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  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/Why_isn_t_the_value_of_copyright_taxed_.html">Why isn't the value of copyright taxed?</a>
  26       </div>
  27       <div class="date">
  28         17th November 2012
  29       </div>
  30       <div class="body">
  31         <p>While working on a
  32 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">Norwegian
  33 translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig</a> (76% done),
  34 which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
  35 creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
  36 office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
  37 make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.</p>
  38
  39 <p>I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
  40 <a href="http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
  41 -15-30-19-00/">presentation
  42 by John Perry Barlow</a>, and concluded that it was best to put it
  43 in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
  44 argument that copyrighted works are "intellectual property", as the
  45 core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
  46 holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
  47 controlled by the citizens in a country.  I'm sharing the idea here to
  48 let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
  49 arguments.</p>
  50
  51 <p>Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
  52 Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
  53 the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
  54 stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
  55 of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
  56 taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
  57 value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
  58 work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?</p>
  59
  60 <p>If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
  61 maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
  62 rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
  63 value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
  64 database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
  65 for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
  66 hard operation with todays copyright law.  To ensure that copyright
  67 holders keep the database up-to-date, it would have to become a
  68 requirement to be able to collect money for granting access to
  69 copyrighted works that the work is listed in the database with the
  70 correct right holder.</p>
  71
  72 <p>If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
  73 they will have a small incentive to "disown" their copyright, and let
  74 the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
  75 one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
  76 database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
  77 use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
  78 work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
  79 tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
  80 tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
  81 allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
  82 allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
  83 existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
  84 and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
  85 would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.</p>
  86
  87 <p>The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
  88 get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
  89 domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .</p>
  90
  91 <p>Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
  92 would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.</p>
  93
  94       </div>
  95       <div class="tags">
  96
  97
  98         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>.
  99
 100
 101       </div>
 102     </div>
 103     <div class="padding"></div>
 104
 105     <div class="entry">
 106       <div class="title">
 107         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html">Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</a>
 108       </div>
 109       <div class="date">
 110         14th November 2012
 111       </div>
 112       <div class="body">
 113         <p>Here is another interview with one of the people in the <a
 114 href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
 115 community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
 116 if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
 117 After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
 118 the people behind the German
 119 "<a href="http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/">IT-Zukunft Schule</a>"
 120 project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
 121 welcome to Angela Fuß. :)</p>
 122
 123 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 124
 125 <p>I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
 126 Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with "my man" Mike Gabriel, my
 127 two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.
 128
 129 <p>At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
 130 the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
 131 Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
 132 growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
 133 system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
 134 in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.</p>
 135
 136 <p>In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
 137 nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
 138 that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
 139 working in our own school project "IT-Zukunft Schule" in North
 140 Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
 141 relationship management and the communication processes in the
 142 project.</p>
 143
 144 <p>Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
 145 and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
 146 and a yoga teacher.</p>
 147
 148 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
 149 project?</strong></p>
 150
 151 <p>I fell in love with Mike ;-).</p>
 152
 153 <p>Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
 154 Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
 155 founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
 156 their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
 157 newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
 158 several points where the communication with the schools head or the
 159 teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
 160 one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
 161 between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
 162 parents.</p>
 163
 164 <p>Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
 165 started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
 166 schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
 167 Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
 168 networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
 169 Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
 170 Germany.</p>
 171
 172 <p>For information about our school project you can read
 173 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">the
 174 interview with Mike Gabriel</a>.</p>
 175
 176 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 177 Edu?</strong></p>
 178
 179 <p>First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
 180 answer comes rather from a social point of view.</p>
 181
 182 <p>The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
 183 and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
 184 background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
 185 and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
 186 something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
 187 ;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
 188 advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
 189 works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
 190 teachers, parents...</p>
 191
 192 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
 193 Edu?</strong></p>
 194
 195 <p>I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
 196 Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
 197
 198 <p>What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
 199 the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
 200 marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
 201 schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
 202 I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
 203
 204 <p>Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
 205 do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
 206 democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
 207 and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
 208 Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
 209 level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
 210 different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.</p>
 211
 212 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 213
 214 <p>On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
 215 on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
 216 LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
 217 my N900 running with Maemo.</p>
 218
 219 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 220 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 221
 222 <p>I am really convinced that in our school project "IT-Zukunft
 223 Schule" we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
 224 schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
 225 that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
 226 strategy has three crucial pillars:</p>
 227
 228 <ul>
 229
 230 <li>We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
 231 concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
 232 kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.</li>
 233
 234 <li>Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
 235 are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
 236 beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
 237 they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
 238 they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
 239 needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
 240 we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.</li>
 241
 242 <li>Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
 243 co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
 244 contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
 245 offer to become more and more independent from us.</li>
 246
 247 </ul>
 248
 249       </div>
 250       <div class="tags">
 251
 252
 253         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>.
 254
 255
 256       </div>
 257     </div>
 258     <div class="padding"></div>
 259
 260     <div class="entry">
 261       <div class="title">
 262         <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>
 263       </div>
 264       <div class="date">
 265          4th November 2012
 266       </div>
 267       <div class="body">
 268         <p>Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
 269 <a href="http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf">releasing
 270 a report (PDF)</a> about virtual currencies and
 271 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">bitcoin</a>.  It is interesting to
 272 see how a member of the bitcoin community
 273 <a href="http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html">receive
 274 the report</a>.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
 275 the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
 276 competition.  My thoughts go to the
 277 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl">Wörgl experiment</a> with
 278 negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
 279 terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
 280 alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
 281 powerful forces to work against it.</p>
 282
 283 <p>While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
 284 that the community already seem to have
 285 <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down">experienced
 286 its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme</a>.  Not very surprising, given
 287 how members of "small" communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
 288 enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
 289 wealth is available.</p>
 290
 291       </div>
 292       <div class="tags">
 293
 294
 295         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>.
 296
 297
 298       </div>
 299     </div>
 300     <div class="padding"></div>
 301
 302     <div class="entry">
 303       <div class="title">
 304         <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>
 305       </div>
 306       <div class="date">
 307         26th October 2012
 308       </div>
 309       <div class="body">
 310         <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a>
 311 looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
 312 all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
 313 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn
 314 make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>.  NUUG
 315 is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
 316 software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
 317 is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
 318 these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
 319 <a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the
 320 mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
 321 it every time.</p>
 322
 323 <p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
 324 article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from
 325 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
 326 "<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What
 327 Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also
 328 <a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available
 329 from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he
 330 processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
 331 last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
 332 etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
 333 what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
 334 me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p>
 335
 336 <p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
 337 standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
 338 it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
 339 assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
 340 article: First the unplanned outage:
 341
 342 <blockquote><pre>
 343 Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
 344 Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
 345 Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
 346 End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
 347 Duration:    40 minutes
 348 Scope:       Exchange 2003
 349 Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
 350              a cluster failover.
 351
 352 User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
 353              access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
 354 Technician:  [xxx]
 355 </pre></blockquote>
 356
 357 Next the planned outage:
 358
 359 <blockquote><pre>
 360 Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
 361 Severity:    Major (Planned)
 362 Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
 363 End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
 364 Duration:    10 hours
 365 Scope:       H2 Transport
 366 Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
 367              stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
 368              4510s.
 369 User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
 370              this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
 371              connectivity.
 372 Technician:  [xxx]
 373 </pre></blockquote>
 374
 375 <p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
 376 been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
 377 into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
 378 dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
 379 people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time
 380 format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
 381 that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p>
 382
 383 <p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
 384 good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
 385 university too.  We do register
 386 <a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned
 387 changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing
 388 list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
 389 report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
 390 for other sites to consider too?</p>
 391
 392       </div>
 393       <div class="tags">
 394
 395
 396         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>.
 397
 398
 399       </div>
 400     </div>
 401     <div class="padding"></div>
 402
 403     <div class="entry">
 404       <div class="title">
 405         <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>
 406       </div>
 407       <div class="date">
 408         22nd October 2012
 409       </div>
 410       <div class="body">
 411         <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
 412 <a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how
 413 Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account
 414 and refuse to tell the customer why</a>.  If a real book store did
 415 this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
 416 and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
 417 background information is available in Norwegian from
 418 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>.
 419 It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
 420 this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
 421 introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
 422 willing to
 423 <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html">
 424 break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had
 425 bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
 426 customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
 427 sounded like
 428 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon
 429 would never do that again</a>.  And here we are, three years
 430 later.</p>
 431
 432 <p>And thought this action is
 433 <a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against
 434 Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use
 435 as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
 436 Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
 437 of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
 438 rights.</p>
 439
 440 <p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
 441 unacceptable terms.  For example
 442 <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000
 443 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652
 444 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet
 445 Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
 446 can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p>
 447
 448 <p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
 449 the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
 450 restored the account of the user, as reported by
 451 <a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a>
 452 and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>.
 453 Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
 454 several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
 455 a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
 456 account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
 457 reading two opinions from
 458 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon
 459 Phipps</a> and
 460 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen
 461 Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
 462 details about the original story.</p>
 463
 464       </div>
 465       <div class="tags">
 466
 467
 468         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>.
 469
 470
 471       </div>
 472     </div>
 473     <div class="padding"></div>
 474
 475     <div class="entry">
 476       <div class="title">
 477         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html">The fight for freedom and privacy</a>
 478       </div>
 479       <div class="date">
 480         18th October 2012
 481       </div>
 482       <div class="body">
 483         <p>Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
 484 drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
 485 time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
 486 across a marvellous drawing by
 487 <a href="http://www.claybennett.com/about.html">Clay Bennett</a>
 488 visualising some of what is going on.
 489
 490 <p><a href="http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html">
 491 <img src="http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg"></a></p>
 492
 493 <blockquote>
 494 «They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
 495 safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
 496 </blockquote>
 497
 498 <p>Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
 499 you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
 500 leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
 501 just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the
 502 Panopticom</a>, and can not help help to think that we are slowly
 503 transforming our society to a huge Panopticom on our own.</p>
 504
 505       </div>
 506       <div class="tags">
 507
 508
 509         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>.
 510
 511
 512       </div>
 513     </div>
 514     <div class="padding"></div>
 515
 516     <div class="entry">
 517       <div class="title">
 518         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ColonHelp_produser_sue_WordPress_to_silence_critic.html">ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic</a>
 519       </div>
 520       <div class="date">
 521         12th October 2012
 522       </div>
 523       <div class="body">
 524         <p>Thanks to a blog post by
 525 <a href="http://ramblingfoo.blogspot.no/2012/10/a-shitstorm-is-comming.html">Eddy
 526 Petrișor</a>, I became aware of yet another "alternative medicine"
 527 company using legal intimidation tactics to scare off critics.
 528 According to the originating blog post about the detox "cure"
 529 <a href="http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/">ColonHelp
 530 and its producers Zenyth Pharmaceuticals actions</a>, the producer
 531 sues Wordpress to get rid of the critical information.  To check if
 532 the story was for real, I contacted Automattic, the company behind
 533 wordpress.com, and they reply was "We can confirm that Zenyth is
 534 seeking a court order against WordPress / Automattic.  However, we
 535 don't believe the Terms of Service have been violated in this
 536 matter".</p>
 537
 538 <p>The story seem to be simply that a blogger checked the scientific
 539 foundation for a popular health product in Rumania, ColonHelp, and
 540 reported that there was no reason at all to believe it improved the
 541 health of its users.  This caused the company behind the product,
 542 Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, to use legal intimidation to try to silence
 543 the critic, instead of presenting its views and scientific foundation
 544 to argue its side.</p>
 545
 546 <p>This is the usual story, and the Zenyth Pharmaceuticals company
 547 deserve everyone to know how it failed to act properly.  Lets hope the
 548 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect">Streisand
 549 effect</a> can make it rethink its strategy.</p>
 550
 551 <p>What is the harm, you might think.  I suggest you take a look at
 552 <a href="http://www.whatstheharm.net/detoxification.html">a list of
 553 victims of detoxification</a>.</p>
 554
 555       </div>
 556       <div class="tags">
 557
 558
 559         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>.
 560
 561
 562       </div>
 563     </div>
 564     <div class="padding"></div>
 565
 566     <div class="entry">
 567       <div class="title">
 568         <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>
 569       </div>
 570       <div class="date">
 571          3rd October 2012
 572       </div>
 573       <div class="body">
 574         <p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
 575 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
 576 the computer science book collection available in his local
 577 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
 578 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
 579 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
 580 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
 581 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
 582 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
 583 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
 584 recently published books.</p>
 585
 586 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
 587 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
 588 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
 589 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
 590 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
 591 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
 592 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
 593 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
 594 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
 595 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
 596 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
 597 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
 598 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
 599 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
 600 for the library that evening.</p>
 601
 602 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
 603 going to know that for example
 604 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
 605 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
 606 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
 607 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
 608 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
 609 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
 610 book right away.</p>
 611
 612       </div>
 613       <div class="tags">
 614
 615
 616         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
 617
 618
 619       </div>
 620     </div>
 621     <div class="padding"></div>
 622
 623     <div class="entry">
 624       <div class="title">
 625         <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>
 626       </div>
 627       <div class="date">
 628         23rd September 2012
 629       </div>
 630       <div class="body">
 631         <p>Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian <a
 632 href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book <a
 633 href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
 634 The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist
 635 in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for
 636 those that are reluctant do read an English book.
 637
 638 When I started, I
 639 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
 640 for volunteers</a> to help me, but too few have volunteered so far,
 641 and progress is a bit slow.  Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent
 642 mark for the first rough translation.  At the moment, less than 700
 643 strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate.  With
 644 my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to
 645 complete the translation.  This graph show the updated progress:</p>
 646
 647 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
 648
 649 <p>Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work
 650 commitments.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out
 651 the project files currently available from
 652 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
 653
 654 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
 655 the updated
 656 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
 657 and
 658 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
 659 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
 660 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
 661 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
 662
 663       </div>
 664       <div class="tags">
 665
 666
 667         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>.
 668
 669
 670       </div>
 671     </div>
 672     <div class="padding"></div>
 673
 674     <div class="entry">
 675       <div class="title">
 676         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Giorgio_Pioda.html">Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda</a>
 677       </div>
 678       <div class="date">
 679         17th September 2012
 680       </div>
 681       <div class="body">
 682         <p>After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the
 683 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
 684 community, I finally found time to wrap up another.  This time it is
 685 Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of
 686 this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time
 687 administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was
 688 conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.</p>
 689
 690 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
 691
 692 <p>I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher
 693 in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light"
 694 university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning
 695 Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with
 696 IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I
 697 got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry
 698 labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in
 699 the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self
 700 training is anyway very important</p>
 701
 702 <p>I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the
 703 <a href="http://www.spse.ch/">SPSE school</a> (secondary) is a very
 704 special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for
 705 all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are
 706 recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation.
 707
 708 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
 709 project?</strong></p>
 710
 711 <p>Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it
 712 already several years ago. But since the system was still not
 713 Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't
 714 use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the
 715 next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security
 716 hole.</p>
 717
 718 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 719 Edu?</strong></p>
 720
 721 <p>Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is
 722 very generous for help and hints.  Chat help is crucial, together with
 723 the mailing list.  Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well
 724 engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC
 725 and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I
 726 can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard
 727 platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the
 728 head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much
 729 hassle.</p>
 730
 731 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
 732 Edu?</strong></p>
 733
 734 <p>The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less
 735 flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but
 736 there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the
 737 need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some
 738 devices that have specific software packages for another specific
 739 distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only
 740 Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient
 741 and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)</p>
 742
 743 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
 744
 745 <p>I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with
 746 mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad
 747 combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that
 748 <a href="http://moo.nac.uci.edu/~hjm/Perceus-Report.html">Perceus</a>
 749 has the same...</p>
 750
 751 <p>For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good
 752 only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if
 753 something breaks.  Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R
 754 statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.</p>
 755
 756 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
 757 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
 758
 759 <P>I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is
 760 cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability,
 761 just because they are normally not open to change.</p>
 762
 763 <p>Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able
 764 to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers
 765 don't.</p>
 766
 767 <p>We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own
 768 laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use;
 769 we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20
 770 machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been
 771 reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official
 772 repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux.
 773 Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.</p>
 774
 775       </div>
 776       <div class="tags">
 777
 778
 779         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>.
 780
 781
 782       </div>
 783     </div>
 784     <div class="padding"></div>
 785
 786     <div class="entry">
 787       <div class="title">
 788         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html">IETF activity to standardise video codec</a>
 789       </div>
 790       <div class="date">
 791         15th September 2012
 792       </div>
 793       <div class="body">
 794         <p>After the
 795 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">Opus
 796 codec made</a> it into <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> as
 797 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716</a>, I had a look
 798 to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
 799 too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
 800 area.  A non-"working group" mailing list
 801 <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec">video-codec</a>
 802 was
 803 <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
 804 formal working group should be formed.</p>
 805
 806 <p>I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
 807 <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html">an
 808 email from someone</a> in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
 809 participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
 810 that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
 811 multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
 812 joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
 813 involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.</p>
 814
 815 <p>If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
 816 join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
 817 IETF.</p>
 818
 819       </div>
 820       <div class="tags">
 821
 822
 823         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>.
 824
 825
 826       </div>
 827     </div>
 828     <div class="padding"></div>
 829
 830     <div class="entry">
 831       <div class="title">
 832         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html">IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</a>
 833       </div>
 834       <div class="date">
 835         12th September 2012
 836       </div>
 837       <div class="body">
 838         <p>Yesterday, <a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> announced the
 839 publication of of
 840 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716">RFC 6716, the Definition
 841 of the Opus Audio Codec</a>, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
 842 intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
 843 far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
 844 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533">RFC 3533</a>, IETF
 845 standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
 846 royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
 847 continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
 848 have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
 849 multimedia content on the Internet.</p>
 850
 851 <p>IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
 852 ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
 853 free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
 854 poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.</p>
 855
 856 <p>Visit the <a href="http://opus-codec.org/">Opus project page</a> if
 857 you want to learn more about the solution.</p>
 858
 859       </div>
 860       <div class="tags">
 861
 862
 863         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>.
 864
 865
 866       </div>
 867     </div>
 868     <div class="padding"></div>
 869
 870     <div class="entry">
 871       <div class="title">
 872         <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>
 873       </div>
 874       <div class="date">
 875          7th September 2012
 876       </div>
 877       <div class="body">
 878         <p>As I
 879 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">mentioned
 880 this summer</a>, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
 881 years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
 882 <a href="https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook">Gitorious
 883 repository for the project</a>.</p>
 884
 885 <p>If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
 886 to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
 887 please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
 888 processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.</p>
 889
 890 <p>Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
 891 PostScript formats at
 892 <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's Computer
 893 Science Songbook</a>.</p>
 894
 895       </div>
 896       <div class="tags">
 897
 898
 899         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>.
 900
 901
 902       </div>
 903     </div>
 904     <div class="padding"></div>
 905
 906     <div class="entry">
 907       <div class="title">
 908         <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>
 909       </div>
 910       <div class="date">
 911         23rd August 2012
 912       </div>
 913       <div class="body">
 914         <p>I came across a great comment from Simon Phipps today, about how
 915 <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/how-microsoft-was-forced-open-office-200233">Microsoft
 916 have been forced to open Office</a>, and it made me remember and
 917 revisit the great site
 918 <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">officeshots</a> which allow you
 919 to check out how different programs present the ODF file format.  I
 920 recommend both to those of my readers interested in ODF. :)</p>
 921
 922       </div>
 923       <div class="tags">
 924
 925
 926         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>.
 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/Half_way_there_with_translated_docbook_version_of_Free_Culture.html">Half way there with translated docbook version of Free Culture</a>
 936       </div>
 937       <div class="date">
 938         17th August 2012
 939       </div>
 940       <div class="body">
 941         <p>In my spare time, I currently work on a Norwegian
 942 <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
 943 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig,
 944 to get a Norwegian text explaining the problems with the copyright law
 945 I can give to my parents and others that are reluctant to read an
 946 English book.  It is a marvellous set of examples on how the ever
 947 expanding copyright regulations hurt culture and society.  When the
 948 translation is done, I hope to find funding to print and ship a copy
 949 to all the members of the Norwegian parliament, before they sit down
 950 to debate the latest revisions to the Norwegian copyright law.  This
 951 summer I
 952 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">called
 953 for volunteers</a> to help me, and I have been able to secure the
 954 valuable contribution from at least one other Norwegian.</p>
 955
 956 <p>Two days ago, we finally broke the 50% mark.  Then more than 50% of
 957 the number of strings to translate (normally paragraphs, but also
 958 titles and index entries are also counted).  All parts from the
 959 beginning up to and including chapter four is translated.  So is
 960 chapters six, seven and the conclusion.  I created a graph to show the
 961 progress:</p>
 962
 963 <img width="80%" align="center" src="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/progress.png">
 964
 965 <p>The number of strings to translate increase as I insert the index
 966 entries into the docbook.  They were missing with the docbook version
 967 I initially started with.  There are still quite a few index entries
 968 missing, but everyone starting with A, B, O, Z and Y are done.  I
 969 currently focus on completing the index entries, to get a complete
 970 english version of the docbook source.</p>
 971
 972 <p>There is still need for translators and people with docbook
 973 knowledge, to be able to get a good looking book (I still struggle
 974 with dblatex, xmlto and docbook-xsl) as well as to do the draft
 975 translation and proof reading.  And I would like the figures to be
 976 redrawn as SVGs to make it easy to translate them.  Any SVG master
 977 around?  I am sure there are some legal terms that are unfamiliar to
 978 me.  If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out the
 979 project files currently available from <a
 980 href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
 981
 982 <p>If you are curious what the translated book currently look like,
 983 the updated
 984 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>
 985 and
 986 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
 987 are published on github.  The HTML version is published as well, but
 988 github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I
 989 saw no point in linking to that version.</p>
 990
 991       </div>
 992       <div class="tags">
 993
 994
 995         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>.
 996
 997
 998       </div>
 999     </div>
1000     <div class="padding"></div>
1001
1002     <div class="entry">
1003       <div class="title">
1004         <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>
1005       </div>
1006       <div class="date">
1007         10th August 2012
1008       </div>
1009       <div class="body">
1010         <p>In <a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> one can specify
1011 the language used at the top, and the processing pipeline will use
1012 this information to pick the correct translations for 'chapter', 'see
1013 also', 'index' etc.  And for most languages used with docbook, I guess
1014 this work just fine.  For example a German user can start the document
1015 with &lt;book lang="de"&gt;, and the document will show up with the
1016 correct content with any of the docbook processors.  This is not the
1017 case for the language
1018 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Culture_in_Norwegian___5_chapters_done__74_percent_left_to_do.html">I
1019 am working with at the moment</a>, Norwegian Bokmål.</p>
1020
1021 <p>For a while, I was confused about which language code to use,
1022 because I was unable to find any language code that would work across
1023 all tools.  I am currently testing dblatex, xmlto, docbook-xsl, and
1024 dbtoepub, and they do not handle Norwegian Bokmål the same way.  Some
1025 of them do not handle it at all.</p>
1026
1027 <p>A bit of background information is probably needed to understand
1028 this mess.  Norwegian is not one, but two written variants.  The
1029 variants are Norwegian Nynorsk and Norwegian Bokmål.  There are three
1030 two letter language codes associated with these languages, Norwegian
1031 is 'no', Norwegian Nynorsk is 'nn' and Norwegian Bokmål is 'nb'.
1032 Historically the 'no' language code was used for Norwegian Bokmål, but
1033 many years ago this was found to be å bad idea, and the recommendation
1034 is to use the most specific language code instead, to avoid confusion.
1035 In the transition period it is a good idea to make sure 'no' was an
1036 alias for 'nb'.</p>
1037
1038 <p>Back to docbook processing tools in Debian.  The dblatex tool only
1039 understand 'nn'.  There are translations for 'no', but not 'nb' (BTS
1040 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/684391">#684391</a>), but due to a bug
1041 (BTS <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">#682936</a>) the 'no'
1042 language code is not recognised.  The docbook-xsl tool chain only
1043 recognise 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The xmlto tool only recognise
1044 'nn' and 'nb', but not 'no'.  The end result that there is no language
1045 code I can use to get the docbook file working with all of these tools
1046 at the same time. :(</p>
1047
1048 <p>The correct solution is to use &lt;book lang="nb"&gt;, but it will
1049 take time before that will work with all the free software docbook
1050 processors. :(</p>
1051
1052 <p>Oh, the joy of well integrated tools. :/</p>
1053
1054       </div>
1055       <div class="tags">
1056
1057
1058         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>.
1059
1060
1061       </div>
1062     </div>
1063     <div class="padding"></div>
1064
1065     <div class="entry">
1066       <div class="title">
1067         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best_way_to_create_a_docbook_book_.html">Best way to create a docbook book?</a>
1068       </div>
1069       <div class="date">
1070         31st July 2012
1071       </div>
1072       <div class="body">
1073         <p>I tried to send this text to the
1074 <a href="https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-apps/">docbook-apps
1075 mailing list at lists.oasis-open.org</a>, but it only accept messages
1076 from subscribers and rejected my post, and I completely lack the
1077 bandwidth required to subscribe to another mailing list, so instead I
1078 try to post my message here and hope my blog readers can help me
1079 out.</p>
1080
1081 <p>I am quite new to docbook processing, and am climbing a steep
1082 learning curve at the moment.</p>
1083
1084 <p>To give you some background, I am working on a Norwegian
1085 translation of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, and I use
1086 docbook to handle the process.  The files to build the book are
1087 available from
1088 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.
1089 The book got around 400 pages with parts, images, footnotes, tables,
1090 index entries etc, which has proven to be a challenge for the free
1091 software docbook processors.  My build platform is Debian GNU/Linux
1092 Squeeze.</p>
1093
1094 <p>I want to build PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book, and have
1095 tried different tool chains to do the conversion from docbook to these
1096 formats.  I am currently focusing on the PDF version, and have a few
1097 problems.</p>
1098
1099 <ul>
1100
1101 <li>Using dblatex, the &lt;part&gt; handling is not the way I want to,
1102    as &lt;/part&gt; do not really end the &lt;part&gt;. (See
1103    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683166">BTS report #683166</a>), the
1104    xetex backend (needed to process UTF-8) give incorrect hyphens in
1105    index references spanning several pages (See
1106    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682901">BTS report #682901</a>), and
1107    I am unable to get the norwegian template texts (See
1108    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/682936">BTS report #682936</a>).</li>
1109
1110 <li>Using straight xmlto fail with some latex error (See
1111    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683163">BTS report
1112    #683163</a>).</li>
1113
1114 <li>Using xmlto with the fop backend fail to handle images (do not
1115    show up in the PDF), fail to handle a long footnote (overlap
1116    footnote and text body, see
1117    <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/683197">BTS report #683197</a>), and
1118    fail to create a correct index (some lack page ref, and the page
1119    refs listed are not right).</li>
1120
1121 <li>Using xmlto with the dblatex backend behave like dblatex.</li>
1122
1123 <li>Using docbook-xls with xsltproc + fop have the same footnote and
1124    index problems the xmlto + fop processing.</li>
1125
1126 </ul>
1127
1128 <p>So I wonder, what would be the best way to create the PDF version
1129 of this book?  Are some of the bugs found above solved in new or
1130 experimental versions of some docbook tool chain?</p>
1131
1132 <p>What about HTML and EPUB versions?</p>
1133
1134       </div>
1135       <div class="tags">
1136
1137
1138         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>.
