systems
propose a similar method / protocol to pass emails between users.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;To implement such system one need to set up a Tor hidden service
providing the SMTP protocol on port 25, and use email addresses
looking like username@hidden-service-name.onion.  With such addresses
the connections to port 25 on hidden-service-name.onion using Tor will
go to the correct SMTP server.  To do this, one need to configure the
Tor daemon to provide the hidden service and the mail server to accept
emails for this .onion domain.  To learn more about Exim configuration
in Debian and test the design provided by Johannes Berg in his FAQ, I
set out yesterday to create a Debian package for making it trivial to
set up such SMTP over Tor service based on Debian.  Getting it to work
were fairly easy, and
&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/exim4-smtorp&quot;&gt;the
source code for the Debian package&lt;/a&gt; is available from github.  I
plan to move it into Debian if further testing prove this to be a
useful approach.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you want to test this, set up a blank Debian machine without any
mail system installed (or run &lt;tt&gt;apt-get purge exim4-config&lt;/tt&gt; to
get rid of exim4).  Install tor, clone the git repository mentioned
above, build the deb and install it on the machine.  Next, run
&lt;tt&gt;/usr/lib/exim4-smtorp/setup-exim-hidden-service&lt;/tt&gt; and follow
the instructions to get the service up and running.  Restart tor and
exim when it is done, and test mail delivery using swaks like
this:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
torsocks swaks --server dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion \
  --to fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This will test the SMTP delivery using tor.  Replace the email
address with your own address to test your server. :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The setup procedure is still to complex, and I hope it can be made
easier and more automatic.  Especially the tor setup need more work.
Also, the package include a tor-smtp tool written in C, but its task
should probably be rewritten in some script language to make the deb
architecture independent.  It would probably also make the code easier
to review.  The tor-smtp tool currently need to listen on a socket for
exim to talk to it and is started using xinetd.  It would be better if
no daemon and no socket is needed.  I suspect it is possible to get
exim to run a command line tool for delivery instead of talking to a
socket, and hope to figure out how in a future version of this
system.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Until I wipe my test machine, I can be reached using the
&lt;tt&gt;fbx@dutlqrrmjhtfa3vp.onion&lt;/tt&gt; mail address, deliverable over
SMTorP. :)&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>First Jessie based Debian Edu released (alpha0)</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_released__alpha0_.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_released__alpha0_.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Mon, 27 Oct 2014 20:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;I am happy to report that I on behalf of the Debian Edu team just
sent out
&lt;a href=&quot;https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2014/10/msg00000.html&quot;&gt;this
announcement&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;pre&gt;
The Debian Edu Team is pleased to announce the release of Debian Edu
Jessie 8.0+edu0~alpha0

Debian Edu is a complete operating system for schools. Through its
various installation profiles you can install servers, workstations
and laptops which will work together on the school network. With
Debian Edu, the teachers themselves or their technical support can
roll out a complete multi-user multi-machine study environment within
hours or a few days. Debian Edu comes with hundreds of applications
pre-installed, but you can always add more packages from Debian.

For those who want to give Debian Edu Jessie a try, download and
installation instructions are available, including detailed
instructions in the manual[1] explaining the first steps, such as
setting up a network or adding users. Please note that the password
for the user your prompted for during installation must have a length
of at least 5 characters!

 [1] &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie&quot;&gt;https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;

Would you like to give your school&#39;s computer a longer life? Are you
tired of sneaker administration, running from computer to computer
reinstalling the operating system? Would you like to administrate all
the computers in your school using only a couple of hours every week?
Check out Debian Edu Jessie!

Skolelinux is used by at least two hundred schools all over the world,
mostly in Germany and Norway.

About Debian Edu and Skolelinux
===============================

Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux[2], is a Linux distribution based
on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
machines can be installed via the network.  The provided school server
provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
services.  The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
packages[3] and more are available from the Debian archive, and
schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE, Xfce and MATE desktop
environment.

 [2] &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;http://www.skolelinux.org/&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;
 [3] &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html&quot;&gt;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;

Full release notes and manual
=============================

Below the download URLs there is a list of some of the new features
and bugfixes of Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie. The full
list is part of the manual. (See the feature list in the manual[4] for
the English version.) For some languages manual translations are
available, see the manual translation overview[5].