1139
1140
1141       </div>
1142     </div>
1143     <div class="padding"></div>
1144
1145     <div class="entry">
1146       <div class="title">
1147         <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>
1148       </div>
1149       <div class="date">
1150         21st July 2012
1151       </div>
1152       <div class="body">
1153         <p>I reported earlier that I am working on
1154 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">a
1155 norwegian version</a> of the book
1156 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
1157 Progress is good, and yesterday I got a major contribution from Anders
1158 Hagen Jarmund completing chapter six.  The source files as well as a
1159 PDF and EPUB version of this book are available from
1160 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
1161
1162 <p>I am happy to report that the draft for the first two chapters
1163 (preface, introduction) is complete, and three other chapters are also
1164 completely translated.  This completes 26 percent of the number of
1165 strings (equivalent to paragraphs) in the book, and there is thus 74
1166 percent left to translate.  A graph of the progress is present at the
1167 bottom of the github project page.  There is still room for more
1168 contributors.  Get in touch or send github pull requests with fixes if
1169 you got time and are willing to help make this book make it to
1170 print. :)</p>
1171
1172 <p>The book translation framework could also be a good basis for other
1173 translations, if you want the book to be available in your
1174 language.</p>
1175
1176       </div>
1177       <div class="tags">
1178
1179
1180         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>.
1181
1182
1183       </div>
1184     </div>
1185     <div class="padding"></div>
1186
1187     <div class="entry">
1188       <div class="title">
1189         <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>
1190       </div>
1191       <div class="date">
1192         16th July 2012
1193       </div>
1194       <div class="body">
1195         <p>I am currently working on a
1196 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dugnad_for___sende_norsk_versjon_av_Free_Culture_til_stortingets_representanter_.html">project
1197 to translate</a> the book
1198 <a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig
1199 to Norwegian.  And the source we base our translation on is the
1200 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook">docbook</a> version, to
1201 allow us to use po4a and .po files to handle the translation, and for
1202 this to work well the docbook source document need to be properly
1203 tagged.  The source files of this project is available from
1204 <a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>.</p>
1205
1206 <p>The problem is that the docbook source have flaws, and we have
1207 no-one involved in the project that is a docbook expert.  Is there a
1208 docbook expert somewhere that is interested in helping us create a
1209 well tagged docbook version of the book, and adjust our build process
1210 for the PDF, EPUB and HTML version of the book?  This will provide a
1211 well tagged English version (our source document), and make it a lot
1212 easier for us to create a good Norwegian version.  If you can and want
1213 to help, please get in touch with me or fork the github project and
1214 send pull requests with fixes. :)</p>
1215
1216       </div>
1217       <div class="tags">
1218
1219
1220         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>.
1221
1222
1223       </div>
1224     </div>
1225     <div class="padding"></div>
1226
1227     <div class="entry">
1228       <div class="title">
1229         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__George_Bredberg.html">Debian Edu interview: George Bredberg</a>
1230       </div>
1231       <div class="date">
1232          9th July 2012
1233       </div>
1234       <div class="body">
1235         <p>The <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
1236 Skolelinux</a> project have users all over the globe, but until
1237 recently we have not known about any users in Norway's neighbour
1238 country Sweden.  This changed when George Bredberg showed up in March
1239 this year on the mailing list, asking interesting questions about how
1240 to adjust and scale the just released
1241 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
1242 Wheezy</a> setup to his liking.  He granted me an interview, and I am
1243 happy to share his answers with you here.</p>
1244
1245 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1246
1247 <p>I'm a 44 year old country guy that have been working 12 years at
1248 the same school as 50% IT-manager and 50% Teacher. My educational
1249 background is fil.kand in history and religious beliefs, an exam as a
1250 "folkhighschool" teacher, that is, for teaching grownups.  In
1251 Norwegian I believe it's called "Vuxenupplaring". I also have a master
1252 in "Technology and social change". So I'm not really a tech guy, I
1253 just like to study how humans and technology interact and that is my
1254 perspective when working with IT.</p>
1255
1256 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1257 project?</strong></p>
1258
1259 I have followed the Skolelinux project for quite some time by
1260 now. Earlier I tested out the K12-LTSP project, which we used for some
1261 time, but I really like the idea of having a distribution aimed to be
1262 a complete solution for schools with necessary tools integrated. When
1263 K12-LTSP abandoned that idea some years ago, I started to look more
1264 seriously into Skolelinux instead.
1265
1266 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1267 Edu?</strong></p>
1268
1269 The big point of Skolelinux to me is that it is a complete
1270 distribution, ready to install. It has LDAP-support, MS Windows
1271 integration tools and so forth already configured, saving an
1272 administrator a lot of time and headache. We were using another Linux
1273 based thin-client system called Thinlinc, that has served us very
1274 well. But that Skolelinux is based on VNC and LTSP, to me, is better
1275 when it comes to the kind of multimedia used in schools. That is
1276 showing videos from Youtube or educational TV. It is also easier to
1277 mix thin clients with workstations, since the user settings will be the
1278 same. In our VNC-based solution you had to "beat around the bush" by
1279 setting up a second, hidden, home-directory for user settings for the
1280 workstations, because they will be different from the ones used on the
1281 thin clients. Skolelinux support for diskless workstations are very
1282 convenient since a school today often need to use a class room
1283 projector showing videos in full screen. That is easily done with a
1284 small integrated media computer running as a diskless workstation. You
1285 have only two installs to update and configure. One for the thin
1286 clients and one for the workstations. Also saving a lot of time.  Our
1287 old system was also based on Redhat and CentOS. They are both very
1288 nice distributions, but they are sometimes painfully slow when it
1289 comes to updating multimedia support and multimedia programs (even
1290 such as Gimp), leaving us with a bit "oldish" applications. Debian is
1291 quicker to update.
1292
1293 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1294 Edu?</strong></p>
1295
1296 <p>Debian is a bit too quick when it comes to updating. As an example
1297 we use old HP terminals as thinclients, and two times already this
1298 year (2012) the updates you get from the repositories has stopped
1299 sound from working with them.  It's a kernel/ALSA issue. So you have
1300 to be more careful properly testing the updates before you run them in
1301 a production environment. This has never happened with CentOS.</p>
1302
1303 <p>I also would like to be able to set my own domain-settings at
1304 install time.  In Skolelinux they are kind of hard coded into the
1305 distribution, when it comes to LDAP and at least samba integration.
1306 That is more a cosmetic/translation issue, and not a real problem.
1307 Running MS Windows applications within the Skolelinux environment needs
1308 to be better supported. That is, running them seamlessly via RDP, and
1309 support for single-sign on.  That will make the transition to free
1310 software easier, because you can keep the applications you really
1311 need.  No support will make it impossible if you work in a school where
1312 some applications can't be open source. As for us we really need to
1313 run Adobe InDesign in our journalist classes.  We run a journalist
1314 education, and is one of the very few non university ones that is ok:d
1315 by Svenska journalistförbundet (Swedish journalist association).  Our
1316 education gives the pupils the right of membership there, once they
1317 are done.  This is important if you want to get a job.</p>
1318
1319 <p>Adobe InDesign is the program most commonly used in newspapers and
1320 magazines.  We used Quark Express before, but they seem to loose there
1321 market to Adobe. The only "equivalent" to InDesign in the opensource
1322 world is Scribus, and its not advanced enough. At least not according
1323 to the teacher. I think it would be possible to use it, because they
1324 are not supposed to learn a program, they are supposed to learn how to
1325 edit and compile a newspaper.  But politically at our school we are not
1326 there yet.  And Scribus lacks a lot of things you find i InDesign.</p>
1327
1328 <p>We used even a windows program for sound editing when it comes to
1329 the radio-journalist part. The year to come we are going to try
1330 Audacity. That software has the same kind of limitations compared to
1331 Adobe Audition, but that teacher is a bit more open minded. We have
1332 tried Ardour also, but that instead is more like a music studio
1333 program, not intended for the kind of editing taking place in a radio
1334 studio. Its way to complex and the GUI is to scattered when you only
1335 want to cut, make pass-overs, add extra channels and normalise.  Those
1336 things you can do in Audacity, but its not as easy as in Audition. You
1337 have to do more things manually with envelopes, and that is a bit old
1338 fashion and timewasting. Its also harder to cut and move sound from
1339 one channel to another, which is a thing that you do frequently
1340 because you often find yourself needing to rearrange parts of the
1341 sound file.</p>
1342
1343 <p>So, I am not sure we will succeed in replacing even Audition, but we
1344 will try.  The problem is the students have certain expectations when
1345 they start an education towards a profession.  So the programs has to
1346 look and feel professional.  Good thing with radio, there are many
1347 programs out there, that radio studios use, so its not as standardised
1348 as Newspaper editing. That means, it does not really matter what
1349 program they learn, because once they start working they still have to
1350 learn the program the studio uses, so instead focus has to be to learn
1351 the editing part without to much focus on a specific software.</p>
1352
1353 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1354
1355 <p>Myself I'm running Linux Mint, or Ubuntu these days.  I use almost
1356 only open source software, and preferably Linux based. When it comes
1357 to most used applications its OpenOffice, and Firefox (of course ;)
1358 )</p>
1359
1360 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1361 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1362
1363 <p>To get schools to use free software there has to be good open
1364 source software that are windows based, to ease the transition. But
1365 it's also very important that the multimedia support is working
1366 flawlessly.  The problems with Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and whatever
1367 will create problems when it comes to both teachers and
1368 students. Economy are also important for schools, so using thin
1369 clients, as long as they have good multimedia support, is a very good
1370 idea. It's also important that the open source software works even for
1371 the administration.  It's hard to convince the teachers to stick with
1372 open source, if the principal has to run Windows.  It also creates a
1373 problem if some classes has to use Windows for there tasks, since that
1374 will create a difference in "status" between classes, so a good
1375 support for running windows applications via the thin client (Linux)
1376 desktop is essential.  At least at our school, where we have mixed
1377 level of educations, from high-school to journalist-school.</p>
1378
1379 <p>Update 2012-07-09 08:30: Paul Wise tipped me on IRC about three
1380 useful sources related to Free Software for radio stations: the LWN
1381 article <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/481607/">Radio station
1382 management with Airtime</a>,
1383 <a href="http://www.sourcefabric.org/en/airtime/">Airtime</a> which
1384 claim to be a Free open source radio automation software and
1385 <a href="http://www.rivendellaudio.org/">Rivendell</a> which claim to
1386 be complete radio broadcast automation solution.  All of them seem
1387 useful to the aspiring radio producer.</p>
1388
1389       </div>
1390       <div class="tags">
1391
1392
1393         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>.
1394
1395
1396       </div>
1397     </div>
1398     <div class="padding"></div>
1399
1400     <div class="entry">
1401       <div class="title">
1402         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_do_schools_waste_money_on_IT_.html">Why do schools waste money on IT?</a>
1403       </div>
1404       <div class="date">
1405          8th July 2012
1406       </div>
1407       <div class="body">
1408         <p>In the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project, we have realised that one
1409 of the major blockers for the project success is the purchasing skills
1410 in schools and municipalities.  We provide what the happy users of
1411 Debian Edu / Skolelinux say they need and to a lower cost than the
1412 alternatives, and yet so few schools decide to use our solution.  I
1413 was pleased to discover the same observation done by mySociety and Tom
1414 Steinberg in his blog post
1415 "<a href="http://www.mysociety.org/2012/06/19/can-you-recognize-the-million-pound-chair/">Can
1416 you recognize the million pound chair?</a>".  Read it and weep for the
1417 spending of your tax money.</p>
1418
1419 <p>Of course there are other factors involved as well, like our
1420 projects bad marketing skills and the Linux community fragmentation
1421 causing worry with the people on the outside, so we as a project need
1422 to keep working hard to gain users, but it is a up-hill battle when
1423 public decision makers are unable to understand computer system
1424 purchases.</p>
1425
1426       </div>
1427       <div class="tags">
1428
1429
1430         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>.
1431
1432
1433       </div>
1434     </div>
1435     <div class="padding"></div>
1436
1437     <div class="entry">
1438       <div class="title">
1439         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Timetabling_Software___nice_free_software.html">Free Timetabling Software - nice free software</a>
1440       </div>
1441       <div class="date">
1442          7th July 2012
1443       </div>
1444       <div class="body">
1445         <p>Included in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
1446 Skolelinux</a> is a large collection of end user and school specific
1447 software.  It is one of the packages not installed by default but
1448 provided in the Debian archive for schools to install if they want to,
1449 is a system to automatically plan the school time table using
1450 information about available teachers, classes and rooms, combined with
1451 the list of required courses and how many hours each topic should
1452 receive.  The software is
1453
1454 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/">named FET</a>, and it provide a
1455 graphical user interface to input the required information, save the
1456 result in a fairly simple XML format, and generate time tables for
1457 both teachers and students.  It is available both for
1458 <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/download.html">Linux, MacOSX and
1459 Windows</a>.</p>
1460
1461 <p>This is <a href="http://lalescu.ro/liviu/fet/features.html">the
1462 feature list</a>, liftet from the project web site:</p>
1463
1464 <p><ul>
1465
1466   <li>FET is free software, licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later.
1467     You can freely use, copy, modify and redistribute it </li>
1468
1469   <li>Localized to en_US (US English, default), ar (Arabic), ca
1470     (Catalan), da (Danish), de (German), el (Greek), es (Spanish), fa
1471     (Persian), fr (French), gl (Galician), he (Hebrew), hu
1472     (Hungarian), id (Indonesian), it (Italian), lt (Lithuanian), mk
1473     (Macedonian), ms (Malay), nl (Dutch), pl (Polish), pt_BR
1474     (Brazilian Portuguese), ro (Romanian), ru (Russian), si (Sinhala),
1475     sk (Slovak), sr (Serbian), tr (Turkish), uk (Ukrainian), uz
1476     (Uzbek) and vi (Vietnamese) (incompletely for some languages)
1477     </li>
1478
1479   <li>Fully automatic generation algorithm, allowing also
1480     semi-automatic or manual allocation</li>
1481
1482   <li>Platform independent implementation, allowing running on
1483     GNU/Linux, Windows, Mac and any system that Qt supports </li>
1484
1485   <li>Flexible modular XML format for the input file, allowing editing
1486     with an XML editor or by hand (besides FET interface)</li>
1487
1488   <li>Import/export from CSV format</li>
1489
1490   <li>The resulted timetables are exported into HTML, XML and CSV
1491     formats </li>
1492
1493   <li>Flexible students structure, organized into sets: years, groups
1494     and subgroups. FET allows overlapping years and groups and
1495     non-overlapping subgroups. You can even define individual students
1496     (as separate sets)</li>
1497
1498   <li>Each constraint has a weight percentage, from 0.0% to 100.0%
1499     (but some special constraints are allowed to have only 100% weight
1500     percentage)</li>
1501
1502   <li>Limits for the algorithm (all these limits can be increased on
1503     demand, as a custom version, because this would require a bit more
1504     memory):
1505     <ul>
1506       <li>Maximum total number of hours (periods) per day: 60</li>
1507       <li>Maximum number of working days per week: 35</li>
1508       <li>Maximum total number of teachers: 6000</li>
1509       <li>Maximum total number of sets of students: 30000</li>
1510       <li>Maximum total number of subjects: 6000</li>
1511       <li>Virtually unlimited number of activity tags</li>
1512       <li>Maximum number of activities: 30000</li>
1513       <li>Maximum number of rooms: 6000</li>
1514       <li>Maximum number of buildings: 6000</li>
1515       <li>Possibility of adding multiple teachers and
1516           students sets for each activity.  (it is possible
1517           also to have no teachers or no students sets for an
1518           activity)</li>
1519       <li>Virtually unlimited number of time constraints</li>
1520       <li>Virtually unlimited number of space constraints</li>
1521     </ul></li>
1522
1523   <li>A large and flexible palette of time constraints:
1524     <ul>
1525       <li>Break periods</li>
1526       <li>For teacher(s):
1527         <ul>
1528           <li>Not available periods</li>
1529           <li>Max/min days per week</li>
1530           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
1531           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
1532           <li>Min hours daily</li>
1533           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
1534
1535           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
1536             days per week</li>
1537         </ul></li>
1538       <li>For students (sets):
1539         <ul>
1540           <li>Not available periods</li>
1541           <li>Begins early (specify max allowed beginnings at second hour)</li>
1542           <li>Max gaps per day/week</li>
1543           <li>Max hours daily/continuously</li>
1544           <li>Min hours daily</li>
1545           <li>Max hours daily/continuously with an activity tag</li>
1546
1547           <li>Respect working in an hourly interval a max number of
1548             days per week</li>
1549         </ul></li>
1550       <li>For an activity or a set of activities/subactivities:
1551         <ul>
1552           <li>A single preferred starting time</li>
1553           <li>A set of preferred starting times</li>
1554           <li>A set of preferred time slots</li>
1555           <li>Min/max days between them</li>
1556           <li>End(s) students day</li>
1557           <li>Same starting time/day/hour</li>
1558           <li>Occupy max time slots from selection (a complex and
1559             flexible constraint, useful in many situations)</li>
1560           <li>Consecutive, ordered, grouped (for 2 or 3 (sub)activities)</li>
1561           <li>Not overlapping</li>
1562           <li>Max simultaneous in selected time slots</li>
1563           <li>Min gaps between a set of (sub)activities</li>
1564         </ul></li>
1565     </ul></li>
1566
1567   <li>A large and flexible palette of space constraints:
1568     <ul>
1569       <li>Room not available periods</li>
1570       <li>For teacher(s):
1571         <ul>
1572           <li>Home room(s)</li>
1573           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
1574           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
1575         </ul>
1576       </li>
1577
1578       <li>For students (sets):
1579         <ul>
1580           <li>Home room(s)</li>
1581           <li>Max building changes per day/week</li>
1582           <li>Min gaps between building changes</li>
1583         </ul>
1584       </li>
1585       <li>Preferred room(s):
1586         <ul>
1587           <li>For a subject</li>
1588           <li>For an activity tag</li>
1589           <li>For a subject and an activity tag</li>
1590           <li>Individually for a (sub)activity</li>
1591         </ul>
1592       </li>
1593
1594       <li>For a set of activities:
1595         <ul>
1596           <li>Occupy a maximum number of different rooms</li>
1597         </ul>
1598       </li>
1599     </ul>
1600   </li>
1601 </ul></p>
1602
1603 <p>I have not used it myself, as I am not involved in time table
1604 planning at a school, but it seem to work fine when I test it.  If you
1605 need to set up your schools time table, and is tired of doing it
1606 manually, check it out.
1607
1608 A quick summary on how to use it can be found in
1609 <a href="http://marvelsoft.co.in/wp/2012/03/generate-timetable-for-state-cbse-icse-igcse-schools-free/">a
1610 blog post from MarvelSoft</a>.  If you find FET useful, please provide
1611 a recipe for the Debian Edu project in the
1612 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu#Howtos">Debian Edu HowTo
1613 section</a>.</p>
1614
1615       </div>
1616       <div class="tags">
1617
1618
1619         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>.
1620
1621
1622       </div>
1623     </div>
1624     <div class="padding"></div>
1625
1626     <div class="entry">
1627       <div class="title">
1628         <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>
1629       </div>
1630       <div class="date">
1631          3rd July 2012
1632       </div>
1633       <div class="body">
1634         <p>In the NUUG <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a>
1635 project (Norwegian version of
1636 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> from
1637 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a>), we have discovered
1638 a problem with the municipalities using
1639 <a href="http://www.zimbra.com/">Zimbra</a>.  When FiksGataMi send a
1640 problem report to the government, the email From: address is set to
1641 the address of the person reporting the problem, while envelope sender
1642 is set to the FiksGataMi contact address.  The intention is to make
1643 sure the municipality send any replies to the person reporting the
1644 problem, while any email delivery problems are sent to us in NUUG.
1645 This work well in most cases, but not for Karmøy municipality using
1646 Zimbra.  Karmøy is using the vacation message function in Zimbra to
1647 send an automatic reply to report that the message has been received,
1648 and this message is sent to the envelope sender and not the address in
1649 the From: header.</p>
1650
1651 <p>This causes the automatic message from Karmøy to go to NUUGs
1652 request-tracker instance instead of to the person reporting the
1653 problem.  We can not really change the envelope sender address, as
1654 this would make it impossible for us to discover when there are
1655 problems with the MTAs receiving problem reports.  We have been in
1656 contact with the people at Karmøy municipality, and they are willing
1657 to adjust Zimbra if something can be changed there to get a better
1658 behaviour.</p>
1659
1660 <p>The default behaviour of Zimbra is as far as I can tell according
1661 to the specification in RFC 3834, which recommend that vacation
1662 messages are sent to the envelope sender and not to the From: address.
1663 But I wonder if it is possible to adjust or configure Zimbra to behave
1664 differently.  Anyone know?  Please let us know at
1665 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
1666 (at) nuug.no</a>.</p>
1667
1668       </div>
1669       <div class="tags">
1670
1671
1672         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>.
1673
1674
1675       </div>
1676     </div>
1677     <div class="padding"></div>
1678
1679     <div class="entry">
1680       <div class="title">
1681         <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>
1682       </div>
1683       <div class="date">
1684         26th June 2012
1685       </div>
1686       <div class="body">
1687         <p>I've been too busy at home, but finally I found time to wrap up
1688 another interview with the people behind
1689 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
1690 This time we get to know José Luis Redrejo Rodríguez, one of our great
1691 helpers from Spain.  His effort was the reason we added support for
1692 several desktop types (KDE, Gnome and most recently LXDE) in Debian
1693 Edu, and have all of these available in the recently published
1694 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
1695 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
1696
1697 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
1698
1699 <p>I'm a father, teacher and engineer who is working for the Education
1700 ministry of the Region of Extremadura (Spain) in the implementation of
1701 ICT in schools</p>
1702
1703 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
1704 project?</strong></p>
1705
1706 <p>At 2006, I verified that both, we in Extremadura and Skolelinux
1707 project, had been working in parallel for some years, doing very
1708 similar things, using very similar tools and with similar targets, so
1709 I decided it was time to join forces as much as possible.</p>
1710
1711 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1712 Edu?</strong></p>
1713
1714 <p>A community of highly skilled experts working together, with a
1715 really open schema of collaboration and work. I really love the
1716 concepts of Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy and the way these concepts are
1717 been used everyday inside Debian Edu.</p>
1718
1719 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
1720 Edu?</strong></p>
1721
1722 <p>Sometimes the differences in the implementations, laws or
1723 economical and technical resources in the different countries don't
1724 allow us to agree in the same solution for all of us, and several
1725 approaches are needed, what is a waste of effort. Also, there is a
1726 lack of more man power to be able to follow the fast evolution of the
1727 technologies in school.</p>
1728
1729 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
1730
1731 <p>Debian, of course, and due to my kind of job I am most of my time
1732 between Iceweasel, <a href="http://www.geany.org/">Geany</a> and
1733 <a href="http://www.ohloh.net/p/gnome-terminator">Terminator</a>.</p>
1734
1735 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
1736 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
1737
1738 <p>I think there is not a single strategy because there are very
1739 different scenarios: schools with mixed proprietary and free
1740 environments, schools using only workstations, other schools using
1741 laptops, netbooks, tablets, interactive white-boards, etc.</p>
1742
1743 <p>Also the range of ages of the students is very broad and you can
1744 not use the same solutions for primary schools and secondary or even
1745 universities. So different strategies are needed.</p>
1746
1747 <p>But, looking at these differences, and looking back to the things
1748 we've done and implemented, and the places were we have spent most of
1749 our forces, I think we should focus as much as possible in free
1750 multi-platform environments, using only standards tools, and moving
1751 more and more to Internet or network solutions that could be deployed
1752 using wireless. I think we'll see more and more personal devices in
1753 the schools, devices the students and teachers will take home with
1754 them, so the solutions must be able to be taken at home and continue
1755 working there.</p>
1756
1757       </div>
1758       <div class="tags">
1759
1760
1761         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>.
1762
1763
1764       </div>
1765     </div>
1766     <div class="padding"></div>
1767
1768     <div class="entry">
1769       <div class="title">
1770         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html">Song book for Computer Scientists</a>
1771       </div>
1772       <div class="date">
1773         24th June 2012
1774       </div>
1775       <div class="body">
1776         <p>Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
1777 <a href="http://www.uit.no/">University of Tromsø</a>, I started
1778 collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
1779 version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
1780 Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
1781 while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
1782 not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
1783 put it up on some public version control repository where others can
1784 help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
1785 me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
1786 missing in my book.</p>
1787
1788 <p>I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
1789 me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
1790 singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
1791 Especially now that <a href="http://debconf12.debconf.org/">Debconf
1792 12</a> is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
1793 out <a href="http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/">Petter's
1794 Computer Science Songbook</a>.
1795
1796       </div>
1797       <div class="tags">
1798
1799
1800         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>.
1801
1802
1803       </div>
1804     </div>
1805     <div class="padding"></div>
1806
1807     <div class="entry">
1808       <div class="title">
1809         <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>
1810       </div>
1811       <div class="date">
1812         11th June 2012
1813       </div>
1814       <div class="body">
1815         <p>During my work on
1816 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.nb.html">Debian Edu
1817 based on Squeeze</a>, I came across some issues that should be
1818 addressed in the Wheezy release.  I finally found time to wrap up my
1819 notes and provide quick summary of what I found, with a bit
1820 explanation.</p>
1821
1822 <p><ul>
1823
1824 <li>We need to rewrite our package installation framework, as tasksel
1825 changed from using tasksel tasks to using meta packages (aka packages
1826 with dependencies like our education-* packages), and our installation
1827 system depend on tasksel tasks in
1828 /usr/share/tasksel/debian-edu-tasks.desc for package
1829 installation.</li>
1830
1831 <li>Enable Kerberos login for more services.  Now with the Kerberos
1832 foundation in place, we should use it to get single sign on with more
1833 services, and avoiding unneeded password / login questions.  We should
1834 at least try to enable it for these services:
1835 <ul>
1836
1837   <li>CUPS for admins to add/configure printers and users when using
1838     quotas.</li>
1839   <li>Nagios for admins checking the system status.</li>
1840   <li>GOsa for admins updating LDAP and users changing their passwords.</li>
1841   <li>LDAP for admins updating LDAP.</li>
1842   <li>Squid for users when exam mode / filtering is active.</li>
1843   <li>ssh for admins and users to save a password prompt.</li>
1844
1845 </ul></li>
1846
1847 <li>When we move GOsa to use Kerberos instead of LDAP bind to
1848 authenticate users, we should try to block or at least limit access to
1849 use LDAP bind for authentication, to ensure Kerberos is used when it
1850 is intended, and nothing fall back to using the less safe LDAP bind</li>
1851
1852 <li>Merge debian-edu-config and debian-edu-install.  The split made
1853 sense when d-e-install did a lot more, but these days it is just an
1854 inconvenience when we update the debconf preseeding values.</li>
1855
1856 <li>Fix partman-auto to allow us to abort the installation before
1857 touching the disk if the disk is too small.  This is
1858 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/653305">BTS report #653305</a> and the
1859 d-i developers are fine with the patch and someone just need to apply
1860 it and upload.  After this is done we need to adjust
1861 debian-edu-install to use this new hook.</li>
1862
1863 <li>Adjust to new LTSP framework (boot time config instead of install
1864 time config).  LTSP changed its design, and our hooks to install
1865 packages and update the configuration is most likely not going to work
1866 in Wheezy.
1867
1868 <li>Consider switching to NBD instead of NFS for LTSP root, to allow
1869 the Kernel to cache files in its normal file cache, possibly speeding
1870 up KDE login on slow networks.</li>
1871
1872 <li>Make it possible to create expired user passwords that need to
1873 change on first login.  This is useful when handing out password on
1874 paper, to make sure only the user know the password.  This require
1875 fixes to the PAM handling of kdm and gdm.</li>
1876
1877 <li>Make GUI for adding new machines automatically from sitesummary.
1878 The current command line script is not very friendly to people most
1879 familiar with GUIs.  This should probably be integrated into GOsa to
1880 have it available where the admin will be looking for it..</li>
1881
1882 <li>We should find way for Nagios to check that the DHCP service
1883 actually is working (as in handling out IP addresses).  None of the
1884 Nagios checks I have found so far have been working for me.</li>
1885
1886 <li>We should switch from libpam-nss-ldapd to sssd for all profiles
1887 using LDAP, and not only on for roaming workstations, to have less
1888 packages to configure and consistent setup across all profiles.</li>
1889
1890 <li>We should configure Kerberos to update LDAP and Samba password
1891 when changing password using the Kerberos protocol.  The hook was
1892 requested in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/588968">BTS report
1893 #588968</a> and is now available in Wheezy.  We might need to write a
1894 MIT Kerberos plugin in C to get this.</li>
1895
1896 <li>We should clean up the set of applications installed by default.
1897 <ul>
1898
1899 <li>reduce the number of chemistry visualisers</li>
1900 <li>consider dropping xpaint</li>
1901 <li>and probably more?</li>
1902 </ul></li>
1903
1904 <li>Some hardware need external firmware to work properly.  This is
1905 mostly the case for WiFi network cards, but there are some other
1906 examples too.  For popular laptops to work out of the box, such
1907 firmware need to be installed from non-free, and we should provide
1908 some GUI to do this.  Ubuntu already have this implemented, and we
1909 could consider using their packages.  At the moment we have some
1910 command line script to do this (one for the running system, another
1911 for the LTSP chroot).</li>
1912
1913
1914 <li>In Squeeze, we provide KDE, Gnome and LXDE as desktop options.  We
1915 should extend the list to Xfce and Sugar, and preferably find a way to
1916 install several and allow the admin or the user to select which one to
1917 use.</li>
1918
1919 <li>The golearn tool from the goplay package make it easy to check out
1920 interesting educational packages.  We should work on the package
1921 tagging in Debian to ensure it represent all the useful educational
1922 packages, and extend the tool to allow it to use packagekit to install
1923 new applications with a simple mouse click.</li>
1924
1925 <li>The Squeeze version got half a exam solution already in place,
1926 with the introduction of iptable based network blocking, but for it to
1927 be a complete exam solution the Squid proxy need to enable
1928 filtering/blocking as well when the exam mode is enabled.  We should
1929 implement a way to easily enable this for the schools that want it,
1930 instead of the "it is documented" method of today.</li>
1931
1932 <li>A feature used in several schools is the ability for a teacher to
1933 "take over" the desktop of individual or all computers in the room.
1934 There are at least three implementations,
1935 <a href="italc.sourceforge.net/">italc</a>,
1936 <a href="http://www.itais.net/help/en/">controlaula</a> og
1937 <a href="http://www.epoptes.org/">epoptes</a> and we should pick one of
1938 them and make it trivial to set it up in a school.  The challenges is
1939 how to distribute crypto keys and how to group computers in one room
1940 and how to set up which machine/user can control the machines in a
1941 given room.</li>
1942
1943 <li>Tablets and surf boards are getting more and more popular, and we
1944 should look into providing a good solution for integrating these into
1945 the Debian Edu network.  Not quite sure how.  Perhaps we should
1946 provide a installation profile with better touch screen support for
1947 them, or add some sync services to allow them to exchange
1948 configuration and data with the central server.  This should be
1949 investigated.</li>
1950
1951 </ul></p>
1952
1953 <p>I guess we will discover more as we continue to work on the Wheezy
1954 version.</p>
1955
1956       </div>
1957       <div class="tags">
1958
1959
1960         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>.
1961
1962
1963       </div>
1964     </div>
1965     <div class="padding"></div>
1966
1967     <div class="entry">
1968       <div class="title">
1969         <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>
1970       </div>
1971       <div class="date">
1972          9th June 2012
1973       </div>
1974       <div class="body">
1975         <p>Slashdot got a story about Intel planning a
1976 <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
1977 with face recognition</a> to recognise the viewer, and it occurred to
1978 me that it would be more interesting to turn it around, and do face
1979 recognition on the TV image itself.  It could let the viewer know who
1980 is present on the screen, and perhaps look up their credibility,
1981 company affiliation, previous appearances etc for the viewer to better
1982 evaluate what is being said and done.  That would be a feature I would
1983 be willing to pay for.</p>
1984
1985 <p>I would not be willing to pay for a TV that point a camera on my
1986 household, like the big brother feature apparently proposed by Intel.
1987 It is the telescreen idea fetched straight out of the book
1988 <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt">1984 by George
1989 Orwell</a>.</p>
1990
1991       </div>
1992       <div class="tags">
1993
1994
1995         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>.
1996
1997
1998       </div>
1999     </div>
2000     <div class="padding"></div>
2001
2002     <div class="entry">
2003       <div class="title">
2004         <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>
2005       </div>
2006       <div class="date">
2007          6th June 2012
2008       </div>
2009       <div class="body">
2010         <p>A few days ago
2011 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/SOAP_based_webservice_from_Dell_to_check_server_support_status.html">I
2012 reported how to get</a> the support status out of Dell using an
2013 unofficial and undocumented SOAP API, which I since have found out was
2014 <a href="http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2012-February/045959.html">discovered
2015 by Daniel De Marco in february</a>.  Combined with my web scraping
2016 code for HP, Dell and IBM
2017 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">from
2018 2009</a>, I got inspired and wrote
2019 <a href="https://views.scraperwiki.com/run/computer-hardware-support-status/">a
2020 web service</a> based on Scraperwiki to make it easy to look up the
2021 support status and get a machine readable result back.</p>
2022
2023 <p>This is what it look like at the moment when asking for the JSON
2024 output:
2025
2026 <blockquote><pre>
2027 % 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>
2028 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": ""})
2029 %
2030 </pre></blockquote>
2031
2032 <p>It currently support Dell and HP, and I am hoping for help to add
2033 support for other vendors.  The python source is available on
2034 Scraperwiki and I welcome help with adding more features.</p>
2035
2036       </div>
2037       <div class="tags">
2038
2039
2040         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>.
2041
2042
2043       </div>
2044     </div>
2045     <div class="padding"></div>
2046
2047     <div class="entry">
2048       <div class="title">
2049         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html">Debian Edu interview: Mike Gabriel</a>
2050       </div>
2051       <div class="date">
2052          2nd June 2012
2053       </div>
2054       <div class="body">
2055         <p>Back in 2010, Mike Gabriel showed up on the
2056 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
2057 mailing list.  He quickly proved to be a valuable developer, and
2058 thanks to his tireless effort we now have Kerberos integrated into the
2059 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
2060 Squeeze</a> version.</p>
2061
2062 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2063
2064 <p>My name is Mike Gabriel, I am 38 years old and live near Kiel,
2065 Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I live together with a wonderful partner
2066 (Angela Fuß) and two own children and two bonus children (contributed
2067 by Angela).</p>
2068
2069 <p>During the day I am part-time employed as a system administrator
2070 and part-time working as an IT consultant. The consultancy work
2071 touches free software topics wherever and whenever possible. During
2072 the nights I am a free software developer. In the gaps I also train in
2073 becoming an osteopath.</p>
2074
2075 <p>Starting in 2010 we (Andreas Buchholz, Angela Fuß, Mike Gabriel)
2076 have set up a free software project in the area of Kiel that aims at
2077 introducing free software into schools. The project's name is
2078 "IT-Zukunft Schule" (IT future for schools). The project links IT
2079 skills with communication skills.</p>
2080
2081 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2082 project?</strong></p>
2083
2084 <p>While preparing our own customised Linux distribution for
2085 "IT-Zukunft Schule" we were repeatedly asked if we really wanted to
2086 reinvent the wheel. What schools really need is already available,
2087 people said.  From this impulse we started evaluating other Linux
2088 distributions that target being used for school networks.</p>
2089
2090 <p>At the end we short-listed two approaches and compared them: a
2091 commercial Linux distribution developed by a company in Bremen,
2092 Germany, and Skolelinux / Debian Edu. Between 12/2010 and 03/2011 we
2093 went to several events and met people being responsible for marketing
2094 and development of either of the distributions. Skolelinux / Debian
2095 Edu was by far much more convincing compared to the other product that
2096 got short-listed beforehand--across the full spectrum. What was most
2097 attractive for me personally: the perspective of collaboration within
2098 the developmental branch of the Debian Edu project itself.</p>
2099
2100 <p>In parallel with this, we talked to many local and not-so-local
2101 people.  People teaching at schools, headmasters, politicians, data
2102 protection experts, other IT professionals.</p>
2103
2104 <p>We came to two conclusions:</p>
2105
2106 <p>First, a technical conclusion: What schools need is available in
2107 bits and pieces here and there, and none of the solutions really fit
2108 by 100%. Any school we have seen has a very individual IT setup
2109 whereas most of each school's requirements could mapped by a standard
2110 IT solution.  The requirement to this IT solution is flexibility and
2111 customisability, so that individual adaptations here and there are
2112 possible.  In terms of re-distributing and rolling out such a
2113 standardised IT system for schools (a system that is still to some
2114 degree customisable) there is still a lot of work to do here
2115 locally. Debian Edu / Skolelinux has been our choice as the starting
2116 point.</p>
2117
2118 <p>Second, a holistic conclusion: What schools need does not exist at
2119 all (or we missed it so far). There are several technical solutions
2120 for handling IT at schools that tend to make a good impression. What
2121 has been missing completely here in Germany, though, is the enrolment
2122 of people into using IT and teaching with IT. "IT-Zukunft Schule"
2123 tries to provide an approach for this.</p>
2124
2125 <p>Only some schools have some sort of a media concept which explains,
2126 defines and gives guidance on how to use IT in class. Most schools in
2127 Northern Germany do not have an IT service provider, the school's IT
2128 equipment is managed by one or (if the school is lucky) two (admin)
2129 teachers, most of the workload these admin teachers get done in there
2130 spare time.</p>
2131
2132 <p>We were surprised that only a very few admin teachers were
2133 networked with colleagues from other schools. Basically, every school
2134 here around has its individual approach of providing IT equipment to
2135 teachers and students and the exchange of ideas has been quasi
2136 non-existent until 2010/2011.</p>
2137
2138 <p>Quite some (non-admin) teachers try to avoid using IT technology in
2139 class as a learning medium completely. Several reasons for this
2140 avoidance do exist.</p>
2141
2142 <p>We discovered that no-one has ever taken a closer look at this
2143 social part of IT management in schools, so far. On our quest journey
2144 for a technical IT solution for schools, we discussed this issue with
2145 several teachers, headmasters, politicians, other IT professionals and
2146 they all confirmed: a holistic approach of considering IT management
2147 at schools, an approach that includes the people in place, will be new
2148 and probably a gain for all.</p>
2149
2150 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2151 Edu?</strong></p>
2152
2153 <p>There is a list of advantages: international context, openness to
2154 any kind of contributions, do-ocracy policy, the closeness to Debian,
2155 the different installation scenarios possible (from stand-alone
2156 workstation to complex multi-server sites), the transparency within
2157 project communication, honest communication within the group of
2158 developers, etc.</p>
2159
2160 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2161 Edu?</strong></p>
2162
2163 <p>Every coin has two sides:</p>
2164
2165 <p>Technically: <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/311188">BTS issue
2166 #311188</a>, tricky upgradability of a Debian Edu main server, network
2167 client installations on top of a plain vanilla Debian installation
2168 should become possible sometime in the near future, one could think
2169 about splitting the very complex package debian-edu-config into
2170 several portions (to make it easier for new developers to
2171 contribute).</p>
2172
2173 <p>Another issue I see is that we (as Debian Edu developers) should
2174 find out more about the network of people who do the marketing for
2175 Debian Edu / Skolelinux. There is a very active group in Germany
2176 promoting Skolelinux on the bigger Linux Days within Germany. Are
2177 there other groups like that in other countries? How can we bring
2178 these marketing people together (marketing group A with group B and
2179 all of them with the group of Debian Edu developers)? During the last
2180 meeting of the German Skolelinux group, I got the impression of people
2181 there being rather disconnected from the development department of
2182 Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
2183
2184 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2185
2186 <p>For my daily business, I do not use commercial software at all.</p>
2187
2188 <p>For normal stuff I use Iceweasel/Firefox, Libreoffice.org. For
2189 serious text writing I prefer LaTeX. I use gimp, inkscape, scribus for
2190 more artistic tasks. I run virtual machines in KVM and Virtualbox.</p>
2191
2192 <p>I am one of the upstream developers of X2Go. In 2010 I started the
2193 development of a Python based X2Go Client, called PyHoca-GUI.
2194 PyHoca-GUI has brought forth a Python X2Go Client API that currently
2195 is being integrated in Ubuntu's software center.</p>
2196
2197 <p>For communications I have my own Kolab server running using Horde
2198 as web-based groupware client. For IRC I love to use irssi, for Jabber
2199 I have several clients that I use, mostly pidgin, though. I am also
2200 the Debian maintainer of Coccinella, a Jabber-based interactive
2201 whiteboard.</p>
2202
2203 <p>My favourite terminal emulator is KDE's Yakuake.</p>
2204
2205 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2206 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2207
2208 <p>Communicate, communicate, communicate. Enrol people, enrol people,
2209 enrol people.</p>
2210
2211       </div>
2212       <div class="tags">
2213
2214
2215         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>.
2216
2217
2218       </div>
2219     </div>
2220     <div class="padding"></div>
2221
2222     <div class="entry">
2223       <div class="title">
2224         <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>
2225       </div>
2226       <div class="date">
2227          1st June 2012
2228       </div>
2229       <div class="body">
2230         <p>A few years ago I wrote
2231 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html">how
2232 to extract support status</a> for your Dell and HP servers.  Recently
2233 I have learned from colleges here at the
2234 <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> that Dell have
2235 made this even easier, by providing a SOAP based web service.  Given
2236 the service tag, one can now query the Dell servers and get machine
2237 readable information about the support status.  This perl code
2238 demonstrate how to do it:</p>
2239
2240 <p><pre>
2241 use strict;
2242 use warnings;
2243 use SOAP::Lite;
2244 use Data::Dumper;
2245 my $GUID = '11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111';
2246 my $App = 'test';
2247 my $servicetag = $ARGV[0] or die "Please supply a servicetag. $!\n";
2248 my ($deal, $latest, @dates);
2249 my $s = SOAP::Lite
2250     -> uri('http://support.dell.com/WebServices/')
2251     -> on_action( sub { join '', @_ } )
2252     -> proxy('http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx')
2253     ;
2254 my $a = $s->GetAssetInformation(
2255     SOAP::Data->name('guid')->value($GUID)->type(''),
2256     SOAP::Data->name('applicationName')->value($App)->type(''),
2257     SOAP::Data->name('serviceTags')->value($servicetag)->type(''),
2258 );
2259 print Dumper($a -> result) ;
2260 </pre></p>
2261
2262 <p>The output can look like this:</p>
2263
2264 <p><pre>
2265 $VAR1 = {
2266           'Asset' => {
2267                      'Entitlements' => {
2268                                        'EntitlementData' => [
2269                                                             {
2270                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
2271                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
2272                                                               'Provider' => '',
2273                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
2274                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
2275                                                             },
2276                                                             {
2277                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
2278                                                               'EndDate' => '2009-07-29T00:00:00',
2279                                                               'Provider' => '',
2280                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
2281                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
2282                                                             },
2283                                                             {
2284                                                               'EntitlementType' => 'Expired',
2285                                                               'EndDate' => '2007-07-29T00:00:00',
2286                                                               'Provider' => '',
2287                                                               'StartDate' => '2006-07-29T00:00:00',
2288                                                               'DaysLeft' => '0'
2289                                                             }
2290                                                           ]
2291                                      },
2292                      'AssetHeaderData' => {
2293                                           'SystemModel' => 'GX620',
2294                                           'ServiceTag' => '8DSGD2J',
2295                                           'SystemShipDate' => '2006-07-29T19:00:00-05:00',
2296                                           'Buid' => '2323',
2297                                           'Region' => 'Europe',
2298                                           'SystemID' => 'PLX_GX620',
2299                                           'SystemType' => 'OptiPlex'
2300                                         }
2301                    }
2302         };
2303 </pre></p>
2304
2305 <p>I have not been able to find any documentation from Dell about this
2306 service outside the
2307 <a href="http://xserv.dell.com/services/assetservice.asmx?op=GetAssetInformation">inline
2308 documentation</a>, and according to
2309 <a href="http://iboyd.net/index.php/2012/02/14/updated-dell-warranty-information-script/">one
2310 comment</a> it can have stability issues, but it is a lot better than
2311 scraping HTML pages. :)</p>
2312
2313 <p>Wonder if HP and other server vendors have a similar service.  If
2314 you know of one, drop me an email. :)</p>
2315
2316       </div>
2317       <div class="tags">
2318
2319
2320         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>.
2321
2322
2323       </div>
2324     </div>
2325     <div class="padding"></div>
2326
2327     <div class="entry">
2328       <div class="title">
2329         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_monitor_calibration_using_ColorHug.html">First monitor calibration using ColorHug</a>
2330       </div>
2331       <div class="date">
2332         31st May 2012
2333       </div>
2334       <div class="body">
2335         <p>A few days ago my color calibration gadget
2336 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">ColorHug</a> arrived in the
2337 mail, and I've had a few days to test it.  As all my machines are
2338 running Debian Squeeze, where
2339 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">the
2340 calibration software</a> is missing (it is present in Wheezy and Sid),
2341 I ran the calibration using the Fedora based live CD.  This worked
2342 just fine.  So far I have only done the quick calibration.  It was
2343 slow enough for me, so I will leave the more extensive calibration for
2344 another day.</p>
2345
2346 <p>After calibration, I get a
2347 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_profile">ICC color
2348 profile</a> file that can be passed to programs understanding such
2349 tools.  KDE do not seem to understand it out of the box, so I searched
2350 for command line tools to use to load the color profile into X.
2351 xcalib was the first one I found, and it seem to work fine for single
2352 monitor setups.  But for my video player, a laptop with a flat screen
2353 attached, it was unable to load the color profile for the correct
2354 monitor.  After searching a bit, I
2355 <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347896">discovered</a>
2356 that the dispwin tool from the argyll package would do what I wanted,
2357 and a simple</p>
2358
2359 <p><pre>
2360 dispwin -d 1 profile.icc
2361 </pre></p>
2362
2363 <p>later I had the color profile loaded for the correct monitor.  The
2364 result was a bit more pink than I expected.  I guess I picked the
2365 wrong monitor type for the "led" monitor I got, but the result is good
2366 enough for now.</p>
2367
2368       </div>
2369       <div class="tags">
2370
2371
2372         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2373
2374
2375       </div>
2376     </div>
2377     <div class="padding"></div>
2378
2379     <div class="entry">
2380       <div class="title">
2381         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Ralf_Gesellensetter.html">Debian Edu interview: Ralf Gesellensetter</a>
2382       </div>
2383       <div class="date">
2384         27th May 2012
2385       </div>
2386       <div class="body">
2387         <p>In 2003, a German teacher showed up on the
2388 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
2389 mailing list with interesting problems and reports proving he setting
2390 up Linux for a (for us at the time) lot of pupils.  His name was Ralf
2391 Gesellensetter, and he has been an important tester and contributor
2392 since then, helping to make sure the
2393 <a href="http://www.debian.org/News/2012/20120311.html">Debian Edu
2394 Squeeze</a> release became as good as it is..</p>
2395
2396 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2397
2398 <p>I am a teacher from Germany, and my subjects are Geography,
2399 Mathematics, and Computer Science ("Informatik"). During the past 12
2400 years (since 2000), I have been working for a comprehensive (and soon,
2401 also inclusive) school leading to all kind of general levels, such as
2402 O- or A-level ("Abitur").  For quite as long, I've been taking care of
2403 our computer network.</p>
2404
2405 <p>Now, in my early 40s, I enjoy the privilege of spending a lot of my
2406 spare time together with my wife, our son (3 years) and our daughter
2407 (4 months).</p>
2408
2409 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2410 project?</strong></p>
2411
2412 <p>We had tried different Linux based school servers, when members of
2413 my local Linux User Group (LUG OWL) detected Skolelinux. I remember
2414 very well, being part of a party celebrating the Linux New Media Award
2415 ("Best Newcomer Distribution", also nominated: Ubuntu) that was given
2416 to Skolelinux at Linux World Exposition in Frankfurt, 2005 (IIRC). Few
2417 months later, I had the chance to join a developer meeting in Ulsrud
2418 (Oslo) and to hand out the award to Knut Yrvin and others.  For more
2419 than 7 years, Skolelinux is part of our schools infrastructure, namely
2420 our main server (tjener), one LTSP (today without thin clients), and
2421 approximately 50 work stations. Most of these have the option to boot a
2422 locally installed Skolelinux image.  As a consequence, I joined quite
2423 a few events dealing with free software or Linux, and met many Debian
2424 (Edu) developers. All of them seemed quite nice and competent to me,
2425 one more reason to stick to Skolelinux.</p>
2426
2427 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2428 Edu?</strong></p>
2429
2430 <p>Debian driven, you are given all the advantages of a community
2431 project including well maintained updates. Once, you are familiar with
2432 the network layout, you can easily roll out an entire educational
2433 computer infrastructure, from just one installation media. As only
2434 free software (FOSS) is used, that supports even elderly hardware,
2435 up-sizing your IT equipment is only limited by space (i.e. available
2436 labs).  Especially if you run a LTSP thin client server, your
2437 administration costs tend towards zero.</p>
2438
2439 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2440 Edu?</strong></p>
2441
2442 <p>While Debian's stability has loads of advantages for servers, this
2443 might be different in some cases for clients: Schools with unlimited
2444 budget might buy new hardware with components that are not yet
2445 supported by Debian stable, or wish to use more recent versions of
2446 office packages or desktop environments.  These schools have the
2447 option to run Debian testing or other distributions - if they have the
2448 capacity to do so.  Another issue is that Debian release cycles
2449 include a wide range of changes; therefor a high percentage of human
2450 power seems to be absorbed by just keeping the features of Skolelinux
2451 within the new setting of the version to come. During this process,
2452 the cogs of Debian Edu are getting more and more professional,
2453 i.e. harder to understand for novices.</p>
2454
2455 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2456
2457 <p>LibreOffice, Wikipedia, Openstreetmap, Iceweasel (Mozilla Firefox),
2458 KMail, Gimp, Inkscape - and of course the Linux Kernel (not only on
2459 PC, Laptop, Mobile, but also our SAT receiver)</p>
2460
2461 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2462 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2463
2464 <p><ol>
2465
2466 <li>Support computer science as regular subject in schools to make
2467 people really "own" their hardware, to make them understand the
2468 difference between proprietary software products, and free software
2469 developing.</li>
2470
2471 <li>Make budget baskets corresponding: In Germany's public schools
2472 there are more or less fixed budgets for IT equipment (including
2473 licenses), so schools won't benefit from any savings here. This
2474 privilege is left to private schools which have consequently a large
2475 share among German Skolelinux schools.</li>
2476
2477 <li>Get free software in the seminars where would-be teachers are
2478 trained. In many cases, teachers' software customs are respected by
2479 decision makers rather than the expertise of any IT experts.</li>
2480
2481 <li>Don't limit ourself to free software run natively. Everybody uses
2482 free software or free licenses (for instance Wikipedia), and this
2483 general concept should get expanded to free educational content to be
2484 shared world wide (school books e.g.).</li>
2485
2486 <li>Make clear where ever you can that the market share of free (libre)
2487 office suites is much above 20 p.c. today, and that you pupils don't
2488 need to know the "ribbon menu" in order to get employed.</li>
2489
2490 <li>Talk about the difference between freeware and free software.</li>
2491
2492 <li>Spread free software, or even collections of portable free apps
2493 for USB pen drives. Endorse students to get a legal copy of
2494 Libreoffice rather than accepting them to use illegal serials.  And
2495 keep sending documents in ODF formats.</li>
2496
2497 </ol></p>
2498
2499       </div>
2500       <div class="tags">
2501
2502
2503         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>.
2504
2505
2506       </div>
2507     </div>
2508     <div class="padding"></div>
2509
2510     <div class="entry">
2511       <div class="title">
2512         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html">The cost of ODF and OOXML</a>
2513       </div>
2514       <div class="date">
2515         26th May 2012
2516       </div>
2517       <div class="body">
2518         <p>I just come across a blog post from Glyn Moody reporting the
2519 claimed cost from Microsoft on requiring ODF to be used by the UK
2520 government.  I just sent him an email to let him know that his
2521 assumption are most likely wrong.  Sharing it here in case some of my
2522 blog readers have seem the same numbers float around in the UK.</p>
2523
2524 <p><blockquote> <p>Hi.  I just noted your
2525 <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>
2526 comment:</p>
2527
2528 <p><blockquote>"They're all in Danish, not unreasonably, but even
2529 with the help of Google Translate I can't find any figures about the
2530 savings of "moving to a flexible two standard" as claimed by the
2531 Microsoft email. But I assume it is backed up somewhere, so let's take
2532 it, and the £500 million figure for the UK, on trust."