 [4] &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features&quot;&gt;https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;
 [5] &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/&quot;&gt;http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;

Where to get it
---------------

To download the multiarch netinstall CD release (624 MiB) you can use

 * &lt;a href=&quot;ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso&quot;&gt;ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso&lt;/a&gt;
 * &lt;a href=&quot;http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso&quot;&gt;http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso&lt;/a&gt;
 * rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso .

The SHA1SUM of this image is: 361188818e036ce67280a572f757de82ebfeb095

New features for Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie released 2014-10-27
===============================================================================


Installation changes
--------------------

 * PXE installation now installs firmware automatically for the hardware present.

Software updates
----------------

Everything which is new in Debian Jessie 8.0, eg:

 * Linux kernel 3.16.x
 * Desktop environments KDE &quot;Plasma&quot; 4.11.12, GNOME 3.14, Xfce 4.10,
   LXDE 0.5.6 and MATE 1.8 (KDE &quot;Plasma&quot; is installed by default; to
   choose one of the others see manual.)
 * the browsers Iceweasel 31 ESR and Chromium 38 
 * !LibreOffice 4.3.3
 * GOsa 2.7.4
 * LTSP 5.5.4
 * CUPS print system 1.7.5
 * new boot framework: systemd
 * Educational toolbox GCompris 14.07 
 * Music creator Rosegarden 14.02
 * Image editor Gimp 2.8.14
 * Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.13.0
 * golearn 0.9
 * tuxpaint 0.9.22
 * New version of debian-installer from Debian Jessie.
 * Debian Jessie includes about 42000 packages available for
   installation.
 * More information about Debian Jessie 8.0 is provided in the release
   notes[6] and the installation manual[7].

 [6] &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes&quot;&gt;http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;
 [7] &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual&quot;&gt;http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;

Fixed bugs
----------

 * Inserting incorrect DNS information in Gosa will no longer break
   DNS completely, but instead stop DNS updates until the incorrect
   information is corrected (Debian bug #710362)
 * and many others.

Documentation and translation updates
------------------------------------- 

 * The Debian Edu Jessie Manual is fully translated to German, French,
   Italian, Danish and Dutch. Partly translated versions exist for
   Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.

Other changes
-------------

 * Due to new Squid settings, powering off or rebooting the main
   server takes more time.
 * To manage printers localhost:631 has to be used, currently www:631
   doesn&#39;t work.

Regressions / known problems
----------------------------

 * Installing LTSP chroot fails with a bug related to eatmydata about
   exim4-config failing to run its postinst (see Debian bug #765694
   and Debian bug #762103).
 * Munin collection is not properly configured on clients (Debian bug
   #764594).  The fix is available in a newer version of munin-node.
 * PXE setup for Main Server and Thin Client Server setup does not
   work when installing on a machine without direct Internet access.
   Will be fixed when Debian bug #766960 is fixed in Jessie.

See the status page[8] for the complete list.

 [8] &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie&quot;&gt;https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;

How to report bugs
------------------

&amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs&quot;&gt;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;

About Debian
============

The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
volunteers from all over the world work together to create and
maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a
huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal
operating system.

Contact Information
For further information, please visit the Debian web pages[9] or send
mail to press@debian.org.

 [9] &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.debian.org/&quot;&gt;http://www.debian.org/&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;
&lt;/pre&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>I spent last weekend recording MakerCon Nordic</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_spent_last_weekend_recording_MakerCon_Nordic.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_spent_last_weekend_recording_MakerCon_Nordic.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 23 Oct 2014 23:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;I spent last weekend at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.makercon.no/&quot;&gt;Makercon
Nordic&lt;/a&gt;, a great conference and workshop for makers in Norway and
the surrounding countries.  I had volunteered on behalf of the
Norwegian Unix Users Group (NUUG) to video record the talks, and we
had a great and exhausting time recording the entire day, two days in
a row.  There were only two of us, Hans-Petter and me, and we used the
regular video equipment for NUUG, with a
&lt;a href=&quot;http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/&quot;&gt;dvswitch&lt;/a&gt;, a
camera and a VGA to DV convert box, and mixed video and slides
live.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hans-Petter did the post-processing, consisting of uploading the
around 180 GiB of raw video to Youtube, and the result is
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/MakerConNordic/&quot;&gt;now becoming
public&lt;/a&gt; on the MakerConNordic account.  The videos have the license
NUUG always use on our recordings, which is
&lt;a href=&quot;http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/no/&quot;&gt;Creative
Commons Navngivelse-Del på samme vilkår 3.0 Norge&lt;/a&gt;.  Many great
talks available.  Check it out! :)&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>listadmin, the quick way to moderate mailman lists - nice free software</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/listadmin__the_quick_way_to_moderate_mailman_lists___nice_free_software.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Wed, 22 Oct 2014 20:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;If you ever had to moderate a mailman list, like the ones on
alioth.debian.org, you know the web interface is fairly slow to
operate.  First you visit one web page, enter the moderation password
and get a new page shown with a list of all the messages to moderate
and various options for each email address.  This take a while for
every list you moderate, and you need to do it regularly to do a good
job as a list moderator.  But there is a quick alternative,
&lt;a href=&quot;http://heim.ifi.uio.no/kjetilho/hacks/#listadmin&quot;&gt;the
listadmin program&lt;/a&gt;.  It allow you to check lists for new messages
to moderate in a fraction of a second.  Here is a test run on two
lists I recently took over:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
% time listadmin xiph
fetching data for pkg-xiph-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue
fetching data for pkg-xiph-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org ... nothing in queue