2533 </blockquote></p>
2534
2535 <p>I can tell you that the Danish reports are inflated.  I believe it is
2536 the same reports that were used in the Norwegian debate around 2007,
2537 and Gisle Hannemyr (a well known IT commentator in Norway) had a look
2538 at the content.  In short, the reason it is claimed that using ODF
2539 will be so costly, is based on the assumption that this mean every
2540 existing document need to be converted from one of the MS Office
2541 formats to ODF, transferred to the receiver, and converted back from
2542 ODF to one of the MS Office formats, and that the conversion will cost
2543 10 minutes of work time for both the sender and the receiver.  In
2544 reality the sender would have a tool capable of saving to ODF, and the
2545 receiver would have a tool capable of reading it, and the time spent
2546 would at most be a few seconds for saving and loading, not 20 minutes
2547 of wasted effort.</p>
2548
2549 <p>Microsoft claimed all these costs were saved by allowing people to
2550 transfer the original files from MS Office instead of spending 10
2551 minutes converting to ODF. :)</p>
2552
2553 <p>See
2554 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12_vl02.php</a>
2555 and
2556 <a href="http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php">http://hannemyr.com/no/ms12.php</a>
2557 for background information.  Norwegian only, sorry. :)</p>
2558 </blockquote></p>
2559
2560       </div>
2561       <div class="tags">
2562
2563
2564         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>.
2565
2566
2567       </div>
2568     </div>
2569     <div class="padding"></div>
2570
2571     <div class="entry">
2572       <div class="title">
2573         <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>
2574       </div>
2575       <div class="date">
2576         18th May 2012
2577       </div>
2578       <div class="body">
2579         <p>In january, I
2580 <a href="http://blog.cihar.com/archives/2012/01/17/colorhug-has-arrived/">discovered
2581 the ColorHug</a>, a USB dongle from
2582 <a href="http://www.hughski.com/index.html">Hughski</a> to calibrate
2583 the color on a computer screen.  The software required is
2584 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/colorhug-client.html">included
2585 in Debian</a>, and I decided back then to preorder from the next
2586 batch.  Yesterday I finally heard back from them, and got the
2587 opportunity to order.  Today I ordered mine, and eagerly await the
2588 delivery.  I hope it arrive next week, as I got a confirmation that it
2589 should go in the mail on monday. :)</p>
2590
2591 <p>If you want to ensure the colors on the screen match the intended
2592 colors, I suggest you check out this cheap tool with free software
2593 drivers. :)</p>
2594
2595       </div>
2596       <div class="tags">
2597
2598
2599         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2600
2601
2602       </div>
2603     </div>
2604     <div class="padding"></div>
2605
2606     <div class="entry">
2607       <div class="title">
2608         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__J_rgen_Leibner.html">Debian Edu interview: Jürgen Leibner</a>
2609       </div>
2610       <div class="date">
2611         13th May 2012
2612       </div>
2613       <div class="body">
2614         <p>It has been a few busy weeks for me, but I am finally back to
2615 publish another interview with the people behind
2616 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>.
2617 This time it is one of our German developers, who have helped out over the
2618 years to make sure both a lot of major but also a lot of the minor
2619 details get right before release.
2620
2621 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2622
2623 <p>My name is Jürgen Leibner, I'm 49 years old and living in
2624 Bielefeld, a town in northern Germany.  I worked nearly 20 years as
2625 certified engineer in the department for plant design and layout of an
2626 international company for machinery and equipment.  Since 2011 I'm a
2627 certified technical writer (tekom e.V.) and doing technical
2628 documentations for a steam turbine manufacturer.  From April this year
2629 I will manage the department of technical documentation at a
2630 manufacturer of automation and assembly line engineering.</p>
2631
2632 <p>My first contact with linux was around 1993. Since that time I used
2633 it at work and at home repeatedly but not exclusively as I do now at
2634 home since 2006.</p>
2635
2636 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2637 project?</strong></p>
2638
2639 <p>Once a day in the early year of 2001 when I wanted to fetch my
2640 daughter from primary school, there was a teacher sitting in the
2641 middle of 20 old computers trying to boot them and he failed. I helped
2642 him to get them booting. That was seen by the school director and she
2643 asked me if I would like to manage that the school gets all that old
2644 computers in use. I answered: "Yes".</p>
2645
2646 <p>Some weeks later every of the 10 classrooms had one computer
2647 running Windows98. I began to collect old computers and equipment as
2648 gifts and installed the first computer room with a peer-to-peer
2649 network. I did my work at school without being payed in my spare time
2650 and with a lot of fun.  About one year later the school was connected
2651 to Internet and a local area network was installed in the school
2652 building.  That was the time to have a server and I knew it must be a
2653 Linux server to be able to fulfil all the wishes of the teachers and
2654 being able to do this in a transparent and economic way, without extra
2655 costs for things like licence and software.  So I searched for a
2656 school server system running under Linux and I found a couple of
2657 people nearby who founded 'skolelinux.de'. It was the Skolelinux
2658 prerelease 32 I first tried out for being used at the school.  I
2659 managed the IT of that school until the municipal authority took over
2660 the IT management and centralised the services for all schools in
2661 Bielefeld in December of 2006.</p>
2662
2663 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2664 Edu?</strong></p>
2665
2666 <p>When I'm looking back to the beginning, there were other advantages
2667 for me as today.</p>
2668
2669 <p>In the past there were advantages like:</p>
2670
2671 <p><ul>
2672
2673 <li>I don't need to buy it so it generates no costs to the school as
2674 they had little money to spent for computers and software.</li>
2675
2676 <li>It has a licence which grands all rights to use it without
2677 cost.</li>
2678
2679 <li>It was more able to fit all requirements of a server system for
2680 schools than a Microsoft server system, even if there are only Windows
2681 clients because of it's preconfigured overall concept of being a
2682 infrastructure solution and community for schools, not only a
2683 server</li>
2684
2685 <li>I was able to configure the server to the needs of the
2686 school.</li>
2687
2688 </ul></p>
2689
2690 <p>Today some of the advantages has been lost, changed or new ones
2691 came up in this way:</p>
2692
2693 <p><ul>
2694
2695 <li>Most schools here do have money to buy hardware and software
2696 now.</li>
2697
2698 <li>They are today mostly managed from central IT departments which
2699 have own concepts which often do not fit to Debian Edu concepts
2700 because they are to close to Microsoft ideology.</li>
2701
2702 <li>With the Squeeze version of Debian Edu which now uses GOsa² for
2703 management I feel more able to manage the daily tasks than with the
2704 interfaces used in the past.</li>
2705
2706 <li>It is more modular than in the past and fits even better to the
2707 different needs.</li>
2708
2709 <li>The documentation is usable and gets better every day.</li>
2710
2711 <li>More people than ever before are using Debian Edu all over the
2712 world and so the community, which is an very important part I think,
2713 is sharing knowledge and minds.</li>
2714
2715 <li>Most, maybe all, of the technical requirements for schools are
2716 solved today by Debian Edu. </li>
2717
2718 </ul></p>
2719
2720 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2721 Edu?</strong></p>
2722
2723 <p><ul>
2724
2725 <li>There are too few IT companies able to integrate Debian Edu into
2726 their product portfolio for serving schools with concepts or even
2727 whole municipality areas.</li>
2728
2729 <li>Debian Edu has beside other free and open software projects not
2730 enough lobbyists which promote free and open software to
2731 politicians.</li>
2732
2733 <li>Technically there are no disadvantages I'm aware of.</li>
2734
2735 </ul></p>
2736
2737 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
2738
2739 <p>I use Debian stable on my home server and on my little desktop
2740 computer. On my laptop I use Debian testing/sid. The applications I
2741 use on my laptop and my desktop are Open/Libre-office, Iceweasel,
2742 KMail, DigiKam, Amarok, Dolphin, okular and all the other programs I
2743 need from the KDE environment.  On console I use newsbeuter, mutt,
2744 screen, irssi and all the other famous and useful tools.</p>
2745
2746 <p>My home server provides mail services with exim, dovecot, roundcube
2747 and mutt over ssh on the console, file services with samba, NFS,
2748 rsync, web services with apache, moinmoin-wiki, multimedia services
2749 with gallery2 and mediatomb and database services with MySQL for me
2750 and the whole family.  I probably forgot something.</p>
2751
2752 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
2753 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
2754
2755 <p>I believe, we should provide concepts for IT companies to integrate
2756 Debian Edu into their product portfolio with use cases for different
2757 countries and areas all over the world.</p>
2758
2759       </div>
2760       <div class="tags">
2761
2762
2763         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>.
2764
2765
2766       </div>
2767     </div>
2768     <div class="padding"></div>
2769
2770     <div class="entry">
2771       <div class="title">
2772         <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>
2773       </div>
2774       <div class="date">
2775         30th April 2012
2776       </div>
2777       <div class="body">
2778         <p><!-- IMG_5869.JPG -->
2779 <img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/panasonic-er-1611.jpeg"></p>
2780
2781 <p>I normally cut my hair short, and my tool of choice has been a
2782 common hair/beard cutter, bought in a electrical shop here in Norway.
2783 But the last ones have not really been up to the task.  My last
2784 cutter, some model from Braun, could only cut a few of my hairs at the
2785 time, and cutting my head took forever.  And the one before that did
2786 not work very well either.  We have looked for something better for a
2787 while, but it was not until I ended up visiting a hairdresser that we
2788 discovered that there are indeed better tools available.  But these
2789 are not marketed and sold to "regular consumers".  The hair saloons
2790 can get them through their suppliers, but their suppliers only sell
2791 companies.  The models they sell, are very different from the ones
2792 available from Elkjøp and Lefdal.  The main difference is their
2793 efficiency.  It would cut my hair in 5 minutes, instead of the 30-40
2794 minutes required by my impotent Braun.  The hairdresser I visited had
2795 a Panasonic ER160, which unfortunately is no longer available from the
2796 producer.  But I found it had a successor, the Panasonic ER1611.</p>
2797
2798 <p>The next step was to find somewhere to buy it.  This was not
2799 straight forward.  The list of suppliers I got from the hairdresser
2800 did not want to sell anything to me.  But searching for the model on
2801 the web we found a supplier in Norway willing to sell it to us for
2802 around NOK 4000,-.  This was a bit much.  We kept searching and
2803 finally found a Danish supplier
2804 <a href="http://nicehair.dk/panasonic-er-1611-professionel-hartrimmer.html">selling
2805 it for around NOK 1800,-</a>.  We ordered one, and it arrived a few
2806 days ago.</p>
2807
2808 <p>The instructions said it had to charge for 8 hours when we started
2809 to use it, so we left it charging over night.  Normally it will only
2810 need one hour to charge.  The following evening we successfully tested
2811 it, and I can warmly recommend it to anyone looking for a real hair
2812 cutter.  The ones we have used until now have been hair cutter
2813 toys.</p>
2814
2815       </div>
2816       <div class="tags">
2817
2818
2819         Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>.
2820
2821
2822       </div>
2823     </div>
2824     <div class="padding"></div>
2825
2826     <div class="entry">
2827       <div class="title">
2828         <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>
2829       </div>
2830       <div class="date">
2831         26th April 2012
2832       </div>
2833       <div class="body">
2834         <p>In <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece">an
2835 article today</a> published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
2836 <a href="http://www.urke.com/eirik/">Eirik Helland Urke</a> reports
2837 that the video editor application included with
2838 <a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs">HTC One
2839 X</a> have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
2840 based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:
2841
2842 <p><blockquote>
2843 "<a href="http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280">Drøy
2844 brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
2845 kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.</a>"
2846 </blockquote></p>
2847
2848 <p>I quickly translated it to this English message:</p>
2849
2850 <p><blockquote>
2851 "Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
2852 commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately."
2853 </blockquote></p>
2854
2855 <p>I've been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
2856 suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
2857 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html">discovered
2858 with my Canon IXUS 130</a>.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
2859 the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
2860 video.  AMR is
2861 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues">Adaptive
2862 Multi-Rate audio codec</a> with patents which according to the
2863 Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
2864 <a href="http://www.voiceage.com/">VoiceAge</a>.  MP4 is
2865 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing">MPEG4 with
2866 H.264</a>, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
2867 with <a href="http://www.mpegla.com/">MPEG-LA</a>.</p>
2868
2869 <p>I know why I prefer
2870 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and open
2871 standards</a> also for video.</p>
2872
2873       </div>
2874       <div class="tags">
2875
2876
2877         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>.
2878
2879
2880       </div>
2881     </div>
2882     <div class="padding"></div>
2883
2884     <div class="entry">
2885       <div class="title">
2886         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</a>
2887       </div>
2888       <div class="date">
2889         19th April 2012
2890       </div>
2891       <div class="body">
2892         <p>Here in Norway, the
2893 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
2894 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
2895 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
2896 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
2897 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
2898 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
2899 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
2900 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
2901 on the same level.</p>
2902
2903 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
2904 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
2905 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
2906 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
2907 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
2908 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
2909 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
2910 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
2911 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
2912 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
2913 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
2914 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
2915 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
2916 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
2917 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
2918 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
2919 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
2920 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
2921
2922 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
2923 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
2924 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
2925 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
2926 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
2927 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
2928 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
2929 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
2930
2931 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
2932 from Simon Phipps
2933 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
2934 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
2935
2936 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
2937 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
2938 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
2939 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
2940 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
2941 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
2942 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
2943 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
2944 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
2945
2946       </div>
2947       <div class="tags">
2948
2949
2950         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>.
2951
2952
2953       </div>
2954     </div>
2955     <div class="padding"></div>
2956
2957     <div class="entry">
2958       <div class="title">
2959         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Andreas_Mundt.html">Debian Edu interview: Andreas Mundt</a>
2960       </div>
2961       <div class="date">
2962         15th April 2012
2963       </div>
2964       <div class="body">
2965         <p>Behind <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
2966 Skolelinux</a> there are a lot of people doing the hard work of
2967 setting together all the pieces.  This time I present to you Andreas
2968 Mundt, who have been part of the technical development team several
2969 years.  He was also a key contributor in getting GOsa and Kerberos set
2970 up in the recently released
2971 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
2972 Edu Squeeze</a> version.</p>
2973
2974 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
2975
2976 <p>My name is Andreas Mundt, I grew up in south Germany.  After
2977 studying Physics I spent several years at university doing research in
2978 Quantum Optics.  After that I worked some years in an optics company.
2979 Finally I decided to turn over a new leaf in my life and started
2980 teaching 10 to 19 years old kids at school.  I teach math, physics,
2981 information technology and science/technology.</p>
2982
2983 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
2984 project?</strong></p>
2985
2986 <p>Already before I switched to teaching, I followed the Debian Edu
2987 project because of my interest in education and Debian.  Within the
2988 qualification/training period for the teaching, I started
2989 contributing.</p>
2990
2991 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2992 Edu?</strong></p>
2993
2994 <p>The advantages of Debian Edu are the well known name, the
2995 out-of-the-box philosophy and of course the great free software of the
2996 Debian Project!</p>
2997
2998 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
2999 Edu?</strong></p>
3000
3001 <p>As every coin has two sides, the out-of-the-box philosophy has its
3002 downside, too.  In my opinion, it is hard to modify and tweak the
3003 setup, if you need or want that.  Further more, it is not easily
3004 possible to upgrade the system to a new release.  It takes much too
3005 long after a Debian release to prepare the -Edu release, perhaps
3006 because the number of developers working on the core of the code is
3007 rather small and often busy elsewhere.</p>
3008
3009 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianLAN">Debian LAN</a>
3010 project might fill the use case of a more flexible system.</p>
3011
3012 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3013
3014 <p>I am only using non-free software if I am forced to and run Debian
3015 on all my machines.  For documents I prefer LaTeX and PGF/TikZ, then
3016 mutt and iceweasel for email respectively web browsing.  At school I
3017 have Arduino and Fritzing in use for a micro controller project.</p>
3018
3019 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3020 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3021
3022 <p>One of the major problems is the vendor lock-in from top to bottom:
3023 Especially in combination with ignorant government employees and
3024 politicians, this works out great for the "market-leader".  The school
3025 administration here in Baden-Wuerttemberg is occupied by that vendor.
3026 Documents have to be prepared in non-free, proprietary formats.  Even
3027 free browsers do not work for the school administration.  Publishers
3028 of school books provide software only for proprietary platforms.</p>
3029
3030 <p>To change this, political work is very important.  Parts of the
3031 political spectrum have become aware of the problem in the last years.
3032 However it takes quite some time and courageous politicians to 'free'
3033 the system.  There is currently some discussion about "Open Data" and
3034 "Free/Open Standards".  I am not sure if all the involved parties have
3035 a clue about the potential of these ideas, and probably only a
3036 fraction takes them seriously.  However it might slowly make free
3037 software and the philosophy behind it more known and popular.</p>
3038
3039       </div>
3040       <div class="tags">
3041
3042
3043         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>.
3044
3045
3046       </div>
3047     </div>
3048     <div class="padding"></div>
3049
3050     <div class="entry">
3051       <div class="title">
3052         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Justin_B__Rye.html">Debian Edu interview: Justin B. Rye</a>
3053       </div>
3054       <div class="date">
3055          8th April 2012
3056       </div>
3057       <div class="body">
3058         <p>It take all kind of contributions to create a Linux distribution
3059 like <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>,
3060 and this time I lend the ear to Justin B. Rye, who is listed as a big
3061 contributor to the
3062 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">Debian
3063 Edu Squeeze release manual</a>.
3064
3065 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3066
3067 <p>I'm a 44-year-old linguistics graduate living in Edinburgh who has
3068 occasionally been employed as a sysadmin.</p>
3069
3070 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3071 project?</strong></p>
3072
3073 <p>I'm neither a developer nor a Skolelinux/Debian Edu user!  The only
3074 reason my name's in the credits for the documentation is that I hang
3075 around on debian-l10n-english waiting for people to mention things
3076 they'd like a native English speaker to proofread...  So I did a sweep
3077 through the wiki for typos and Norglish and inconsistent spellings of
3078 "localisation".</p>
3079
3080 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3081 Edu?</strong></p>
3082
3083 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3084 Edu?</strong></p>
3085
3086 <p>These questions are too hard for me - I don't use it!  In fact I
3087 had hardly any contact with I.T. until long after I'd got out of the
3088 education system.</p>
3089
3090 <p>I can tell you the advantages of Debian for me though: it soaks up
3091 as much of my free time as I want and no more, and lets me do
3092 everything I want a computer for without ever forcing me to spend
3093 money on the latest hardware.</p>
3094
3095 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3096
3097 <p>I've been using Debian since Rex; popularity-contest says the
3098 software that I use most is xinit, xterm, and xulrunner (in other
3099 words, I use a distinctly retro sort of desktop).</p>
3100
3101 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3102 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3103
3104 <p>Well, I don't know.  I suppose I'd be inclined to try reasoning
3105 with the people who make the decisions, but obviously if that worked
3106 you would hardly need a strategy.</p>
3107
3108       </div>
3109       <div class="tags">
3110
3111
3112         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>.
3113
3114
3115       </div>
3116     </div>
3117     <div class="padding"></div>
3118
3119     <div class="entry">
3120       <div class="title">
3121         <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>
3122       </div>
3123       <div class="date">
3124          6th April 2012
3125       </div>
3126       <div class="body">
3127         <p>Recently I have spent time with
3128 <a href="http://www.slxdrift.no/">Skolelinux Drift AS</a> on speeding
3129 up a <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
3130 Lenny installation using LTSP diskless workstations, and in the
3131 process I discovered something very surprising.  The reason the KDE
3132 menu was responding slow when using it for the first time, was mostly
3133 due to the way KDE find application icons.  I discovered that showing
3134 the Multimedia menu would cause more than 20 000 IP packages to be
3135 passed between the LTSP client and the NFS server.  Most of these were
3136
3137 NFS LOOKUP calls, resulting in a NFS3ERR_NOENT response.  Because the
3138 ping times between the client and the server were in the range 2-20
3139 ms, the menus would be very slow.  Looking at the strace of kicker in
3140 Lenny (or plasma-desktop i Squeeze - same problem there), I see that
3141 the source of these NFS calls are access(2) system calls for
3142 non-existing files.  KDE can do hundreds of access(2) calls to find
3143 one icon file.  In my example, just finding the mplayer icon required
3144 around 230 access(2) calls.</p>
3145
3146 <p>The KDE code seem to search for icons using a list of icon
3147 directories, and the list of possible directories is large.  In
3148 (almost) each directory, it look for files ending in .png, .svgz, .svg
3149 and .xpm.  The result is a very slow KDE menu when /usr/ is NFS
3150 mounted.  Showing a single sub menu may result in thousands of NFS
3151 requests.  I am not the first one to discover this.  I found a
3152 <a href="https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=211416">KDE bug report
3153 from 2009</a> about this problem, and it is still unsolved.</p>
3154
3155 <p>My solution to speed up the KDE menu was to create a package
3156 kde-icon-cache that upon installation will look at all .desktop files
3157 used to generate the KDE menu, find their icons, search the icon paths
3158 for the file that KDE will end up finding at run time, and copying the
3159 icon file to /var/lib/kde-icon-cache/.  Finally, I add symlinks to
3160 these icon files in one of the first directories where KDE will look
3161 for them.  This cut down the number of file accesses required to find
3162 one icon from several hundred to less than 5, and make the KDE menu
3163 almost instantaneous.  I'm not quite sure where to make the package
3164 publicly available, so for now it is only available on request.</p>
3165
3166 <p>The bug report mention that this do not only affect the KDE menu
3167 and icon handling, but also the login process.  Not quite sure how to
3168 speed up that part without replacing NFS with for example NBD, and
3169 that is not really an option at the moment.</p>
3170
3171 <p>If you got feedback on this issue, please let us know on debian-edu
3172 (at) lists.debian.org.</p>
3173
3174       </div>
3175       <div class="tags">
3176
3177
3178         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>.
3179
3180
3181       </div>
3182     </div>
3183     <div class="padding"></div>
3184
3185     <div class="entry">
3186       <div class="title">
3187         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_in_the_Linux_Weekly_News.html">Debian Edu in the Linux Weekly News</a>
3188       </div>
3189       <div class="date">
3190          5th April 2012
3191       </div>
3192       <div class="body">
3193         <p>About two weeks ago, I was interviewed via email about
3194 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a> by
3195 Bruce Byfield in Linux Weekly News.  The result was made public for
3196 non-subscribers today.  I am pleased to see liked our Linux solution
3197 for schools.  Check out his article
3198 <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/488805/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux: A
3199 distribution for education</a> if you want to learn more.</p>
3200
3201       </div>
3202       <div class="tags">
3203
3204
3205         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>.
3206
3207
3208       </div>
3209     </div>
3210     <div class="padding"></div>
3211
3212     <div class="entry">
3213       <div class="title">
3214         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Wolfgang_Schweer.html">Debian Edu interview: Wolfgang Schweer</a>
3215       </div>
3216       <div class="date">
3217          1st April 2012
3218       </div>
3219       <div class="body">
3220         <p>Germany is a core area for the
3221 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and Skolelinux</a>
3222 user community, and this time I managed to get hold of Wolfgang
3223 Schweer, a valuable contributor to the project from Germany.
3224
3225 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3226
3227 <p>I've studied Mathematics at the university 'Ruhr-Universität' in
3228 Bochum, Germany. Since 1981 I'm working as a teacher at the school
3229 "<a href="http://www.westfalenkolleg-dortmund.de/">Westfalen-Kolleg
3230 Dortmund</a>", a second chance school.  Here, young adults is given
3231 the opportunity to get further education in order to do the school
3232 examination 'Abitur', which will allow to study at a university. This
3233 second chance is of value for those who want a better job perspective
3234 or failed to get a higher school examination being teens.</p>
3235
3236 <p>Besides teaching I was involved in developing online courses for a
3237 blended learning project called 'abitur-online.nrw' and in some other
3238 information technology related projects. For about ten years I've been
3239 teacher and coordinator for the 'abitur-online' project at my
3240 school. Being now in my early sixties, I've decided to leave school at
3241 the end of April this year.</p>
3242
3243 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3244 project?</strong></p>
3245
3246 <p>The first information about Skolelinux must have come to my
3247 attention years ago and somehow related to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
3248 Project).  At school, we had set up a network at the beginning of 1997
3249 using Suse Linux on the desktop, replacing a Novell network. Since
3250 2002, we used old machines from the city council of Dortmund as thin
3251 clients (LTSP, later Ubuntu/Lessdisks) cause new hardware was out of
3252 reach. At home I'm using Debian since years and - subscribed to the
3253 Debian news letter - heard from time to time about Skolelinux. About
3254 two years ago I proposed to replace the (somehow undocumented and only
3255 known to me) system at school by a well known Debian based system:
3256 Skolelinux.</p>
3257
3258 <p>Students and teachers appreciated the new system because of a
3259 better look and feel and an enhanced access to local media on thin
3260 clients.  The possibility to alter and/or reset passwords using a GUI
3261 was welcomed, too. Being able to do administrative tasks using a GUI
3262 and to easily set up workstations using PXE was of very high value for
3263 the admin teachers.</p>
3264
3265 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3266 Edu?</strong></p>
3267
3268 <p>It's open source, easy to set up, stable and flexible due to it's
3269 Debian base. It integrates LTSP out-of-the-box. And it is documented!
3270 So it was a perfect choice.</p>
3271
3272 <p>Being open source, there are no license problems and so it's
3273 possible to point teachers and students to programs like
3274 OpenOffice.org, ViewYourMind (mind mapping) and The Gimp.  It's of
3275 high value to be able to adapt parts of the system to special needs of
3276 a school and to choose where to get support for this.</p>
3277
3278 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3279 Edu?</strong></p>
3280
3281 <p>Nothing yet.</p>
3282
3283 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3284
3285 <p>At home (Debian Sid with Gnome Desktop): Iceweasel, LibreOffice,
3286 Mutt, Gedit, Document Viewer, Midnight Commander, flpsed (PDF
3287 Annotator).  At school (Skolelinux Lenny): Iceweasel, Gedit,
3288 LibreOffice.</p>
3289
3290 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3291 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3292
3293 <p>Some time ago I thought it was enough to tell people about it. But
3294 that doesn't seem to work quite well. Now I concentrate on those more
3295 interested and hope to get multiplicators that way.</p>
3296
3297       </div>
3298       <div class="tags">
3299
3300
3301         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>.
3302
3303
3304       </div>
3305     </div>
3306     <div class="padding"></div>
3307
3308     <div class="entry">
3309       <div class="title">
3310         <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>
3311       </div>
3312       <div class="date">
3313         25th March 2012
3314       </div>
3315       <div class="body">
3316         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
3317
3318 <p>The same Debian Edu developer that did the last screen cast I
3319 published, Wolfgang Schweer, has created a new screen cast showing how
3320 to set up Kmail in Debian Edu Squeze to authenticate using Kerberos,
3321 allowing users to check their local email account without providing
3322 any password. The video is embedded here in quarter size,
3323 and also available from <a href="https://vimeo.com/38601767">vimeo</a>
3324 and download as a
3325 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg
3326 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
3327
3328 <p><video id="kmail-kerberos-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
3329   <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"' />
3330     <p>Download video as
3331       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-03-14-Debian-Edu_Configure_Kmail_for_internal_usage.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
3332 </video></p>
3333
3334       </div>
3335       <div class="tags">
3336
3337
3338         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>.
3339
3340
3341       </div>
3342     </div>
3343     <div class="padding"></div>
3344
3345     <div class="entry">
3346       <div class="title">
3347         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__John_Ingleby.html">Debian Edu interview: John Ingleby</a>
3348       </div>
3349       <div class="date">
3350         19th March 2012
3351       </div>
3352       <div class="body">
3353         <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
3354 users are spread all across the globe.  The second inteview after
3355 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">the
3356 Squeeze release</a> was publised is with John Ingleby, a teacher and
3357 long time Linux user in United Kingdom.</p>
3358
3359 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3360
3361 <p>I teach ICT part time at the Rudolf Steiner School in Kings
3362 Langley, near London, UK. Previously I worked as a technical
3363 author/trainer while my children attended the school, and I also
3364 contributed to the Schoolforge UK community with the aim of
3365 encouraging UK schools to adopt free/open source software. Five or six
3366 years ago we had about 50 schools interested in some way, but we
3367 weren't able to convert many of them into sustainable
3368 installations.</p>
3369
3370 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3371 project?</strong></p>
3372
3373 <p>Skolelinux had two representatives at an early Edubuntu meeting in
3374 London which I attended. However at that time our school network had
3375 just been installed using CentOS, LTSP 4 and GNOME. When LTSP 5 came
3376 along we switched to Edubuntu thin client servers so now we have a
3377 mixed environment which includes Windows PCs and student laptops, as
3378 well as their MacBooks and iPads. However, the proprietary systems
3379 have always been rather problematic, and we never built a GUI for the
3380 LDAP server, so when I discovered Skolelinux is configured for all
3381 these things we decided to try it.</p>
3382
3383 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3384 Edu?</strong></p>
3385
3386 <p>By far the biggest advantage is the Debian Edu community. Apart
3387 from that I have always believed in the same "sustainable computing"
3388 goals that Skolelinux is built on: installing Linux on computers which
3389 would otherwise be thrown away, to provide a reliable, secure and
3390 low-cost IT environment for schools. From my own experience I know
3391 that a part-time person can teach and manage a network of about 25
3392 Linux computers, but it would take much more of my time if we had
3393 proprietary software everywhere.</p>
3394
3395 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3396 Edu?</strong></p>
3397
3398 <p>As a newcomer I'm just finding out who's who in the community and
3399 how you're organised, and what your procedures are for dealing with
3400 various things such as editing manual pages and so-on. The only
3401 English language mailing list seems to be for developers as well as
3402 users, so my inbox needs heavy pruning each day!</p>
3403
3404 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3405
3406 <p>Besides the software already mentioned at school we use Samba,
3407 OpenLDAP, CUPS, Nagios and Dansguardian for the network, and on the
3408 desktops we have LibreOffice, Firefox, GIMP and Inkscape. At home I
3409 use Ubuntu and an Android 4 eePad Transformer (but I'm not sure if
3410 that counts...)</p>
3411
3412 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3413 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3414
3415 <p>That's a tough question! For very many years UK schools installed
3416 and taught only proprietary software, so that at the highest levels
3417 the notion of "computer" means simply "proprietary office
3418 applications".  However, schools today are experiencing budget
3419 constraints, and many are having to think hard about upgrading Windows
3420 XP.  At the same time, we have students showing teachers how to use
3421 iPads, MacBooks and Android, so the choice of operating system is no
3422 longer quite so automatic. What is more, our government at last
3423 realised that we need people with programming skills, so they're
3424 putting coding back in the curriculum! And it's encouraging that the
3425 first 10,000 Raspberry Pi units sold out in 2 hours.</p>
3426
3427 <p>I don't really know what strategy is going to get UK schools to use
3428 free software, but building an active community of Skolelinux/Debian
3429 Edu users in this country has to be part of it.</p>
3430
3431       </div>
3432       <div class="tags">
3433
3434
3435         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>.
3436
3437
3438       </div>
3439     </div>
3440     <div class="padding"></div>
3441
3442     <div class="entry">
3443       <div class="title">
3444         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Writing_and_translating_documentation_in_Debian_Edu.html">Writing and translating documentation in Debian Edu</a>
3445       </div>
3446       <div class="date">
3447         16th March 2012
3448       </div>
3449       <div class="body">
3450         <p>Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and
3451 it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the
3452 translated versions in sync.  To do this we have come up with what we
3453 believe is a very efficient work flow.</p>
3454
3455 <ol>
3456
3457 <li>The documentation is written in a
3458 <a href="http://moinmo.in">moinmoin wiki</a> (see for example
3459 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze">the
3460 Squeeze release manual</a>) with support for exporting the content as
3461 docbook XML.</li>
3462
3463 <li>This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style
3464 .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files
3465 with the translated text.</li>
3466
3467 <li>The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell
3468 which part of the original wiki document is new or changed.  They can
3469 use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write
3470 the translation.  There is even a system in place to handle translated
3471 images.</li>
3472
3473 <li>The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook
3474 XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.</li>
3475
3476 <li>The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and
3477 create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.</li>
3478
3479 </ol>
3480
3481 <p>This setup work very well, but have a few issues.  The biggest
3482 issue is that <a href="http://moinmo.in/DocBook">the docbook support
3483 we use in moinmoin</a> is not actively maintained.  The docbook
3484 support is also buggy, and our build system contain workarounds to
3485 make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.</p>
3486
3487 <p>If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the
3488 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/debian-edu-doc">debian-edu-doc
3489 package</a>.</p>
3490
3491       </div>
3492       <div class="tags">
3493
3494
3495         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>.
3496
3497
3498       </div>
3499     </div>
3500     <div class="padding"></div>
3501
3502     <div class="entry">
3503       <div class="title">
3504         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux___Debian_Edu_Squeeze_is_out_.html">Skolelinux / Debian Edu Squeeze is out!</a>
3505       </div>
3506       <div class="date">
3507         11th March 2012
3508       </div>
3509       <div class="body">
3510         <p>This weekend we finally published the first stable release of
3511 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux / Debian Edu</a> based
3512 on Debian/Squeeze.  The full announcement is
3513 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00001.html">available</a>
3514 from the project announcement list.  Now is a good time to test if it
3515 you have not done so already.</p>
3516
3517 <p>I plan to present the new version at
3518 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20120313-skolelinux/">a NUUG
3519 meeting</a> on tuesday.  I look forward to seeing you there if you are
3520 in Oslo, Norway.</p>
3521
3522       </div>
3523       <div class="tags">
3524
3525
3526         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>.
3527
3528
3529       </div>
3530     </div>
3531     <div class="padding"></div>
3532
3533     <div class="entry">
3534       <div class="title">
3535         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Nigel_Barker.html">Debian Edu interview: Nigel Barker</a>
3536       </div>
3537       <div class="date">
3538          9th March 2012
3539       </div>
3540       <div class="body">
3541         <p>Inspired by <a href="http://raphaelhertzog.com/tag/interview/">the
3542 interview series</a> conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian
3543 interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux
3544 community.  This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a
3545 more international audience.</p>
3546
3547 <p>While <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu and
3548 Skolelinux</a> originated in France and Norway, and have most users in
3549 Europe, there are users all around the globe.  One of those far away
3550 from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator
3551 and contributor.  It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to
3552 work out of the box in Japan.  I got him to answer a few questions,
3553 and am happy to share the response with you. :)
3554
3555
3556 <p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
3557
3558 <p>My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko,
3559 and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT
3560 Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a
3561 teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics,
3562 Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but
3563 I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches
3564 primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person,
3565 so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster,
3566 also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python
3567 to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really
3568 appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.</p>
3569
3570 <p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu
3571 project?</strong></p>
3572
3573 <p>In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a
3574 server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central
3575 samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered
3576 Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I
3577 did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server"
3578 and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading
3579 there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my
3580 problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my
3581 previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used
3582 Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I
3583 downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the
3584 Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and
3585 my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.</p>
3586
3587 <p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3588 Edu?</strong></p>
3589
3590 <p>For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the
3591 workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured
3592 ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is
3593 designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who
3594 doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian
3595 school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with
3596 Japan.</p>
3597
3598 <p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian
3599 Edu?</strong></p>
3600
3601 <p>The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who
3602 have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who
3603 make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people
3604 who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be
3605 important to the school. School administrators or directors, for
3606 instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly
3607 default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some
3608 kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and
3609 Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is.  A
3610 second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to
3611 customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required
3612 multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It
3613 took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups.
3614 I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will
3615 help.</p>
3616
3617 <p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
3618
3619 <p>Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for
3620 studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux
3621 (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop
3622 still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my
3623 house, that's very useful for the family photos and music.  At school
3624 the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still
3625 have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every
3626 day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are
3627 installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS.  We also
3628 have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution
3629 and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.</p>
3630
3631 <p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
3632 get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
3633
3634 <p>Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry,
3635 and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the
3636 popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have
3637 to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about
3638 file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago.  The Edu aspect is
3639 also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the
3640 Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu?  But of course the main attraction is
3641 budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not
3642 compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That
3643 is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People
3644 are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser
3645 doesn't play flash, for example.</p>
3646
3647       </div>
3648       <div class="tags">
3649
3650
3651         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>.
3652
3653
3654       </div>
3655     </div>
3656     <div class="padding"></div>
3657
3658     <div class="entry">
3659       <div class="title">
3660         <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>
3661       </div>
3662       <div class="date">
3663          7th March 2012
3664       </div>
3665       <div class="body">
3666         <!-- Video HTML based on http://www.diveintohtml5.net/video.html -->
3667
3668 <p>One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a
3669 screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on
3670 Debian Edu Squeeze.  The video is embedded here in quarter size, and
3671 also available from <a href="http://vimeo.com/37675399">vimeo</a> and
3672 download as a
3673 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg
3674 Theora</a> file.  Check it out below.</p>
3675
3676 <p><video id="gosa-mass-user-create-movie" width="256" height="184" preload controls>
3677   <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"' />
3678     <p>Download video as
3679       <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux/press/screencasts/2012-02-29-debian_edu_mass_create_user_accounts.ogv">Ogg</a>.</p>
3680 </video></p>
3681
3682       </div>
3683       <div class="tags">
3684
3685
3686         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>.
3687
3688
3689       </div>
3690     </div>
3691     <div class="padding"></div>
3692
3693     <div class="entry">
3694       <div class="title">
3695         <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>
3696       </div>
3697       <div class="date">
3698          4th March 2012
3699       </div>
3700       <div class="body">
3701         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release
3702 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
3703 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
3704 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/03/msg00000.html">available</a>
3705 from the project announcement list.  Check it out if you
3706 need a software solution for your school.</p>
3707
3708       </div>
3709       <div class="tags">
3710
3711
3712         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>.
3713
3714
3715       </div>
3716     </div>
3717     <div class="padding"></div>
3718
3719     <div class="entry">
3720       <div class="title">
3721         <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>
3722       </div>
3723       <div class="date">
3724          3rd March 2012
3725       </div>
3726       <div class="body">
3727         <p>Many years ago, the <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux
3728 / Debian Edu project</a> initiated a student project to create a tool
3729 for making stop motion movies.  The proposal came from a teacher
3730 needing such tool on Skolelinux.  The project, called "stopmotion",
3731 was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a
3732 national aware with this great project.  The project was initiated and
3733 mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen
3734 and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad.  They got in touch with people at Aardman
3735 Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like
3736 such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by
3737 animators around the globe.  But as is usual after studying, both got
3738 jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the
3739 project, and it has been lingering for a few years now.  Until last
3740 year...</p>
3741
3742 <p>Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the
3743 project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new
3744 name,
3745 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxstopmotion/">linuxstopmotion</a>.
3746 The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using
3747 Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I
3748 mean). I've been following
3749 <a href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxstopmotion-community">the
3750 mailing list</a> and the improvement already in place and planned for
3751 the future is encouraging.  If you want to make stop motion movies.
3752 Check it out. :)</p>
3753
3754       </div>
3755       <div class="tags">
3756
3757
3758         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>.
3759
3760
3761       </div>
3762     </div>
3763     <div class="padding"></div>
3764
3765     <div class="entry">
3766       <div class="title">
3767         <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>
3768       </div>
3769       <div class="date">
3770         27th February 2012
3771       </div>
3772       <div class="body">
3773         <p>This weekend we wrapped up and published the second release
3774 candidate for <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
3775 Skolelinux</a> based on Squeeze.  The full announcement did for some
3776 reason not make it the project announcement list, but is
3777 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2012/02/msg00015.html">available</a>
3778 from the Debian development announcement list.  Check it out if you
3779 need a software solution for your school.</p>
3780
3781       </div>
3782       <div class="tags">
3783
3784
3785         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>.
3786
3787
3788       </div>
3789     </div>
3790     <div class="padding"></div>
3791
3792     <div class="entry">
3793       <div class="title">
3794         <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>
3795       </div>
3796       <div class="date">
3797         19th February 2012
3798       </div>
3799       <div class="body">
3800         <p>One week delayed due to DVD build problems, we managed today to
3801 wrap up and publish the first release candidate for
3802 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
3803 on Squeeze.  The full announcement is
3804 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00001.html">available</a>
3805 on the project announcement list.  Check it out if you need a software
3806 solution for your school.</p>
3807
3808       </div>
3809       <div class="tags">
3810
3811
3812         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>.
3813
3814
3815       </div>
3816     </div>
3817     <div class="padding"></div>
3818
3819     <div class="entry">
3820       <div class="title">
3821         <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>
3822       </div>
3823       <div class="date">
3824         14th February 2012
3825       </div>
3826       <div class="body">
3827         <p>Once in a while my home server have disk problems.  Thanks to Linux
3828 Software RAID, I have not lost data yet (but
3829 <a href="http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.raid/34532">I was
3830 close</a> this summer :).  But once a disk is starting to behave
3831 funny, a practical problem present itself.  How to get from the Linux
3832 device name (like /dev/sdd) to something that can be used to identify
3833 the disk when the computer is turned off?  In my case I have SATA
3834 disks with a unique ID printed on the label.  All I need is a way to
3835 figure out how to query the disk to get the ID out.</p>
3836
3837 <p>After fumbling a bit, I
3838 <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-getting-scsi-ide-harddisk-information/">found
3839 that hdparm -I</a> will report the disk serial number, which is
3840 printed on the disk label.  The following (almost) one-liner can be
3841 used to look up the ID of all the failed disks:</p>
3842
3843 <blockquote><pre>
3844 for d in $(cat /proc/mdstat |grep '(F)'|tr ' ' "\n"|grep '(F)'|cut -d\[ -f1|sort -u);
3845 do
3846     printf "Failed disk $d: "
3847     hdparm -I /dev/$d |grep 'Serial Num'
3848 done
3849 </blockquote></pre>
3850
3851 <p>Putting it here to make sure I do not have to search for it the
3852 next time, and in case other find it useful.</p>
3853
3854 <p>At the moment I have two failing disk. :(</p>
3855
3856 <blockquote><pre>
3857 Failed disk sdd1:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
3858 Failed disk sdd2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1860823
3859 Failed disk sde2:       Serial Number:      WD-WCASJ1840589
3860 </blockquote></pre>
3861
3862 <p>The last time I had failing disks, I added the serial number on
3863 labels I printed and stuck on the short sides of each disk, to be able
3864 to figure out which disk to take out of the box without having to
3865 remove each disk to look at the physical vendor label.  The vendor
3866 label is at the top of the disk, which is hidden when the disks are
3867 mounted inside my box.</p>
3868
3869 <p>I really wish the check_linux_raid Nagios plugin for checking Linux
3870 Software RAID in the
3871 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nagios-plugins.html">nagios-plugins-standard</a>
3872 debian package would look up this value automatically, as it would
3873 make the plugin a lot more useful when my disks fail.  At the moment
3874 it only report a failure when there are no more spares left (it really
3875 should warn as soon as a disk is failing), and it do not tell me which
3876 disk(s) is failing when the RAID is running short on disks.</p>
3877
3878       </div>
3879       <div class="tags">
3880
3881
3882         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>.
3883
3884
3885       </div>
3886     </div>
3887     <div class="padding"></div>
3888
3889     <div class="entry">
3890       <div class="title">
3891         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_proxy_configuration_with_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux.html">Automatic proxy configuration with Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>
3892       </div>
3893       <div class="date">
3894         13th February 2012
3895       </div>
3896       <div class="body">
3897         <p>New in the Squeeze version of
3898 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> is the
3899 ability for clients to automatically configure their proxy settings
3900 based on their environment.  We want all systems on the client to use
3901 the WPAD based proxy definition fetched from <tt>http://wpad/wpad.dat</tt>, to
3902 allow sites to control the proxy setting from a central place and make
3903 sure clients do not have hard coded proxy settings.  The schools can
3904 change the global proxy setting by editing
3905 <tt>tjener:/etc/debian-edu/www/wpad.dat</tt> and the change propagate
3906 to all Debian Edu clients in the network.</p>
3907
3908 <p>The problem is that some systems do not understand the WPAD system.
3909 In other words, how do one get from a WPAD file like this (this is a
3910 simple one, they can run arbitrary code):</p>
3911
3912 <blockquote><pre>
3913 function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
3914 {
3915    if (!isResolvable(host) ||
3916        isPlainHostName(host) ||
3917        dnsDomainIs(host, ".intern"))
3918       return "DIRECT";
3919    else
3920       return "PROXY webcache:3128; DIRECT";
3921 }
3922 </pre></blockquote>
3923
3924 <p>to a proxy setting in the process environment looking like this:</p>
3925
3926 <blockquote><pre>
3927 http_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
3928 ftp_proxy=http://webcache:3128/
3929 </pre></blockquote>
3930
3931 <p>To do this conversion I developed a perl script that will execute
3932 the javascript fragment in the WPAD file and return the proxy that
3933 would be used for
3934 <tt><a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a></tt>,
3935 and insert this extracted proxy URL in <tt>/etc/environment</tt> and
3936 <tt>/etc/apt/apt.conf</tt>.  The perl script wpad-extract work just
3937 fine in Squeeze, but in Wheezy the library it need to run the
3938 javascript code is <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/631045">no longer
3939 able to build</a> because the C library it depended on is now a C++
3940 library.  I hope someone find a solution to that problem before Wheezy
3941 is frozen.  An alternative would be for us to rewrite wpad-extract to
3942 use some other javascript library currently working in Wheezy, but no
3943 known alternative is known at the moment.</p>
3944
3945 <p>This automatic proxy system allow the roaming workstation (aka
3946 laptop) setup in Debian Edu/Squeeze to use the proxy when the laptop
3947 is connected to the backbone network in a Debian Edu setup, and to
3948 automatically use any proxy present and announced using the WPAD
3949 feature when it is connected to other networks.  And if no proxy is
3950 announced, direct connections will be used instead.</p>
3951
3952 <p>Silently using a proxy announced on the network might be a privacy
3953 or security problem.  But those controlling DHCP and DNS on a network
3954 could just as easily set up a transparent proxy, and force all HTTP
3955 and FTP connections to use a proxy anyway, so I consider that
3956 distinction to be academic.  If you are afraid of using the wrong
3957 proxy, you should avoid connecting to the network in question in the
3958 first place.  In Debian Edu, the proxy setup is updated using dhcp and
3959 ifupdown hooks, to make sure the configuration is updated every time
3960 the network setup changes.</p>
3961
3962 <p>The WPAD system is documented in a
3963 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-wrec-wpad-01">IETF
3964 draft</a> and a
3965 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol">Wikipedia
3966 page</a> for those that want to learn more.</p>
3967
3968       </div>
3969       <div class="tags">
3970
3971
3972         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>.
3973
3974
3975       </div>
3976     </div>
3977     <div class="padding"></div>
3978
3979     <div class="entry">
3980       <div class="title">
3981         <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>
3982       </div>
3983       <div class="date">
3984          5th February 2012
3985       </div>
3986       <div class="body">
3987         <p>Since the Lenny version of
3988 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, a
3989 feature to save power have been included.  It is as simple as it is
3990 practical: Shut down unused clients at night, and turn them on again
3991 in the morning.  This is done using the
3992 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/shutdown-at-night.html">shutdown-at-night</a> Debian package.</p>
3993
3994 <p>To enable this feature on a client, the machine need to be added to
3995 the netgroup shutdown-at-night-hosts.  For Debian Edu, this is done in
3996 LDAP, and once this is in place, the machine in question will check
3997 every hour from 16:00 until 06:00 to see if the machine is unused, and
3998 shut it down if it is.  If the hardware in question is supported by
3999 the
4000 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nvram-wakeup.html">nvram-wakeup</a>
4001 package, the BIOS is told to turn the machine back on around 07:00 +-
4002 10 minutes.  If this isn't working, one can configure wake-on-lan to
4003 try to turn on the client.  The wake-on-lan option is only documented
4004 and not enabled by default in Debian Edu.</p>
4005
4006 <p>It is important to not turn all machines on at once, as this can
4007 blow a fuse if several computers are connected to the same fuse like
4008 the common setup for a classroom.  The nvram-wakeup method only work
4009 for machines with a functioning hardware/BIOS clock.  I've seen old
4010 machines where the BIOS battery were dead and the hardware clock were
4011 starting from 0 (or was it 1990?) every boot.  If you have one of
4012 those, you have to turn on the computer manually.</p>
4013
4014 <p>The shutdown-at-night package is completely self contained, and can
4015 also be used outside the Debian Edu environment.  For those without a
4016 central LDAP server with netgroups, one can instead touch the file
4017 <tt>/etc/shutdown-at-night/shutdown-at-night</tt> to enable it.
4018 Perhaps you too can use it to save some power?</p>
4019
4020       </div>
4021       <div class="tags">
4022
4023
4024         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>.
4025
4026
4027       </div>
4028     </div>
4029     <div class="padding"></div>
4030
4031     <div class="entry">
4032       <div class="title">
4033         <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>
4034       </div>
4035       <div class="date">
4036          4th February 2012
4037       </div>
4038       <div class="body">
4039         <p>I am happy to announce that finally we managed today to wrap up and
4040 publish the third beta version of
4041 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
4042 on Squeeze.  If you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with
4043 out of the box PXE configuration for running diskless machines and
4044 installing new machines, check it out.  If you need a software
4045 solution for your school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
4046 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/02/msg00000.html">available</a>
4047 on the project announcement list.</p>
4048
4049 <p>I am very happy to report these changes and improvements since
4050 beta2 (there are more, see announcement for full list):</p>
4051
4052 <ul>
4053
4054 <li>It is now possible to change the pre-configured IP subnet from
4055   10.0.0.0/8 to something else by using the subnet-change tool after
4056   the installation.</li>
4057
4058 <li>Too full partitions are now automatically extended on the Main
4059   Server, based on the rules specified in /etc/fsautoresizetab.</li>
4060
4061 <li>The CUPS queues are now automatically flushed every night, and all
4062   disabled queues are restarted every hour.  This should cut down on
4063   the amount of manual administration needed for printers.</li>
4064
4065 <li>The set of initial users have been changed.  Now a personal user
4066   for the local system administrator is created during installation
4067   instead of the previously created localadmin and super-admin users,
4068   and this user is granted administrative privileges using group
4069   membership.  This reduces the number of passwords one need to keep
4070   up to date on the system.</li>
4071
4072 </ul>
4073
4074 <p>The new main server seem to work so well that I am testing it as my
4075 private DNS/LDAP/Kerberos/PXE/LTSP server at home.  I will use it look
4076 for issues we could fix to polish Debian Edu even further before the
4077 final Squeeze release is published.</p>
4078
4079 <p>Next weekend the project organise a
4080 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00001.html">developer
4081 gathering</a> in Oslo.  We will continue the work on the Squeeze
4082 version, and start initial planning for the Wheezy version.  Perhaps I
4083 will see you there?</p>
4084
4085       </div>
4086       <div class="tags">
4087
4088
4089         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>.
4090
4091
4092       </div>
4093     </div>
4094     <div class="padding"></div>
4095
4096     <div class="entry">
4097       <div class="title">
4098         <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>
4099       </div>
4100       <div class="date">
4101         27th January 2012
4102       </div>
4103       <div class="body">
4104         <p>With some computer hardware, one need non-free firmware blobs.
4105 This is the sad fact of todays computers.  In the next version of
4106 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> based
4107 on Squeeze, we provide several scripts and modifications to make
4108 firmware blobs easier to handle.  The common use case I run into is a
4109 laptop with a wireless network card requiring non-free firmware to
4110 work, but there are other use cases as well.</p>
4111
4112 <p>First and foremost, Debian Edu provide ISO images for DVD and CD
4113 with all firmware packages in the Debian sections main and non-free
4114 included, to ensure debian-installer find and can install all of them
4115 during installation.  This take care firmware for network devices used
4116 by the installer when installing from from local media.  But for
4117 example multimedia devices are not activated in the installer and are
4118 not taken care of by this.</p>
4119
4120 <p>For non-network devices, we provide the script
4121 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/auto-addfirmware</tt> which
4122 search through the <tt>dmesg</tt> output for drivers requesting extra
4123 firmware.  The firmware file name is looked up in the Contents-ARCH.gz
4124 file available in the package repository, and the packages providing
4125 the requested firmware file(s) is installed.  I have proposed to do
4126 something similar in debian-installer (BTS report
4127 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/655507">#655507</a>), to allow PXE
4128 installs of Debian to handle firmware installation better.  Run the
4129 script as root from the command line to fetch and install the needed
4130 firmware packages.</p>
4131
4132 <p>Debian Edu provide PXE installation of Debian out of the box, and
4133 because some machines need firmware to get their network cards
4134 working, the installation initrd some times need extra firmware
4135 included to be able to install at all.  To fill the PXE installation
4136 initrd with extra firmware, the
4137 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware</tt> script is
4138 provided.  Again, just run it as root on the command line to fill the
4139 PXE initrd with firmware packages.</p>
4140
4141 <p>Last, some LTSP clients might also need firmware to get their
4142 network cards working.  For this,
4143 <tt>/usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/ltsp-addfirmware</tt> is
4144 provided to update the LTSP initrd with firmware blobs.  It is used
4145 the same way as the other firmware related tools.</p>
4146
4147 <p>At the moment, we do not run any of these during installation.  We
4148 do not know if this is acceptable for the local administrator to use
4149 non-free software, and it is their choice.</p>
4150
4151 <p>We plan to release beta3 this weekend.  You might want to give it a
4152 try.</p>
4153
4154       </div>
4155       <div class="tags">
4156
4157
4158         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>.