real    0m1.709s
user    0m0.232s
sys     0m0.012s
%
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In 1.7 seconds I had checked two mailing lists and confirmed that
there are no message in the moderation queue.  Every morning I
currently moderate 68 mailman lists, and it normally take around two
minutes.  When I took over the two pkg-xiph lists above a few days
ago, there were 400 emails waiting in the moderator queue.  It took me
less than 15 minutes to process them all using the listadmin
program.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you install
&lt;a href=&quot;https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/listadmin&quot;&gt;the listadmin
package&lt;/a&gt; from Debian and create a file &lt;tt&gt;~/.listadmin.ini&lt;/tt&gt;
with content like this, the moderation task is a breeze:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
username username@example.org
spamlevel 23
default discard
discard_if_reason &quot;Posting restricted to members only. Remove us from your mail list.&quot;

password secret
adminurl https://{domain}/mailman/admindb/{list}
mailman-list@lists.example.com

password hidden
other-list@otherserver.example.org
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;There are other options to set as well.  Check the manual page to
learn the details.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you are forced to moderate lists on a mailman installation where
the SSL certificate is self signed or not properly signed by a
generally accepted signing authority, you can set a environment
variable when calling listadmin to disable SSL verification:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 listadmin
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you want to moderate a subset of the lists you take care of, you
can provide an argument to the listadmin script like I do in the
initial screen dump (the xiph argument).  Using an argument, only
lists matching the argument string will be processed.  This make it
quick to accept messages if you notice the moderation request in your
email.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Without the listadmin program, I would never be the moderator of 68
mailing lists, as I simply do not have time to spend on that if the
process was any slower. The listadmin program have saved me hours of
time I could spend elsewhere over the years.  It truly is nice free
software.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Update 2014-10-27: Added missing &#39;username&#39; statement in
configuration example.  Also, I&#39;ve been told that the
PERL_LWP_SSL_VERIFY_HOSTNAME=0 setting do not work for everyone.  Not
sure why.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 14:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
Normally something more is needed.  But thanks to
&lt;a href=&quot;https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html&quot;&gt;my isenkram
package&lt;/a&gt; and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
to do this using simple preseeding.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
the kernel modules for the hardware).  (It can also install user space
programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
of this story.)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
values are needed.  First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system.  This is done by
preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
isenkram-cli package.  The package name is next passed to debootstrap
for installation.  With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
most firmware unfortunately is non-free.  This is done by preseeding
the apt-mirror-setup step.  This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
hardware it is the only option in Debian.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
firmware installed automatically by the installer:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
both firmware and user space packages when using this method.  It also
do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later.  Installing both
firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
and one for user space programs.  The firmware task is enabled by
default, while the one for user space programs is not.  This split is
implemented in the package currently in unstable.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
this recipe work for you. :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work.  First and
foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/.  So the
isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find.  First there
is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
Task: isenkram-packages
Section: hardware
Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
 proposed.
Test-new-install: show show
Relevance: 8
Packages: for-current-hardware