4159
4160
4161       </div>
4162     </div>
4163     <div class="padding"></div>
4164
4165     <div class="entry">
4166       <div class="title">
4167         <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>
4168       </div>
4169       <div class="date">
4170         25th January 2012
4171       </div>
4172       <div class="body">
4173         <p>The next version of <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu
4174 / Skolelinux</a> will include a new tool
4175 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp</tt>, which can be used to quickly set up all
4176 the computers in a school without much manual labour.  Here is a short
4177 summary on how to use it to set up a new school.</p>
4178
4179 <p>First, install a combined Main Server and Thin Client Server as the
4180 central server in the network.  Next, PXE boot all the client machines
4181 as thin clients and wait 5 minutes after the last client booted to
4182 allow the clients to report their existence to the central server.  When
4183 this is done, log on to the central server and run
4184 <tt>sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a</tt> in the <tt>konsole</tt> to use the
4185 collected information to generate system objects in LDAP.  The output
4186 will look similar to this:</p>
4187
4188 <p><blockquote><pre>
4189 % sitesummary2ldapdhcp -a
4190 info: Updating machine tjener.intern [10.0.2.2] id ether-00:01:02:03:04:05.
4191 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.
4192
4193 Enter password if you want to activate these changes, and ^c to abort.
4194
4195 Connecting to LDAP as cn=admin,ou=ldap-access,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
4196 enter password: *******
4197 %
4198 </pre></blockquote></p>
4199
4200 <p>After providing the LDAP administrative password (the same as the
4201 root password set during installation), the LDAP database will be
4202 populated with system objects for each PXE booted machine with
4203 automatically generated names.  The final step to set up the school is
4204 then to log into <a href="https://oss.gonicus.de/labs/gosa/">GOsa</a>,
4205 the web based user, group and system administration system to change
4206 system names, add systems to the correct host groups and finally
4207 enable DHCP and DNS for the systems.  All clients that should be used
4208 as diskless workstations should be added to the workstation-hosts
4209 group.  After this is done, all computers can be booted again via PXE
4210 and get their assigned names and group based configuration
4211 automatically.</p>
4212
4213 <p>We plan to release beta3 with the updated version of this feature
4214 enabled this weekend.  You might want to give it a try.</p>
4215
4216 <p>Update 2012-01-28: When calling sitesummary2ldapdhcp to add new
4217 hosts, one need to add the option -a.  I forgot to mention this in my
4218 original text, and have added it to the text now.</p>
4219
4220       </div>
4221       <div class="tags">
4222
4223
4224         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>.
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/Changing_the_default_Iceweasel_start_page_in_Debian_Edu_Squeeze.html">Changing the default Iceweasel start page in Debian Edu/Squeeze</a>
4234       </div>
4235       <div class="date">
4236         10th January 2012
4237       </div>
4238       <div class="body">
4239         <p>In the Squeeze version of
4240 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> soon
4241 to be released, users of the system will get their default browser
4242 start page set from LDAP, allowing the system administrator to point
4243 all users to the school web page by updating one setting in LDAP.  In
4244 addition to setting the default start page when a machine boots, users
4245 are shown the same page as a welcome page when they log in for the
4246 first time.</p>
4247
4248 <p>The LDAP object dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no have an attribute
4249 labeledURI with "http://www/ LDAP for Debian Edu/Skolelinux" as the
4250 default content.  By changing this value to another URL, all users get
4251 to see the page behind this new URL.</p>
4252
4253 <p>An easy way to update it is by using the ldapvi tool.  It can be
4254 called as "<tt>ldapvi -ZD '(cn=admin)'</tt>' to update LDAP with the
4255 new setting.</p>
4256
4257 <p>We have written the code to adjust the default start page and show
4258 the welcome page, and I wonder if there is an easier way to do this
4259 from within Iceweasel instead.</p>
4260
4261       </div>
4262       <div class="tags">
4263
4264
4265         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>.
4266
4267
4268       </div>
4269     </div>
4270     <div class="padding"></div>
4271
4272     <div class="entry">
4273       <div class="title">
4274         <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>
4275       </div>
4276       <div class="date">
4277          7th January 2012
4278       </div>
4279       <div class="body">
4280         <p>I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
4281 the second beta version of
4282 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>.  If
4283 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
4284 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
4285 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
4286 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
4287 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html">available</a>
4288 on the project announcement list.</p>
4289
4290       </div>
4291       <div class="tags">
4292
4293
4294         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>.
4295
4296
4297       </div>
4298     </div>
4299     <div class="padding"></div>
4300
4301     <div class="entry">
4302       <div class="title">
4303         <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>
4304       </div>
4305       <div class="date">
4306          3rd January 2012
4307       </div>
4308       <div class="body">
4309         <p>During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
4310 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> ready
4311 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
4312 interesting.</p>
4313
4314 <P>The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
4315 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
4316 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
4317 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
4318 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
4319 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
4320 wrap up its tasks.</p>
4321
4322 <p>Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
4323 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
4324 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
4325 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
4326 because I was typing.</P>
4327
4328 <p>The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
4329 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
4330 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
4331 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do 'find /' to
4332 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
4333 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
4334 generate entropy.</p>
4335
4336 <p>The fix is in
4337 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation">beta1
4338 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze</a> version, and we
4339 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu">welcome more testers and
4340 developers</a>.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.</p>
4341
4342       </div>
4343       <div class="tags">
4344
4345
4346         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>.
4347
4348
4349       </div>
4350     </div>
4351     <div class="padding"></div>
4352
4353     <div class="entry">
4354       <div class="title">
4355         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatically_upgrading_server_firmware_on_Dell_PowerEdge.html">Automatically upgrading server firmware on Dell PowerEdge</a>
4356       </div>
4357       <div class="date">
4358         21st November 2011
4359       </div>
4360       <div class="body">
4361         <p>At work we have heaps of servers.  I believe the total count is
4362 around 1000 at the moment.  To be able to get help from the vendors
4363 when something go wrong, we want to keep the firmware on the servers
4364 up to date.  If the firmware isn't the latest and greatest, the
4365 vendors typically refuse to start debugging any problems until the
4366 firmware is upgraded.  So before every reboot, we want to upgrade the
4367 firmware, and we would really like everyone handling servers at the
4368 university to do this themselves when they plan to reboot a machine.
4369 For that to happen we at the unix server admin group need to provide
4370 the tools to do so.</p>
4371
4372 <p>To make firmware upgrading easier, I am working on a script to
4373 fetch and install the latest firmware for the servers we got.  Most of
4374 our hardware are from Dell and HP, so I have focused on these servers
4375 so far.  This blog post is about the Dell part.</P>
4376
4377 <p>On the Dell FTP site I was lucky enough to find
4378 <a href="ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz">an XML file</a>
4379 with firmware information for all 11th generation servers, listing
4380 which firmware should be used on a given model and where on the FTP
4381 site I can find it.  Using a simple perl XML parser I can then
4382 download the shell scripts Dell provides to do firmware upgrades from
4383 within Linux and reboot when all the firmware is primed and ready to
4384 be activated on the first reboot.</p>
4385
4386 <p>This is the Dell related fragment of the perl code I am working on.
4387 Are there anyone working on similar tools for firmware upgrading all
4388 servers at a site?  Please get in touch and lets share resources.</p>
4389
4390 <p><pre>
4391 #!/usr/bin/perl
4392 use strict;
4393 use warnings;
4394 use File::Temp qw(tempdir);
4395 BEGIN {
4396     # Install needed RHEL packages if missing
4397     my %rhelmodules = (
4398         'XML::Simple' => 'perl-XML-Simple',
4399         );
4400     for my $module (keys %rhelmodules) {
4401         eval "use $module;";
4402         if ($@) {
4403             my $pkg = $rhelmodules{$module};
4404             system("yum install -y $pkg");
4405             eval "use $module;";
4406         }
4407     }
4408 }
4409 my $errorsto = 'pere@hungry.com';
4410
4411 upgrade_dell();
4412
4413 exit 0;
4414
4415 sub run_firmware_script {
4416     my ($opts, $script) = @_;
4417     unless ($script) {
4418         print STDERR "fail: missing script name\n";
4419         exit 1
4420     }
4421     print STDERR "Running $script\n\n";
4422
4423     if (0 == system("sh $script $opts")) { # FIXME correct exit code handling
4424         print STDERR "success: firmware script ran succcessfully\n";
4425     } else {
4426         print STDERR "fail: firmware script returned error\n";
4427     }
4428 }
4429
4430 sub run_firmware_scripts {
4431     my ($opts, @dirs) = @_;
4432     # Run firmware packages
4433     for my $dir (@dirs) {
4434         print STDERR "info: Running scripts in $dir\n";
4435         opendir(my $dh, $dir) or die "Unable to open directory $dir: $!";
4436         while (my $s = readdir $dh) {
4437             next if $s =~ m/^\.\.?/;
4438             run_firmware_script($opts, "$dir/$s");
4439         }
4440         closedir $dh;
4441     }
4442 }
4443
4444 sub download {
4445     my $url = shift;
4446     print STDERR "info: Downloading $url\n";
4447     system("wget --quiet \"$url\"");
4448 }
4449
4450 sub upgrade_dell {
4451     my @dirs;
4452     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4453     chomp $product;
4454
4455     if ($product =~ m/PowerEdge/) {
4456
4457         # on RHEL, these pacakges are needed by the firwmare upgrade scripts
4458         system('yum install -y compat-libstdc++-33.i686 libstdc++.i686 libxml2.i686 procmail');
4459
4460         my $tmpdir = tempdir(
4461             CLEANUP => 1
4462             );
4463         chdir($tmpdir);
4464         fetch_dell_fw('catalog/Catalog.xml.gz');
4465         system('gunzip Catalog.xml.gz');
4466         my @paths = fetch_dell_fw_list('Catalog.xml');
4467         # -q is quiet, disabling interactivity and reducing console output
4468         my $fwopts = "-q";
4469         if (@paths) {
4470             for my $url (@paths) {
4471                 fetch_dell_fw($url);
4472             }
4473             run_firmware_scripts($fwopts, $tmpdir);
4474         } else {
4475             print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4476             print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4477         }
4478         chdir('/');
4479     } else {
4480         print STDERR "error: Unsupported Dell model '$product'.\n";
4481         print STDERR "error: Please report to $errorsto.\n";
4482     }
4483 }
4484
4485 sub fetch_dell_fw {
4486     my $path = shift;
4487     my $url = "ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/$path";
4488     download($url);
4489 }
4490
4491 # Using ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/catalog/Catalog.xml.gz, figure out which
4492 # firmware packages to download from Dell.  Only work for Linux
4493 # machines and 11th generation Dell servers.
4494 sub fetch_dell_fw_list {
4495     my $filename = shift;
4496
4497     my $product = `dmidecode -s system-product-name`;
4498     chomp $product;
4499     my ($mybrand, $mymodel) = split(/\s+/, $product);
4500
4501     print STDERR "Finding firmware bundles for $mybrand $mymodel\n";
4502
4503     my $xml = XMLin($filename);
4504     my @paths;
4505     for my $bundle (@{$xml->{SoftwareBundle}}) {
4506         my $brand = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Display}->{content};
4507         my $model = $bundle->{TargetSystems}->{Brand}->{Model}->{Display}->{content};
4508         my $oscode;
4509         if ("ARRAY" eq ref $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}) {
4510             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}[0]->{osCode};
4511         } else {
4512             $oscode = $bundle->{TargetOSes}->{OperatingSystem}->{osCode};
4513         }
4514         if ($mybrand eq $brand && $mymodel eq $model && "LIN" eq $oscode)
4515         {
4516             @paths = map { $_->{path} } @{$bundle->{Contents}->{Package}};
4517         }
4518     }
4519     for my $component (@{$xml->{SoftwareComponent}}) {
4520         my $componenttype = $component->{ComponentType}->{value};
4521
4522         # Drop application packages, only firmware and BIOS
4523         next if 'APAC' eq $componenttype;
4524
4525         my $cpath = $component->{path};
4526         for my $path (@paths) {
4527             if ($cpath =~ m%/$path$%) {
4528                 push(@paths, $cpath);
4529             }
4530         }
4531     }
4532     return @paths;
4533 }
4534 </pre>
4535
4536 <p>The code is only tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux, but I suspect
4537 it could work on other platforms with some tweaking.  Anyone know a
4538 index like Catalog.xml is available from HP for HP servers?  At the
4539 moment I maintain a similar list manually and it is quickly getting
4540 outdated.</p>
4541
4542       </div>
4543       <div class="tags">
4544
4545
4546         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>.
4547
4548
4549       </div>
4550     </div>
4551     <div class="padding"></div>
4552
4553     <div class="entry">
4554       <div class="title">
4555         <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>
4556       </div>
4557       <div class="date">
4558          7th October 2011
4559       </div>
4560       <div class="body">
4561         <p>Here in Norway the public libraries are debating with the
4562 publishing houses how to handle electronic books.  Surprisingly, the
4563 libraries seem to be willing to accept digital restriction mechanisms
4564 (DRM) on books and renting e-books with artificial scarcity from the
4565 publishing houses.  Time limited renting (2-3 years) is one proposed
4566 model, and only allowing X borrowers for each book is another.
4567 Personally I find it amazing that libraries are even considering such
4568 models.</p>
4569
4570 <p>Anyway, while reading <a href="http://boklaben.no/?p=220">part of
4571 this debate</a>, it occurred to me that someone should present a more
4572 sensible approach to the libraries, to allow its borrowers to get used
4573 to a better model.  The idea is simple:</p>
4574
4575 <p>Create a computer system for the libraries, either in the form of a
4576 Live DVD or a installable distribution, that provide a simple kiosk
4577 solution to hand out free e-books.  As a start, the books distributed
4578 by <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about
4579 36,000 books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a>
4580 (1149 books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The
4581 Internet Archive</a> (3,033,748 books) could be included, but any book
4582 where the copyright has expired or with a free licence could be
4583 distributed.</p>
4584
4585 <p>The computer system would make it easy to:</p>
4586
4587 <ul>
4588
4589 <li>Copy e-books into a USB stick, reading tablets, cell phones and
4590   other relevant equipment.</li>
4591
4592 <li>Show the books for reading on the the screen in the library.</li>
4593
4594 </ul>
4595
4596 <p>In addition to such kiosk solution, there should probably be a web
4597 site as well to allow people easy access to these books without
4598 visiting the library.  The site would be the distribution point for
4599 the kiosk systems, which would connect regularly to fetch any new
4600 books available.</p>
4601
4602 <p>Are there anyone working on a system like this?  I guess it would
4603 fit any library in the world, and not just the Norwegian public
4604 libraries. :)</p>
4605
4606       </div>
4607       <div class="tags">
4608
4609
4610         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>.
4611
4612
4613       </div>
4614     </div>
4615     <div class="padding"></div>
4616
4617     <div class="entry">
4618       <div class="title">
4619         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html">Ripping problematic DVDs using dvdbackup and genisoimage</a>
4620       </div>
4621       <div class="date">
4622         17th September 2011
4623       </div>
4624       <div class="body">
4625         <p>For convenience, I want to store copies of all my DVDs on my file
4626 server.  It allow me to save shelf space flat while still having my
4627 movie collection easily available.  It also make it possible to let
4628 the kids see their favourite DVDs without wearing the physical copies
4629 down.  I prefer to store the DVDs as ISOs to keep the DVD menu and
4630 subtitle options intact.  It also ensure that the entire film is one
4631 file on the disk.  As this is for personal use, the ripping is
4632 perfectly legal here in Norway.</p>
4633
4634 <p>Normally I rip the DVDs using dd like this:</p>
4635
4636 <blockquote><pre>
4637 #!/bin/sh
4638 # apt-get install lsdvd
4639 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
4640 dd if=/dev/dvd of=/storage/dvds/$title.iso bs=1M
4641 </pre></blockquote>
4642
4643 <p>But some DVDs give a input/output error when I read it, and I have
4644 been looking for a better alternative.  I have no idea why this I/O
4645 error occur, but suspect my DVD drive, the Linux kernel driver or
4646 something fishy with the DVDs in question.  Or perhaps all three.</p>
4647
4648 <p>Anyway, I believe I found a solution today using dvdbackup and
4649 genisoimage.  This script gave me a working ISO for a problematic
4650 movie by first extracting the DVD file system and then re-packing it
4651 back as an ISO.
4652
4653 <blockquote><pre>
4654 #!/bin/sh
4655 # apt-get install lsdvd dvdbackup genisoimage
4656 set -e
4657 tmpdir=/storage/dvds/
4658 title=$(lsdvd 2>/dev/null|awk '/Disc Title: / {print $3}')
4659 dvdbackup -i /dev/dvd -M -o $tmpdir -n$title
4660 genisoimage -dvd-video -o $tmpdir/$title.iso $tmpdir/$title
4661 rm -rf $tmpdir/$title
4662 </pre></blockquote>
4663
4664 <p>Anyone know of a better way available in Debian/Squeeze?</p>
4665
4666 <p>Update 2011-09-18: I got a tip from Konstantin Khomoutov about the
4667 readom program from the wodim package.  It is specially written to
4668 read optical media, and is called like this: <tt>readom dev=/dev/dvd
4669 f=image.iso</tt>.  It got 6 GB along with the problematic Cars DVD
4670 before it failed, and failed right away with a Timmy Time DVD.</p>
4671
4672 <p>Next, I got a tip from Bastian Blank about
4673 <a href="http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo">his
4674 program python-dvdvideo</a>, which seem to be just what I am looking
4675 for.  Tested it with my problematic Timmy Time DVD, and it succeeded
4676 creating a ISO image.  The git source built and installed just fine in
4677 Squeeze, so I guess this will be my tool of choice in the future.</p>
4678
4679       </div>
4680       <div class="tags">
4681
4682
4683         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>.
4684
4685
4686       </div>
4687     </div>
4688     <div class="padding"></div>
4689
4690     <div class="entry">
4691       <div class="title">
4692         <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>
4693       </div>
4694       <div class="date">
4695          4th August 2011
4696       </div>
4697       <div class="body">
4698         <p>Wouter Verhelst have some
4699 <a href="http://grep.be/blog/en/retorts/pere_kubuntu_boot">interesting
4700 comments and opinions</a> on my blog post on
4701 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_should_start_from__etc_rcS_d__in_Debian____almost_nothing.html">the
4702 need to clean up /etc/rcS.d/ in Debian</a> and my blog post about
4703 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html">the
4704 default KDE desktop in Debian</a>.  I only have time to address one
4705 small piece of his comment now, and though it best to address the
4706 misunderstanding he bring forward:</p>
4707
4708 <p><blockquote>
4709 Currently, a system admin has four options: [...] boot to a
4710 single-user system (by adding 'single' to the kernel command line;
4711 this runs rcS and rc1 scripts)
4712 </blockquote></p>
4713
4714 <p>This make me believe Wouter believe booting into single user mode
4715 and booting into runlevel 1 is the same.  I am not surprised he
4716 believe this, because it would make sense and is a quite sensible
4717 thing to believe.  But because the boot in Debian is slightly broken,
4718 runlevel 1 do not work properly and it isn't the same as single user
4719 mode.  I'll try to explain what is actually happing, but it is a bit
4720 hard to explain.</p>
4721
4722 <p>Single user mode is defined like this in /etc/inittab:
4723 "<tt>~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin</tt>".  This means the only thing that is
4724 executed in single user mode is sulogin.  Single user mode is a boot
4725 state "between" the runlevels, and when booting into single user mode,
4726 only the scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are executed before the init process
4727 enters the single user state.  When switching to runlevel 1, the state
4728 is in fact not ending in runlevel 1, but it passes through runlevel 1
4729 and end up in the single user mode (see /etc/rc1.d/S03single, which
4730 runs "init -t1 S" to switch to single user mode at the end of runlevel
4731 1.  It is confusing that the 'S' (single user) init mode is not the
4732 mode enabled by /etc/rcS.d/ (which is more like the initial boot
4733 mode).</p>
4734
4735 <p>This summary might make it clearer.  When booting for the first
4736 time into single user mode, the following commands are executed:
4737 "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc S; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  When booting into
4738 runlevel 1, the following commands are executed: "<tt>/etc/init.d/rc
4739 S; /etc/init.d/rc 1; /sbin/sulogin</tt>".  A problem show up when
4740 trying to continue after visiting single user mode.  Not all services
4741 are started again as they should, causing the machine to end up in an
4742 unpredicatble state.  This is why Debian admins recommend rebooting
4743 after visiting single user mode.</p>
4744
4745 <p>A similar problem with runlevel 1 is caused by the amount of
4746 scripts executed from /etc/rcS.d/.  When switching from say runlevel 2
4747 to runlevel 1, the services started from /etc/rcS.d/ are not properly
4748 stopped when passing through the scripts in /etc/rc1.d/, and not
4749 started again when switching away from runlevel 1 to the runlevels
4750 2-5.  I believe the problem is best fixed by moving all the scripts
4751 out of /etc/rcS.d/ that are not <strong>required</strong> to get a
4752 functioning single user mode during boot.</p>
4753
4754 <p>I have spent several years investigating the Debian boot system,
4755 and discovered this problem a few years ago.  I suspect it originates
4756 from when sysvinit was introduced into Debian, a long time ago.</p>
4757
4758       </div>
4759       <div class="tags">
4760
4761
4762         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>.
4763
4764
4765       </div>
4766     </div>
4767     <div class="padding"></div>
4768
4769     <div class="entry">
4770       <div class="title">
4771         <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>
4772       </div>
4773       <div class="date">
4774         30th July 2011
4775       </div>
4776       <div class="body">
4777         <p>In the Debian boot system, several packages include scripts that
4778 are started from /etc/rcS.d/.  In fact, there is a bite more of them
4779 than make sense, and this causes a few problems.  What kind of
4780 problems, you might ask.  There are at least two problems.  The first
4781 is that it is not possible to recover a machine after switching to
4782 runlevel 1.  One need to actually reboot to get the machine back to
4783 the expected state.  The other is that single user boot will sometimes
4784 run into problems because some of the subsystems are activated before
4785 the root login is presented, causing problems when trying to recover a
4786 machine from a problem in that subsystem.  A minor additional point is
4787 that moving more scripts out of rcS.d/ and into the other rc#.d/
4788 directories will increase the amount of scripts that can run in
4789 parallel during boot, and thus decrease the boot time.</p>
4790
4791 <p>So, which scripts should start from rcS.d/.  In short, only the
4792 scripts that _have_ to execute before the root login prompt is
4793 presented during a single user boot should go there.  Everything else
4794 should go into the numeric runlevels.  This means things like
4795 lm-sensors, fuse and x11-common should not run from rcS.d, but from
4796 the numeric runlevels.  Today in Debian, there are around 115 init.d
4797 scripts that are started from rcS.d/, and most of them should be moved
4798 out.  Do your package have one of them?  Please help us make single
4799 user and runlevel 1 better by moving it.</p>
4800
4801 <p>Scripts setting up the screen, keyboard, system partitions
4802 etc. should still be started from rcS.d/, but there is for example no
4803 need to have the network enabled before the single user login prompt
4804 is presented.</p>
4805
4806 <p>As always, things are not so easy to fix as they sound.  To keep
4807 Debian systems working while scripts migrate and during upgrades, the
4808 scripts need to be moved from rcS.d/ to rc2.d/ in reverse dependency
4809 order, ie the scripts that nothing in rcS.d/ depend on can be moved,
4810 and the next ones can only be moved when their dependencies have been
4811 moved first.  This migration must be done sequentially while we ensure
4812 that the package system upgrade packages in the right order to keep
4813 the system state correct.  This will require some coordination when it
4814 comes to network related packages, but most of the packages with
4815 scripts that should migrate do not have anything in rcS.d/ depending
4816 on them.  Some packages have already been updated, like the sudo
4817 package, while others are still left to do.  I wish I had time to work
4818 on this myself, but real live constrains make it unlikely that I will
4819 find time to push this forward.</p>
4820
4821       </div>
4822       <div class="tags">
4823
4824
4825         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>.
4826
4827
4828       </div>
4829     </div>
4830     <div class="padding"></div>
4831
4832     <div class="entry">
4833       <div class="title">
4834         <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>
4835       </div>
4836       <div class="date">
4837         29th July 2011
4838       </div>
4839       <div class="body">
4840         <p>While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
4841 mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
4842 desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
4843 parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
4844 issues.</p>
4845
4846 <p>I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
4847 implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
4848 do this in Debian we would have a source.</p>
4849
4850 <ol>
4851
4852 <li><strong>Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.</strong> When there
4853 are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
4854 indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
4855 tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
4856 through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
4857 this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
4858 time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
4859 Debian.</li>
4860
4861 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
4862 plugins.</strong> When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
4863 currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
4864 should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
4865 and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
4866 advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
4867 Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
4868 it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
4869 type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
4870 license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
4871 more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
4872 make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
4873 not the browser for any missing features.</li>
4874
4875 <li><strong>Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
4876 handlers.</strong> When the media players encounter a format or codec
4877 it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
4878 should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
4879 happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
4880 and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
4881 plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
4882 gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
4883 the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
4884 explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.</li>
4885
4886 <li><strong>Better browser handling of some MIME types.</strong> When
4887 displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
4888 start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
4889 in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
4890 know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
4891 latter behaviour.</li>
4892
4893 </ol>
4894
4895 <p>There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
4896 upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
4897 it do not matter much.</p>
4898
4899 <p>I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
4900 Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
4901 maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.</p>
4902
4903       </div>
4904       <div class="tags">
4905
4906
4907         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>.
4908
4909
4910       </div>
4911     </div>
4912     <div class="padding"></div>
4913
4914     <div class="entry">
4915       <div class="title">
4916         <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>
4917       </div>
4918       <div class="date">
4919         26th July 2011
4920       </div>
4921       <div class="body">
4922         <p>The Norwegian <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</A>
4923 site is build on Debian/Squeeze, and this platform was chosen because
4924 I am most familiar with Debian (being a Debian Developer for around 10
4925 years) because it is the latest stable Debian release which should get
4926 security support for a few years.</p>
4927
4928 <p>The web service is written in Perl, and depend on some perl modules
4929 that are missing in Debian at the moment.  It would be great if these
4930 modules were added to the Debian archive, allowing anyone to set up
4931 their own <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com">FixMyStreet</a> clone
4932 in their own country using only Debian packages.  The list of modules
4933 missing in Debian/Squeeze isn't very long, and I hope the perl group
4934 will find time to package the 12 modules Catalyst::Plugin::SmartURI,
4935 Catalyst::Plugin::Unicode::Encoding, Catalyst::View::TT, Devel::Hide,
4936 Sort::Key, Statistics::Distributions, Template::Plugin::Comma,
4937 Template::Plugin::DateTime::Format, Term::Size::Any, Term::Size::Perl,
4938 URI::SmartURI and Web::Scraper to make the maintenance of FixMyStreet
4939 easier in the future.</p>
4940
4941 <p>Thanks to the great tools in Debian, getting the missing modules
4942 installed on my server was a simple call to 'cpan2deb Module::Name'
4943 and 'dpkg -i' to install the resulting package.  But this leave me
4944 with the responsibility of tracking security problems, which I really
4945 do not have time for.</p>
4946
4947       </div>
4948       <div class="tags">
4949
4950
4951         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>.
4952
4953
4954       </div>
4955     </div>
4956     <div class="padding"></div>
4957
4958     <div class="entry">
4959       <div class="title">
4960         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Free_Software_vs__proprietary_softare___.html">Free Software vs. proprietary softare...</a>
4961       </div>
4962       <div class="date">
4963         20th June 2011
4964       </div>
4965       <div class="body">
4966         <p>Reading
4967 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2011/06/20/open-source-vs-closed-source-eulas/">the
4968 thingiverse blog</a>, I came across two highlights of interesting
4969 parts of the
4970 <a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Autodesk_EULA">Autodesk</a>
4971 and
4972 <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/06/things-you-cant-do-with-the-microsoft-kinect-sdk.html">Microsoft
4973 Kinect</a> End User License Agreements (EULAs), which illustrates
4974 quite well why I stay away from software with EULAs.  Whenever I take
4975 the time to read their content, the terms are simply unacceptable.</p>
4976
4977       </div>
4978       <div class="tags">
4979
4980
4981         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>.
4982
4983
4984       </div>
4985     </div>
4986     <div class="padding"></div>
4987
4988     <div class="entry">
4989       <div class="title">
4990         <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>
4991       </div>
4992       <div class="date">
4993         30th April 2011
4994       </div>
4995       <div class="body">
4996         <p>Today, the first draft implementation of an
4997 <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> for the Norwegian
4998 service <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> started to
4999 work.  It is only available on the developer server for now, and I
5000 have not tested it using any existing Open311 client (I lack the
5001 platforms needed to run the clients I have found so far), but it is
5002 able to query the database and extract a list of open and closed
5003 requests within a given category and reported to a given municipality.
5004 I believe that is a good start to create a useful service for those
5005 that want to do data mining on the requests submitted so far.</p>
5006
5007 <p>Where is it?  Visit
5008 <a href="http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/">http://fiksgatami-dev.nuug.no/open311.cgi/v2/</a>
5009 to have a look.  Please send feedback to the
5010 <a href="http://lists.nuug.no/mailman/listinfo/fiksgatami">fiksgatami
5011 (at) nuug.no</a> mailing list.</p>
5012
5013       </div>
5014       <div class="tags">
5015
5016
5017         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>.
5018
5019
5020       </div>
5021     </div>
5022     <div class="padding"></div>
5023
5024     <div class="entry">
5025       <div class="title">
5026         <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>
5027       </div>
5028       <div class="date">
5029         29th April 2011
5030       </div>
5031       <div class="body">
5032         <p>The last few days I have spent some time trying to add support for
5033 the <a href="http://www.open311.org/">Open311 API</a> in the
5034 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">Norwegian FixMyStreet service</a>.
5035 Earlier I believed Open311 would be a useful API to use to submit
5036 reports to the municipalities, but when I noticed that the
5037 <a href="http://fixmystreet.org.nz/">New Zealand version</a> of
5038 FixMyStreet had implemented Open311 on the server side, it occurred to
5039 me that this was a nice way to allow the public, press and
5040 municipalities to do data mining directly in the FixMyStreet service.
5041 Thus I went to work implementing the Open311 specification for
5042 FixMyStreet.  The implementation is not yet ready, but I am starting
5043 to get a draft limping along.  In the process, I have discovered a few
5044 issues with the Open311 specification.</p>
5045
5046 <p>One obvious missing feature is the lack of natural language
5047 handling in the specification.  The specification seem to assume all
5048 reports will be written in English, and do not provide a way for the
5049 receiving end to specify which languages are understood there.  To be
5050 able to use the same client and submit to several Open311 receivers,
5051 it would be useful to know which language to use when writing reports.
5052 I believe the specification should be extended to allow the receivers
5053 of problem reports to specify which language they accept, and the
5054 submitter to specify which language the report is written in.
5055 Language of a text can also be automatically guessed using statistical
5056 methods, but for multi-lingual persons like myself, it is useful to
5057 know which language to use when writing a problem report.  I suspect
5058 some lang=nb,nn kind of attribute would solve it.</p>
5059
5060 <p>A key part of the Open311 API is the list of services provided,
5061 which is similar to the categories used by FixMyStreet.  One issue I
5062 run into is the need to specify both name and unique identifier for
5063 each category.  The specification do not state that the identifier
5064 should be numeric, but all example implementations have used numbers
5065 here.  In FixMyStreet, there is no number associated with each
5066 category.  As the specification do not forbid it, I will use the name
5067 as the unique identifier for now and see how open311 clients handle
5068 it.</p>
5069
5070 <p>The report format in open311 and the report format in FixMyStreet
5071 differ in a key part.  FixMyStreet have a title and a description,
5072 while Open311 only have a description and lack the title.  I'm not
5073 quite sure how to best handle this yet.  When asking for a FixMyStreet
5074 report in Open311 format, I just merge title an description into the
5075 open311 description, but this is not going to work if the open311 API
5076 should be used for submitting new reports to FixMyStreet.</p>
5077
5078 <p>The search feature in Open311 is missing a way to ask for problems
5079 near a geographic location.  I believe this is important if one is to
5080 use Open311 as the query language for mobile units.  The specification
5081 should be extended to handle this, probably using some new lat=, lon=
5082 and range= options.</p>
5083
5084 <p>The final challenge I see is that the FixMyStreet code handle
5085 several administrations in one interface, while the Open311 API seem
5086 to assume only one administration.  For FixMyStreet, this mean a
5087 report can be sent to several administrations, and the categories
5088 available depend on the location of the problem.  Not quite sure how
5089 to best handle this.  I've noticed
5090 <a href="http://seeclickfix.com/open311/">SeeClickFix</a> added
5091 latitude and longitude options to the services request, but it do not
5092 solve the problem of what to return when no location is specified.
5093 Will have to investigate this a bit more.</p>
5094
5095 <p>My distaste for web forums have kept me from bringing these issues
5096 up with the open311 developer group.  I really wish they had a email
5097 list available via <a href="http://www.gmane.org/">Gmane</a> to use for
5098 discussions instead of only
5099 <a href="http://lists.open311.org/groups/discuss">a forum<a/>.  Oh,
5100 well.  That will probably resolve itself, one way or another.  I've
5101 also tried visiting the IRC channel #open311 on FreeNode, but no-one
5102 seem to reply to my questions there.  This make me wonder if I just
5103 fail to understand how the open311 community work.  It sure do not
5104 work like the free software project communities I am used to.</p>
5105
5106       </div>
5107       <div class="tags">
5108
5109
5110         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>.
5111
5112
5113       </div>
5114     </div>
5115     <div class="padding"></div>
5116
5117     <div class="entry">
5118       <div class="title">
5119         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html">Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</a>
5120       </div>
5121       <div class="date">
5122          6th April 2011
5123       </div>
5124       <div class="body">
5125         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is still
5126 the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
5127 A few days ago the project
5128 <a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html">announced</a>
5129 that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
5130 students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
5131 into Gnash.</p>
5132
5133       </div>
5134       <div class="tags">
5135
5136
5137         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>.
5138
5139
5140       </div>
5141     </div>
5142     <div class="padding"></div>
5143
5144     <div class="entry">
5145       <div class="title">
5146         <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>
5147       </div>
5148       <div class="date">
5149          3rd April 2011
5150       </div>
5151       <div class="body">
5152         <p>Here is a small update for my English readers.  Most of my blog
5153 posts have been in Norwegian the last few weeks, so here is a short
5154 update in English.</p>
5155
5156 <p>The kids still keep me too busy to get much free software work
5157 done, but I did manage to organise a project to get a Norwegian port
5158 of the British service
5159 <a href="http://www.fixmystreet.com/">FixMyStreet</a> up and running,
5160 and it has been running for a month now.  The entire project has been
5161 organised by me and two others.  Around Christmas we gathered sponsors
5162 to fund the development work.  In January I drafted a contract with
5163 <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> on what to develop,
5164 and in February the development took place.  Most of it involved
5165 converting the source to use GPS coordinates instead of British
5166 easting/northing, and the resulting code should be a lot easier to get
5167 running in any country by now.  The Norwegian
5168 <a href="http://www.fiksgatami.no/">FiksGataMi</a> is using
5169 <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/">OpenStreetmap</a> as the map
5170 source and the source for administrative borders in Norway, and
5171 support for this had to be added/fixed.</p>
5172
5173 <p>The Norwegian version went live March 3th, and we spent the weekend
5174 polishing the system before we announced it March 7th.  The system is
5175 running on a KVM instance of Debian/Squeeze, and has seen almost 3000
5176 problem reports in a few weeks.  Soon we hope to announce the Android
5177 and iPhone versions making it even easier to report problems with the
5178 public infrastructure.</p>
5179
5180 <p>Perhaps something to consider for those of you in countries without
5181 such service?</p>
5182
5183       </div>
5184       <div class="tags">
5185
5186
5187         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>.
5188
5189
5190       </div>
5191     </div>
5192     <div class="padding"></div>
5193
5194     <div class="entry">
5195       <div class="title">
5196         <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>
5197       </div>
5198       <div class="date">
5199         28th January 2011
5200       </div>
5201       <div class="body">
5202         <p>The last few days I have looked at ways to track open security
5203 issues here at my work with the University of Oslo.  My idea is that
5204 it should be possible to use the information about security issues
5205 available on the Internet, and check our locally
5206 maintained/distributed software against this information.  It should
5207 allow us to verify that no known security issues are forgotten.  The
5208 CVE database listing vulnerabilities seem like a great central point,
5209 and by using the package lists from Debian mapped to CVEs provided by
5210 the testing security team, I believed it should be possible to figure
5211 out which security holes were present in our free software
5212 collection.</p>
5213
5214 <p>After reading up on the topic, it became obvious that the first
5215 building block is to be able to name software packages in a unique and
5216 consistent way across data sources.  I considered several ways to do
5217 this, for example coming up with my own naming scheme like using URLs
5218 to project home pages or URLs to the Freshmeat entries, or using some
5219 existing naming scheme.  And it seem like I am not the first one to
5220 come across this problem, as MITRE already proposed and implemented a
5221 solution.  Enter the <a href="http://cpe.mitre.org/index.html">Common
5222 Platform Enumeration</a> dictionary, a vocabulary for referring to
5223 software, hardware and other platform components.  The CPE ids are
5224 mapped to CVEs in the <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/">National
5225 Vulnerability Database</a>, allowing me to look up know security
5226 issues for any CPE name.  With this in place, all I need to do is to
5227 locate the CPE id for the software packages we use at the university.
5228 This is fairly trivial (I google for 'cve cpe $package' and check the
5229 NVD entry if a CVE for the package exist).</p>
5230
5231 <p>To give you an example.  The GNU gzip source package have the CPE
5232 name cpe:/a:gnu:gzip.  If the old version 1.3.3 was the package to
5233 check out, one could look up
5234 <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
5235 in NVD</a> and get a list of 6 security holes with public CVE entries.
5236 The most recent one is
5237 <a href="http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2010-0001">CVE-2010-0001</a>,
5238 and at the bottom of the NVD page for this vulnerability the complete
5239 list of affected versions is provided.</p>
5240
5241 <p>The NVD database of CVEs is also available as a XML dump, allowing
5242 for offline processing of issues.  Using this dump, I've written a
5243 small script taking a list of CPEs as input and list all CVEs
5244 affecting the packages represented by these CPEs.  One give it CPEs
5245 with version numbers as specified above and get a list of open
5246 security issues out.</p>
5247
5248 <p>Of course for this approach to be useful, the quality of the NVD
5249 information need to be high.  For that to happen, I believe as many as
5250 possible need to use and contribute to the NVD database.  I notice
5251 RHEL is providing
5252 <a href="https://www.redhat.com/security/data/metrics/rhsamapcpe.txt">a
5253 map from CVE to CPE</a>, indicating that they are using the CPE
5254 information.  I'm not aware of Debian and Ubuntu doing the same.</p>
5255
5256 <p>To get an idea about the quality for free software, I spent some
5257 time making it possible to compare the CVE database from Debian with
5258 the CVE database in NVD.  The result look fairly good, but there are
5259 some inconsistencies in NVD (same software package having several
5260 CPEs), and some inaccuracies (NVD not mentioning buggy packages that
5261 Debian believe are affected by a CVE).  Hope to find time to improve
5262 the quality of NVD, but that require being able to get in touch with
5263 someone maintaining it.  So far my three emails with questions and
5264 corrections have not seen any reply, but I hope contact can be
5265 established soon.</p>
5266
5267 <p>An interesting application for CPEs is cross platform package
5268 mapping.  It would be useful to know which packages in for example
5269 RHEL, OpenSuSe and Mandriva are missing from Debian and Ubuntu, and
5270 this would be trivial if all linux distributions provided CPE entries
5271 for their packages.</p>
5272
5273       </div>
5274       <div class="tags">
5275
5276
5277         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>.
5278
5279
5280       </div>
5281     </div>
5282     <div class="padding"></div>
5283
5284     <div class="entry">
5285       <div class="title">
5286         <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>
5287       </div>
5288       <div class="date">
5289         23rd January 2011
5290       </div>
5291       <div class="body">
5292         <p>In the
5293 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/discover-data">discover-data</a>
5294 package in Debian, there is a script to report useful information
5295 about the running hardware for use when people report missing
5296 information.  One part of this script that I find very useful when
5297 debugging hardware problems, is the part mapping loaded kernel module
5298 to the PCI device it claims.  It allow me to quickly see if the kernel
5299 module I expect is driving the hardware I am struggling with.  To see
5300 the output, make sure discover-data is installed and run
5301 <tt>/usr/share/bug/discover-data 3>&1</tt>.  The relevant output on
5302 one of my machines like this:</p>
5303
5304 <pre>
5305 loaded modules:
5306 10de:03eb i2c_nforce2
5307 10de:03f1 ohci_hcd
5308 10de:03f2 ehci_hcd
5309 10de:03f0 snd_hda_intel
5310 10de:03ec pata_amd
5311 10de:03f6 sata_nv
5312 1022:1103 k8temp
5313 109e:036e bttv
5314 109e:0878 snd_bt87x
5315 11ab:4364 sky2
5316 </pre>
5317
5318 <p>The code in question look like this, slightly modified for
5319 readability and to drop the output to file descriptor 3:</p>
5320
5321 <pre>
5322 if [ -d /sys/bus/pci/devices/ ] ; then
5323     echo loaded pci modules:
5324     (
5325         cd /sys/bus/pci/devices/
5326         for address in * ; do
5327             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5328                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5329                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5330                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5331                     id=`lspci -n -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $3}'`
5332                     echo "$id $module"
5333                 fi
5334             fi
5335         done
5336     )
5337     echo
5338 fi
5339 </pre>
5340
5341 <p>Similar code could be used to extract USB device module
5342 mappings:</p>
5343
5344 <pre>
5345 if [ -d /sys/bus/usb/devices/ ] ; then
5346     echo loaded usb modules:
5347     (
5348         cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/
5349         for address in * ; do
5350             if [ -d "$address/driver/module" ] ; then
5351                 module=`cd $address/driver/module ; pwd -P | xargs basename`
5352                 if grep -q "^$module " /proc/modules ; then
5353                     address=$(echo $address |sed s/0000://)
5354                     id=$(lsusb -s $address | tail -n 1 | awk '{print $6}')
5355                     if [ "$id" ] ; then
5356                         echo "$id $module"
5357                     fi
5358                 fi
5359             fi
5360         done
5361     )
5362     echo
5363 fi
5364 </pre>
5365
5366 <p>This might perhaps be something to include in other tools as
5367 well.</p>
5368
5369       </div>
5370       <div class="tags">
5371
5372
5373         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>.
5374
5375
5376       </div>
5377     </div>
5378     <div class="padding"></div>
5379
5380     <div class="entry">
5381       <div class="title">
5382         <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>
5383       </div>
5384       <div class="date">
5385         16th January 2011
5386       </div>
5387       <div class="body">
5388         <p>The video format struggle on the web continues, and the three
5389 contenders seem to be Ogg Theora, H.264 and WebM.  Most video sites
5390 seem to use H.264, while others use Ogg Theora.  Interestingly enough,
5391 the comments I see give me the feeling that a lot of people believe
5392 H.264 is the most supported video format in browsers, but according to
5393 the Wikipedia article on
5394 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">HTML5 video</a>,
5395 this is not true.  Check out the nice table of supprted formats in
5396 different browsers there.  The format supported by most browsers is
5397 Ogg Theora, supported by released versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google
5398 Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror, Epiphany, Origyn Web Browser and
5399 BOLT browser, while not supported by Internet Explorer nor Safari.
5400 The runner up is WebM supported by released versions of Google Chrome
5401 Chromium Opera and Origyn Web Browser, and test versions of Mozilla
5402 Firefox.  H.264 is supported by released versions of Safari, Origyn
5403 Web Browser and BOLT browser, and the test version of Internet
5404 Explorer.  Those wanting Ogg Theora support in Internet Explorer and
5405 Safari can install plugins to get it.</p>
5406
5407 <p>To me, the simple conclusion from this is that to reach most users
5408 without any extra software installed, one uses Ogg Theora with the
5409 HTML5 video tag.   Of course to reach all those without a browser
5410 handling HTML5, one need fallback mechanisms.  In
5411 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a>, we provide first fallback to a
5412 plugin capable of playing MPEG1 video, and those without such support
5413 we have a second fallback to the Cortado java applet playing Ogg
5414 Theora.  This seem to work quite well, as can be seen in an <a
5415 href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20110111-semantic-web/">example
5416 from last week</a>.</p>
5417
5418 <p>The reason Ogg Theora is the most supported format, and H.264 is
5419 the least supported is simple.  Implementing and using H.264
5420 require royalty payment to MPEG-LA, and the terms of use from MPEG-LA
5421 are incompatible with free software licensing.  If you believed H.264
5422 was without royalties and license terms, check out
5423 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
5424 Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps.</p>
5425
5426 <p>A incomplete list of sites providing video in Ogg Theora is
5427 available from
5428 <a href="http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/List_of_Theora_videos">the
5429 Xiph.org wiki</a>, if you want to have a look.  I'm not aware of a
5430 similar list for WebM nor H.264.</p>
5431
5432 <p>Update 2011-01-16 09:40: A question from Tollef on IRC made me
5433 realise that I failed to make it clear enough this text is about the
5434 &lt;video&gt; tag support in browsers and not the video support
5435 provided by external plugins like the Flash plugins.</p>
5436
5437       </div>
5438       <div class="tags">
5439
5440
5441         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>.
5442
5443
5444       </div>
5445     </div>
5446     <div class="padding"></div>
5447
5448     <div class="entry">
5449       <div class="title">
5450         <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>
5451       </div>
5452       <div class="date">
5453         12th January 2011
5454       </div>
5455       <div class="body">
5456         <p>Today I discovered
5457 <a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
5458 digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
5459 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
5460 announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; in
5461 the browser.  The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely
5462 open" codec technology.  If you believe H.264 was free for everyone
5463 to use, I recommend having a look at the essay
5464 "<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
5465 Free That Matters</a>".  It is not free of cost for creators of video
5466 tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the
5467 terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from
5468 licensing the patents needed for H.264.  Some background information
5469 on the Google announcement is available from
5470 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
5471 A good read. :)</p>
5472
5473 <p>Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to
5474 promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on
5475 the Internet.  This can only be done by publishing using free and open
5476 standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support
5477 for these free and open standards.  At the moment there seem to be two
5478 camps in the web browser world when it come to video support.  Some
5479 browsers support H.264, and others support
5480 <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
5481 <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
5482 (<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> is not really an option
5483 yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet
5484 and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for
5485 H.264 to not reach all potential viewers.
5486 Wikipedia keep <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
5487 updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
5488
5489 <p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
5490 promoting H.264, and John Gruber
5491 <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
5492 the mind set</a> of these people quite well.  His rhetorical questions
5493 provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
5494 <a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
5495 the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
5496
5497 <p>Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free,
5498 they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin.  This
5499 argument was covered by Simon Phipps in
5500 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
5501 blog post</a>, which I find to put the issue in context.  To me it
5502 make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the
5503 browser while still allowing plugins.</p>
5504
5505 <p>I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest,
5506 is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy
5507 feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse.  A lot of TV
5508 broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot
5509 of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they
5510 could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web
5511 publishing.  Suddenly this belief is shaken.</p>
5512
5513 <p>An interesting question is why Google is doing this.  While the
5514 presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only
5515 present the argument if the change make sense from a business
5516 perspective.  One reason might be that they are currently negotiating
5517 with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the
5518 feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and
5519 Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google.
5520 Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having
5521 to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a
5522 video format not requiring royalties at all.  A third reason might be
5523 that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the
5524 Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome.
5525 I guess time will tell.</p>
5526
5527 <p>Update 2011-01-15: The Google Chrome team provided
5528 <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/more-about-chrome-html-video-codec.html">more
5529 background and information on the move</a> it a blog post yesterday.</p>
5530
5531       </div>
5532       <div class="tags">
5533
5534
5535         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>.
5536
5537
5538       </div>
5539     </div>
5540     <div class="padding"></div>
5541
5542     <div class="entry">
5543       <div class="title">
5544         <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>
5545       </div>
5546       <div class="date">
5547         30th December 2010
5548       </div>
5549       <div class="body">
5550         <p>After trying to
5551 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html">compare
5552 Ogg Theora</a> to
5553 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the Digistan
5554 definition</a> of a free and open standard, I concluded that this need
5555 to be done for more standards and started on a framework for doing
5556 this.  As a start, I want to get the status for all the standards in
5557 the Norwegian reference directory, which include UTF-8, HTML, PDF, ODF,
5558 JPEG, PNG, SVG and others.  But to be able to complete this in a
5559 reasonable time frame, I will need help.</p>
5560
5561 <p>If you want to help out with this work, please visit
5562 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/standard/digistan-analyse">the
5563 wiki pages I have set up for this</a>, and let me know that you want
5564 to help out.  The IRC channel #nuug on irc.freenode.net is a good
5565 place to coordinate this for now, as it is the IRC channel for the
5566 NUUG association where I have created the framework (I am the leader
5567 of the Norwegian Unix User Group).</p>
5568
5569 <p>The framework is still forming, and a lot is left to do.  Do not be
5570 scared by the sketchy form of the current pages. :)</p>
5571
5572       </div>
5573       <div class="tags">
5574
5575
5576         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>.
5577
5578
5579       </div>
5580     </div>
5581     <div class="padding"></div>
5582
5583     <div class="entry">
5584       <div class="title">
5585         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_many_definitions_of_a_open_standard.html">The many definitions of a open standard</a>
5586       </div>
5587       <div class="date">
5588         27th December 2010
5589       </div>
5590       <div class="body">
5591         <p>One of the reasons I like the Digistan definition of
5592 "<a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">Free and
5593 Open Standard</a>" is that this is a new term, and thus the meaning of
5594 the term has been decided by Digistan.  The term "Open Standard" has
5595 become so misunderstood that it is no longer very useful when talking
5596 about standards.  One end up discussing which definition is the best
5597 one and with such frame the only one gaining are the proponents of
5598 de-facto standards and proprietary solutions.</p>
5599
5600 <p>But to give us an idea about the diversity of definitions of open
5601 standards, here are a few that I know about.  This list is not
5602 complete, but can be a starting point for those that want to do a
5603 complete survey.  More definitions are available on the
5604 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard">wikipedia
5605 page</a>.</p>
5606
5607 <p>First off is my favourite, the definition from the European
5608 Interoperability Framework version 1.0.  Really sad to notice that BSA
5609 and others has succeeded in getting it removed from version 2.0 of the
5610 framework by stacking the committee drafting the new version with
5611 their own people.  Anyway, the definition is still available and it
5612 include the key properties needed to make sure everyone can use a
5613 specification on equal terms.</p>
5614
5615 <blockquote>
5616
5617 <p>The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification
5618 and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an
5619 open standard:</p>
5620
5621 <ul>
5622
5623 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
5624 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
5625 open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties
5626 (consensus or majority decision etc.).</li>
5627
5628 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
5629 document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be
5630 permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a
5631 nominal fee.</li>
5632
5633 <li>The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of
5634 (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-
5635 free basis.</li>
5636
5637 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
5638
5639 </ul>
5640 </blockquote>
5641
5642 <p>Another one originates from my friends over at
5643 <a href="http://www.dkuug.dk/">DKUUG</a>, who coined and gathered
5644 support for <a href="http://www.aaben-standard.dk/">this
5645 definition</a> in 2004.  It even made it into the Danish parlament as
5646 <a href="http://www.ft.dk/dokumenter/tingdok.aspx?/samling/20051/beslutningsforslag/B103/som_fremsat.htm">their
5647 definition of a open standard</a>.  Another from a different part of
5648 the Danish government is available from the wikipedia page.</p>
5649
5650 <blockquote>
5651
5652 <p>En åben standard opfylder følgende krav:</p>
5653
5654 <ol>
5655
5656 <li>Veldokumenteret med den fuldstændige specifikation offentligt
5657 tilgængelig.</li>
5658
5659 <li>Frit implementerbar uden økonomiske, politiske eller juridiske
5660 begrænsninger på implementation og anvendelse.</li>
5661
5662 <li>Standardiseret og vedligeholdt i et åbent forum (en såkaldt
5663 "standardiseringsorganisation") via en åben proces.</li>
5664
5665 </ol>
5666
5667 </blockquote>
5668
5669 <p>Then there is <a href="http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.html">the
5670 definition</a> from Free Software Foundation Europe.</p>
5671
5672 <blockquote>
5673
5674 <p>An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is</p>
5675
5676 <ol>
5677
5678 <li>subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a
5679 manner equally available to all parties;</li>
5680
5681 <li>without any components or extensions that have dependencies on
5682 formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open
5683 Standard themselves;</li>
5684
5685 <li>free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by
5686 any party or in any business model;</li>
5687
5688 <li>managed and further developed independently of any single vendor
5689 in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third
5690 parties;</li>
5691
5692 <li>available in multiple complete implementations by competing
5693 vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all
5694 parties.</li>
5695
5696 </ol>
5697
5698 </blockquote>
5699
5700 <p>A long time ago, SUN Microsystems, now bought by Oracle, created
5701 its
5702 <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/dennisding/resource/Open%20Standard%20Definition.pdf">Open
5703 Standards Checklist</a> with a fairly detailed description.</p>
5704
5705 <blockquote>
5706 <p>Creation and Management of an Open Standard
5707
5708 <ul>
5709
5710 <li>Its development and management process must be collaborative and
5711   democratic:
5712
5713          <ul>
5714
5715          <li>Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to
5716             participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
5717             imposed by the organization under which it is developed
5718             and managed.</li>
5719
5720          <li>The processes must be documented and, through a known
5721             method, can be changed through input from all
5722             participants.</li>
5723
5724          <li>The process must be based on formal and binding commitments for
5725             the disclosure and licensing of intellectual property rights.</li>
5726
5727          <li>Development and management should strive for consensus,
5728             and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.</li>
5729
5730          <li>The standard specification must be open to extensive
5731             public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
5732             comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.</li>
5733
5734          </ul>
5735
5736 </li>
5737
5738 </ul>
5739
5740 <p>Use and Licensing of an Open Standard</p>
5741 <ul>
5742
5743 <li>The standard must describe an interface, not an implementation,
5744   and the industry must be capable of creating multiple, competing
5745   implementations to the interface described in the standard without
5746   undue or restrictive constraints.  Interfaces include APIs,
5747   protocols, schemas, data formats and their encoding.</li>
5748
5749 <li> The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that create
5750   a technical or economic barriers</li>
5751
5752 <li>Faithful implementations of the standard must
5753   interoperate. Interoperability means the ability of a computer
5754   program to communicate and exchange information with other computer
5755   programs and mutually to use the information which has been
5756   exchanged. This includes the ability to use, convert, or exchange
5757   file formats, protocols, schemas, interface information or
5758   conventions, so as to permit the computer program to work with other
5759   computer programs and users in all the ways in which they are
5760   intended to function.</li>
5761
5762 <li>It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read the
5763   standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a fee, it
5764   must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.</li>
5765
5766 <li>It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
5767   fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive and
5768   perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make, use and
5769   sell products based on the standard.  The only exceptions are
5770   terminations per the reciprocity and defensive suspension terms
5771   outlined below. Essential patent claims include pending, unpublished
5772   patents, published patents, and patent applications. The license is
5773   only for the exact scope of the standard in question.