Task: isenkram-firmware
Section: hardware
Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
 Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
 packages are proposed.
Test-new-install: mark show
Relevance: 8
Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/.  The scripts use other scripts to get a
list of packages to install.  The for-current-hardware-firmware script
look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
#!/bin/sh
#
PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
export PATH
isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
installed, run &lt;tt&gt;DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
--new-install&lt;/tt&gt; to get the list of packages that tasksel would
install.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu&lt;/a&gt; will be
pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to
install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 4 Oct 2014 15:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Today I came across an unexpected Ubuntu boot screen.  Above the
bread shelf on the ICA shop at Storo in Oslo, the grub menu of Ubuntu
with Linux kernel 3.2.0-23 (ie probably version 12.04 LTS) was stuck
on a screen normally showing the bread types and prizes:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;img width=&quot;70%&quot; src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2014-10-04-ubuntu-ica-storo-crop.jpeg&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If it had booted as it was supposed to, I would never had known
about this hidden Linux installation.  It is interesting what
&lt;a href=&quot;http://revealingerrors.com/&quot;&gt;errors can reveal&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 4 Oct 2014 08:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/&quot;&gt;lsdvd project&lt;/a&gt;
got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
Dibb.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I just wrapped up
&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/&quot;&gt;a
new lsdvd release&lt;/a&gt;, available in git or from
&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/&quot;&gt;the
download page&lt;/a&gt;.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
0.17.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;

 &lt;li&gt;Ignore &#39;phantom&#39; audio, subtitle tracks&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
   non-existant, to work around additional copy protection&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Fix pallete display of first entry&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Fix include orders&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Fix the chapter count&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
   the palette size is the same.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Fix array printing.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Correct subsecond calculations.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Add sector information to the output format.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
   with more GCC compiler warnings.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>How to test Debian Edu Jessie despite some fatal problems with the installer</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_test_Debian_Edu_Jessie_despite_some_fatal_problems_with_the_installer.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 12:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu / Skolelinux
project&lt;/a&gt; provide a Linux solution for schools, including a
powerful desktop with education software, a central server providing
web pages, user database, user home directories, central login and PXE
boot of both  clients without disk and the installation to install Debian
Edu on machines with disk (and a few other services perhaps to small
to mention here).  We in the Debian Edu team are currently working on
the Jessie based version, trying to get everything in shape before the
freeze, to avoid having to maintain our own package repository in the
future.  The
&lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie&quot;&gt;current
status&lt;/a&gt; can be seen on the Debian wiki, and there is still heaps of
work left.  Some fatal problems block testing, breaking the installer,
but it is possible to work around these to get anyway.  Here is a
recipe on how to get the installation limping along.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;First, download the test ISO via
&lt;a href=&quot;ftp://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso&quot;&gt;ftp&lt;/a&gt;,
&lt;a href=&quot;http://ftp.skolelinux.no/cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso&quot;&gt;http&lt;/a&gt;
or rsync (use
ftp.skolelinux.org::cd-edu-testing-nolocal-netinst/debian-edu-amd64-i386-NETINST-1.iso).
The ISO build was broken on Tuesday, so we do not get a new ISO every
12 hours or so, but thankfully the ISO we already got we are able to
install with some tweaking.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;When you get to the Debian Edu profile question, go to tty2
(use Alt-Ctrl-F2), run&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
nano /usr/bin/edu-eatmydata-install
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;and add &#39;exit 0&#39; as the second line, disabling the eatmydata
optimization.  Return to the installation, select the profile you want
and continue.  Without this change, exim4-config will fail to install
due to a known bug in eatmydata.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;When you get the grub question at the end, answer /dev/sda (or if
this do not work, figure out what your correct value would be.  All my
test machines need /dev/sda, so I have no advice if it do not fit
your need.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you installed a profile including a graphical desktop, log in as
root after the initial boot from hard drive, and install the
education-desktop-XXX metapackage.  XXX can be kde, gnome, lxde, xfce
or mate.  If you want several desktop options, install more than one
metapackage.  Once this is done, reboot and you should have a working
graphical login screen.  This workaround should no longer be needed
once the education-tasks package version 1.801 enter testing in two
days.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I believe the ISO build will start working on two days when the new
tasksel package enter testing and Steve McIntyre get a chance to
update the debian-cd git repository.  The eatmydata, grub and desktop
issues are already fixed in unstable and testing, and should show up
on the ISO as soon as the ISO build start working again.  Well the
eatmydata optimization is really just disabled.  The proper fix
require an upload by the eatmydata maintainer applying the patch
provided in bug &lt;a href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/702711&quot;&gt;#702711&lt;/a&gt;.
The rest have proper fixes in unstable.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I hope this get you going with the installation testing, as we are
quickly running out of time trying to get our Jessie based
installation ready before the distribution freeze in a month.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        </channel>
</rss>