5774
5775       <ul>
5776
5777       <li> May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
5778         licensees' patent claims essential to practice that standard
5779         (also known as a reciprocity clause)</li>
5780
5781       <li> May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the licensor
5782         or any other licensee for infringement of patent claims
5783         essential to practice that standard (also known as a
5784         "defensive suspension" clause)</li>
5785
5786       <li> The same licensing terms are available to every potential
5787         licensor</li>
5788
5789       </ul>
5790 </li>
5791
5792 <li>The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
5793   implementations of that standard under open source licensing terms
5794   or restricted licensing terms</li>
5795
5796 </ul>
5797
5798 </blockquote>
5799
5800 <p>It is said that one of the nice things about standards is that
5801 there are so many of them.  As you can see, the same holds true for
5802 open standard definitions.  Most of the definitions have a lot in
5803 common, and it is not really controversial what properties a open
5804 standard should have, but the diversity of definitions have made it
5805 possible for those that want to avoid a level marked field and real
5806 competition to downplay the significance of open standards.  I hope we
5807 can turn this tide by focusing on the advantages of Free and Open
5808 Standards.</p>
5809
5810       </div>
5811       <div class="tags">
5812
5813
5814         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>.
5815
5816
5817       </div>
5818     </div>
5819     <div class="padding"></div>
5820
5821     <div class="entry">
5822       <div class="title">
5823         <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>
5824       </div>
5825       <div class="date">
5826         25th December 2010
5827       </div>
5828       <div class="body">
5829         <p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
5830 Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
5831
5832 <blockquote>
5833
5834 <p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
5835 as follows:</p>
5836
5837 <ol>
5838
5839 <li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
5840 in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
5841 freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
5842
5843 <li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
5844 organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
5845 open decision-making procedure available to all interested
5846 parties.</li>
5847
5848 <li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
5849 document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
5850 distribute, and use it freely.</li>
5851
5852 <li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
5853 irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
5854
5855 <li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
5856
5857 </ol>
5858
5859 <p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
5860 measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
5861 products based on the standard.</p>
5862 </blockquote>
5863
5864 <p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
5865 and open standard according to this definition.  Here is a short
5866 writeup of what I have been able to gather so far.  I brought up the
5867 topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
5868 <a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
5869 July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
5870 According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
5871 the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
5872
5873 <p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
5874
5875 <p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
5876 Ogg Theora specification.  It can be argued that the
5877 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
5878 given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
5879 making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
5880 obvious that this is a real risk.  One issue with the Xiph
5881 foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
5882 control the foundation) are not easily available on the web.  I've
5883 been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
5884 seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
5885 where is is spent in the foundation.  It is thus not obvious for an
5886 external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
5887 it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
5888 specification.  But it seem unlikely.</p>
5889
5890 <p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
5891
5892 <p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
5893 claim it to be, this point is fulfilled.  If Xiph foundation is
5894 controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
5895 documentation indicating this.</p>
5896
5897 <p>According to
5898 <a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
5899 prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
5900 government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
5901 the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
5902 Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
5903 report is correct.</p>
5904
5905 <p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
5906
5907 <p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
5908 container format</a> and both the
5909 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
5910 <a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
5911 the web.  This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
5912
5913 <blockquote>
5914
5915 Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
5916 specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
5917 capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
5918 the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
5919 specification compliance.
5920
5921 </blockquote>
5922
5923 <p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
5924 <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
5925 this is the term:<p>
5926
5927 <blockquote>
5928
5929 <p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
5930 others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
5931 or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
5932 distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
5933 provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
5934 included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
5935 document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
5936 the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
5937 Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
5938 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
5939 in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
5940 translate it into languages other than English.</p>
5941
5942 <p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
5943 revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
5944 </blockquote>
5945
5946 <p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
5947 this term seem to be fulfilled.  There might be a problem with the
5948 missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
5949 thus reuse it in other specifications.  Not quite sure if that is a
5950 requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
5951
5952 <p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
5953
5954 <p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
5955 Theora format.
5956 <a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
5957 and
5958 <a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
5959 Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
5960 patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
5961 them.  Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
5962 this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
5963 without paying any royalties.  For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
5964 Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
5965 than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
5966
5967 <p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
5968
5969 <p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
5970
5971 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
5972
5973 <p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
5974 depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation.  Given the
5975 background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
5976 safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
5977 would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
5978 this.</p>
5979
5980 <p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
5981 see if they are free and open standards.</p>
5982
5983       </div>
5984       <div class="tags">
5985
5986
5987         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>.
5988
5989
5990       </div>
5991     </div>
5992     <div class="padding"></div>
5993
5994     <div class="entry">
5995       <div class="title">
5996         <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>
5997       </div>
5998       <div class="date">
5999         25th December 2010
6000       </div>
6001       <div class="body">
6002         <p>A few days ago
6003 <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article189879.ece">an
6004 article</a> in the Norwegian Computerworld magazine about how version
6005 2.0 of
6006 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Interoperability_Framework">European
6007 Interoperability Framework</a> has been successfully lobbied by the
6008 proprietary software industry to remove the focus on free software.
6009 Nothing very surprising there, given
6010 <a href="http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/03/29/2115235/Open-Source-Open-Standards-Under-Attack-In-Europe">earlier
6011 reports</a> on how Microsoft and others have stacked the committees in
6012 this work.  But I find this very sad.   The definition of
6013 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/standard-presse-def-200506.txt">an
6014 open standard from version 1</a> was very good, and something I
6015 believe should be used also in the future, alongside
6016 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">the
6017 definition from Digistan</A>.  Version 2 have removed the open
6018 standard definition from its content.</p>
6019
6020 <p>Anyway, the news reminded me of the great reply sent by Dr. Edgar
6021 Villanueva, congressman in Peru at the time, to Microsoft as a reply
6022 to Microsofts attack on his proposal regarding the use of free software
6023 in the public sector in Peru.  As the text was not available from a
6024 few of the URLs where it used to be available, I copy it here from
6025 <a href="http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/articles/en/reponseperou/villanueva_to_ms.html">my
6026 source</a> to ensure it is available also in the future.  Some
6027 background information about that story is available in
6028 <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6099">an article</a> from
6029 Linux Journal in 2002.</p>
6030
6031 <blockquote>
6032 <p>Lima, 8th of April, 2002<br>
6033 To: Señor JUAN ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ<br>
6034 General Manager of Microsoft Perú</p>
6035
6036 <p>Dear Sir:</p>
6037
6038 <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>
6039
6040 <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>
6041
6042 <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>
6043
6044 <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>
6045
6046 <p>
6047 <ul>
6048 <li>Free access to public information by the citizen. </li>
6049 <li>Permanence of public data. </li>
6050 <li>Security of the State and citizens.</li>
6051 </ul>
6052 </p>
6053
6054 <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>
6055
6056 <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>
6057
6058 <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>
6059
6060 <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>
6061
6062 <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>
6063
6064
6065 <p>From reading the Bill it will be clear that once passed:<br>
6066 <li>the law does not forbid the production of proprietary software</li>
6067 <li>the law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software</li>
6068 <li>the law does not specify which concrete software to use</li>
6069 <li>the law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be bought</li>
6070 <li>the law does not limit the terms under which a software product can be licensed.</li>
6071
6072 </p>
6073
6074 <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>
6075
6076 <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>
6077
6078 <p>As for the observations you have made, we will now go on to analyze them in detail:</p>
6079
6080 <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>
6081
6082 <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>
6083
6084 <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>
6085
6086 <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>
6087
6088 <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>
6089
6090 <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>
6091
6092 <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>
6093
6094 <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>
6095
6096 <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>
6097
6098 <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>
6099
6100 <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>
6101
6102 <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>
6103
6104 <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>
6105
6106 <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>
6107
6108 <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>
6109
6110 <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>
6111
6112 <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>
6113
6114 <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>
6115
6116 <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>
6117
6118 <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>
6119
6120 <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>
6121
6122 <p>On security:</p>
6123
6124 <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>
6125
6126 <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>
6127
6128 <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>
6129
6130 <p>In respect of the guarantee:</p>
6131
6132 <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>
6133
6134 <p>On Intellectual Property:</p>
6135
6136 <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>
6137
6138 <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>
6139
6140 <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>
6141
6142 <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>
6143
6144 <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>
6145
6146 <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>
6147
6148 <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>
6149
6150 <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>
6151
6152 <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>
6153
6154 <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>
6155
6156 <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>
6157
6158 <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>
6159
6160 <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>
6161
6162 <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>
6163
6164 <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>
6165
6166 <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>
6167
6168 <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>
6169
6170 <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>
6171
6172 <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>
6173
6174 <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>
6175
6176 <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>
6177
6178 <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>
6179
6180 <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>
6181
6182 <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>
6183
6184 <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>
6185
6186 <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>
6187
6188 <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>
6189
6190 <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>
6191
6192 <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>
6193
6194 <p>Cordially,<br>
6195 DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NUÑEZ<br>
6196 Congressman of the Republic of Perú.</p>
6197 </blockquote>
6198
6199       </div>
6200       <div class="tags">
6201
6202
6203         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>.
6204
6205
6206       </div>
6207     </div>
6208     <div class="padding"></div>
6209
6210     <div class="entry">
6211       <div class="title">
6212         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_still_going_strong.html">Officeshots still going strong</a>
6213       </div>
6214       <div class="date">
6215         25th December 2010
6216       </div>
6217       <div class="body">
6218         <p>Half a year ago I
6219 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">wrote
6220 a bit</a> about <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>,
6221 a web service to allow anyone to test how ODF documents are handled by
6222 the different programs reading and writing the ODF format.</p>
6223
6224 <p>I just had a look at the service, and it seem to be going strong.
6225 Very interesting to see the results reported in the gallery, how
6226 different Office implementations handle different ODF features.  Sad
6227 to see that KOffice was not doing it very well, and happy to see that
6228 LibreOffice has been tested already (but sadly not listed as a option
6229 for OfficeShots users yet).  I am glad to see that the ODF community
6230 got such a great test tool available.</p>
6231
6232       </div>
6233       <div class="tags">
6234
6235
6236         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>.
6237
6238
6239       </div>
6240     </div>
6241     <div class="padding"></div>
6242
6243     <div class="entry">
6244       <div class="title">
6245         <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>
6246       </div>
6247       <div class="date">
6248         22nd December 2010
6249       </div>
6250       <div class="body">
6251         <p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
6252 href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> testing if the new
6253 batch of computers will work with Linux.  Every year for the last few
6254 years the university have organised shared bid of a few thousand
6255 computers, and this year HP won the bid.  Two different desktops and
6256 five different laptops are on the list this year.  We in the UNIX
6257 group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
6258 and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
6259 university.</p>
6260
6261 <p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
6262 perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well.  To test, I PXE
6263 install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
6264 a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware.  When
6265 something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
6266 on.  If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
6267 vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
6268 have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
6269
6270 <p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post.  Here is the simple tests
6271 I perform on a new model.</p>
6272
6273 <ul>
6274
6275 <li>Is PXE installation working?  I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
6276 and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment.  If I feel like it, I also test with
6277 RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
6278
6279 <li>Is X.org working?  If the graphical login screen show up after
6280 installation, X.org is working.</li>
6281
6282 <li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working?  Running glxgears (in
6283 package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
6284 reported by the program.</li>
6285
6286 <li>Is sound working?  With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
6287 logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful.  If there
6288 are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
6289 the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound.  I
6290 normally test this by playing
6291 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
6292 video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
6293
6294 <li>Is the USB subsystem working?  I test this by plugging in a USB
6295 memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
6296
6297 <li>Is the CD/DVD player working?  I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
6298 I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
6299
6300 <li>Is any built in camera working?  Test using cheese, and see if a
6301 picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
6302
6303 <li>Is bluetooth working?  Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
6304 any bluetooth devices are discovered.  In my office, I normally see a
6305 few.</li>
6306
6307 <li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working.  I have
6308 memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
6309 notice this.</li>
6310
6311 <li>For laptops, is suspend/hibernate working?  I'm testing if the
6312 special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
6313 resume.</li>
6314
6315 <li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
6316 adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
6317 switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc?  The set of buttons differ from
6318 laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
6319 not.</li>
6320
6321 <li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
6322 acceleration sensors etc.  I rarely test these, as I do not know how
6323 to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
6324 existence.</li>
6325
6326 </ul>
6327
6328 <p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
6329 for the HP machines I am testing.  I'm not done yet, so I will report
6330 the test results later.  For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
6331 fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
6332 and audio fail on RHEL6.  Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p.  As you
6333 can see, I have most machines left to test.  One interesting
6334 observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the frame rate than
6335 RHEL6 with glxgears.  No idea why.</p>
6336
6337       </div>
6338       <div class="tags">
6339
6340
6341         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>.
6342
6343
6344       </div>
6345     </div>
6346     <div class="padding"></div>
6347
6348     <div class="entry">
6349       <div class="title">
6350         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
6351       </div>
6352       <div class="date">
6353         11th December 2010
6354       </div>
6355       <div class="body">
6356         <p>As I continue to explore
6357 <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
6358 what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
6359 and regulations here in Norway.  Here are some random notes.</p>
6360
6361 <p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
6362 verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
6363 is known to everyone.  This means that if a BitCoin address has been
6364 published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
6365 possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
6366 that address.  There is even a web service to look at the details for
6367 all transactions.  There I can see that my address
6368 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
6369 have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
6370 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
6371 address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
6372 <a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
6373 of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far.  Thank you to each and
6374 every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
6375 fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
6376 address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
6377 generate and hand out a new address for each transaction.  I'm told
6378 there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
6379 organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
6380 themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
6381
6382 <p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
6383 regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
6384 without declaring it.  There are money laundering, tax and accounting
6385 laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
6386 If the Skolelinux foundation
6387 (<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
6388 Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
6389 normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
6390 Given that it is impossible to know if money can across the border or
6391 not, should everything or nothing be declared?  What exchange rate
6392 should be used when calculating taxes?  Would receivers have to pay
6393 income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
6394 BitCoin?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
6395
6396 <p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
6397 accepted by a lot of users.  It must be possible to get easy access to
6398 the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
6399 easy to spend it.  At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
6400 access to, but there are very few places to spend it.  I am not really
6401 a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
6402 so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins.  I
6403 would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
6404 and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
6405 if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
6406 to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular.  I'm sure they
6407 will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
6408 probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
6409 believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
6410 currencies.</p>
6411
6412 <p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
6413 CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
6414 competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
6415 to see which one get the next lump of cash).  The "winner" get 50
6416 BitCoin when this happen.  Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
6417 join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
6418 by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
6419 and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
6420 BitCoins.  Check out
6421 <a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
6422 if this sounds interesting.  I have not had time to try to set up a
6423 machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
6424 own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
6425 yet.</p>
6426
6427 <p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
6428 href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
6429 criticism</a> of bitcoin.  Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
6430 it was interesting to read.  The arguments presented seem to be
6431 equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
6432
6433       </div>
6434       <div class="tags">
6435
6436
6437         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>.
6438
6439
6440       </div>
6441     </div>
6442     <div class="padding"></div>
6443
6444     <div class="entry">
6445       <div class="title">
6446         <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>
6447       </div>
6448       <div class="date">
6449         10th December 2010
6450       </div>
6451       <div class="body">
6452         <p>With this weeks lawless
6453 <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
6454 attacks</a> on Wikileak and
6455 <a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
6456 speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
6457 not be trusted to handle money transactions.
6458 A blog post from
6459 <a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
6460 Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
6461 mine mentioned earlier.  I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
6462 involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>.  I got
6463 some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
6464 some bitcoins to get started.  I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
6465 for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
6466
6467 <p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder?  It is a digital
6468 crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
6469 networks.  It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
6470 control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
6471 and companies alike to block donations and other transactions.  The
6472 source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
6473 for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
6474 line client builds just fine.  Hopefully Jonas
6475 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
6476 Debian</a> soon.</p>
6477
6478 <p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
6479 There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
6480 bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
6481 currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided.  There
6482 are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising.  If you
6483 want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
6484 you can even get
6485 <a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
6486 bitcoin at the time of writing).  Use
6487 <a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
6488 on the current exchange rates.</p>
6489
6490 <p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
6491 machines.  If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
6492 donations to the address
6493 <b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>.  Thank you!</p>
6494
6495       </div>
6496       <div class="tags">
6497
6498
6499         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>.
6500
6501
6502       </div>
6503     </div>
6504     <div class="padding"></div>
6505
6506     <div class="entry">
6507       <div class="title">
6508         <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>
6509       </div>
6510       <div class="date">
6511          9th December 2010
6512       </div>
6513       <div class="body">
6514         <p>A few days ago, I was introduces to some students in the robot
6515 student assosiation <a href="http://www.robotica.no/">Robotica
6516 Osloensis</a> at the University of Oslo where I work, who planned to
6517 get their own 3D printer.  They wanted to learn from me based on my
6518 work in the area.  After having a short lunch meeting with them, I
6519 offered them to borrow my reprap kit, as I never had time to complete
6520 the build and this seem unlike to change any time soon.  I look
6521 forward to see how this goes.  This monday their volunteer driver
6522 picked up my kit and drove it to their lab, and tomorrow I am told the
6523 last exam is over so they can start work on getting the 3D printer
6524 operational.</p>
6525
6526 <p>The robotic group have already build several robots on their own,
6527 and seem capable of getting the reprap operational.  I really look
6528 forward to being able to print all the cool 3D designs published on
6529 <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/">Thingiverse</a>.  I even got
6530 some 3D scans I got made during Dagen@IFI when one of the groups at
6531 the computer science department at the university demonstrated their
6532 very cool 3D scanner.</p>
6533
6534       </div>
6535       <div class="tags">
6536
6537
6538         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>.
6539
6540
6541       </div>
6542     </div>
6543     <div class="padding"></div>
6544
6545     <div class="entry">
6546       <div class="title">
6547         <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>
6548       </div>
6549       <div class="date">
6550         29th November 2010
6551       </div>
6552       <div class="body">
6553         <p>On friday, the first Debian Edu / Skolelinux
6554 <a href="http://www.friprogramvareiskolen.no/Gathering/2010-12-03-05-Oslo">development
6555 gathering</a> in a long time take place here in Oslo, Norway.  I
6556 really look forward to seeing all the good people working on the
6557 Squeeze release.  The gathering is open for everyone interested in
6558 learning more about Debian Edu / Skolelinux.</p>
6559
6560 <p>On Saturday, the Norwegian member organization taking care of
6561 organizing these development gatherings, Fri Programvare i Skolen,
6562 will hold its
6563 <a href="http://friprogramvareiskolen.no/Genfors/2010">General Assembly
6564 for 2010</a>.  Membership is open for all, and currently there are 388
6565 people registered as members.  Last year 32 members cast their vote in
6566 the memberdb based election system.  I hope more people find time to
6567 vote this year.</p>
6568
6569       </div>
6570       <div class="tags">
6571
6572
6573         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>.
6574
6575
6576       </div>
6577     </div>
6578     <div class="padding"></div>
6579
6580     <div class="entry">
6581       <div class="title">
6582         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
6583       </div>
6584       <div class="date">
6585         27th November 2010
6586       </div>
6587       <div class="body">
6588         <p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
6589 presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
6590 Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
6591 to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
6592 gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
6593 model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
6594 reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
6595 just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
6596
6597 <p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
6598 mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
6599 Edu/Skolelinux</a>.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
6600 plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
6601 not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
6602 is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
6603 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
6604 tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
6605 failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
6606 the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
6607 package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
6608
6609 <p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
6610 annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
6611 keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
6612 shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
6613 For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
6614 wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
6615 window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
6616 the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
6617 web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
6618 what is going on.</p>
6619
6620       </div>
6621       <div class="tags">
6622
6623
6624         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>.
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/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>
6634       </div>
6635       <div class="date">
6636         22nd November 2010
6637       </div>
6638       <div class="body">
6639         <p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
6640 upgrade testing of the
6641 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
6642 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
6643 This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
6644 can now present the updated result from today:</p>
6645
6646 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
6647
6648 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6649
6650 <blockquote><p>
6651   apache2.2-bin
6652   aptdaemon
6653   baobab
6654   binfmt-support
6655   browser-plugin-gnash
6656   cheese-common
6657   cli-common
6658   cups-pk-helper
6659   dmz-cursor-theme
6660   empathy
6661   empathy-common
6662   freedesktop-sound-theme
6663   freeglut3
6664   gconf-defaults-service
6665   gdm-themes
6666   gedit-plugins
6667   geoclue
6668   geoclue-hostip
6669   geoclue-localnet
6670   geoclue-manual
6671   geoclue-yahoo
6672   gnash
6673   gnash-common
6674   gnome
6675   gnome-backgrounds
6676   gnome-cards-data
6677   gnome-codec-install
6678   gnome-core
6679   gnome-desktop-environment
6680   gnome-disk-utility
6681   gnome-screenshot
6682   gnome-search-tool
6683   gnome-session-canberra
6684   gnome-system-log
6685   gnome-themes-extras
6686   gnome-themes-more
6687   gnome-user-share
6688   gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
6689   gstreamer0.10-tools
6690   gtk2-engines
6691   gtk2-engines-pixbuf
6692   gtk2-engines-smooth
6693   hamster-applet
6694   libapache2-mod-dnssd
6695   libapr1
6696   libaprutil1
6697   libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
6698   libaprutil1-ldap
6699   libart2.0-cil
6700   libboost-date-time1.42.0
6701   libboost-python1.42.0
6702   libboost-thread1.42.0
6703   libchamplain-0.4-0
6704   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
6705   libcheese-gtk18
6706   libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
6707   libcryptui0
6708   libdiscid0
6709   libelf1
6710   libepc-1.0-2
6711   libepc-common
6712   libepc-ui-1.0-2
6713   libfreerdp-plugins-standard
6714   libfreerdp0
6715   libgconf2.0-cil
6716   libgdata-common
6717   libgdata7
6718   libgdu-gtk0
6719   libgee2
6720   libgeoclue0
6721   libgexiv2-0
6722   libgif4
6723   libglade2.0-cil
6724   libglib2.0-cil
6725   libgmime2.4-cil
6726   libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
6727   libgnome2.24-cil
6728   libgnomepanel2.24-cil
6729   libgpod-common
6730   libgpod4
6731   libgtk2.0-cil
6732   libgtkglext1
6733   libgtksourceview2.0-common
6734   libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
6735   libmono-addins0.2-cil
6736   libmono-cairo2.0-cil
6737   libmono-corlib2.0-cil
6738   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
6739   libmono-posix2.0-cil
6740   libmono-security2.0-cil
6741   libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
6742   libmono-system2.0-cil
6743   libmtp8
6744   libmusicbrainz3-6
6745   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
6746   libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
6747   libopal3.6.8
6748   libpolkit-gtk-1-0
6749   libpt2.6.7
6750   libpython2.6
6751   librpm1
6752   librpmio1
6753   libsdl1.2debian
6754   libsrtp0
6755   libssh-4
6756   libtelepathy-farsight0
6757   libtelepathy-glib0
6758   libtidy-0.99-0
6759   media-player-info
6760   mesa-utils
6761   mono-2.0-gac
6762   mono-gac
6763   mono-runtime
6764   nautilus-sendto
6765   nautilus-sendto-empathy
6766   p7zip-full
6767   pkg-config
6768   python-aptdaemon
6769   python-aptdaemon-gtk
6770   python-axiom
6771   python-beautifulsoup
6772   python-bugbuddy
6773   python-clientform
6774   python-coherence
6775   python-configobj
6776   python-crypto
6777   python-cupshelpers
6778   python-elementtree
6779   python-epsilon
6780   python-evolution
6781   python-feedparser
6782   python-gdata
6783   python-gdbm
6784   python-gst0.10
6785   python-gtkglext1
6786   python-gtksourceview2
6787   python-httplib2
6788   python-louie
6789   python-mako
6790   python-markupsafe
6791   python-mechanize
6792   python-nevow
6793   python-notify
6794   python-opengl
6795   python-openssl
6796   python-pam
6797   python-pkg-resources
6798   python-pyasn1
6799   python-pysqlite2
6800   python-rdflib
6801   python-serial
6802   python-tagpy
6803   python-twisted-bin
6804   python-twisted-conch
6805   python-twisted-core
6806   python-twisted-web
6807   python-utidylib
6808   python-webkit
6809   python-xdg
6810   python-zope.interface
6811   remmina
6812   remmina-plugin-data
6813   remmina-plugin-rdp
6814   remmina-plugin-vnc
6815   rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
6816   rhythmbox-plugins
6817   rpm-common
6818   rpm2cpio
6819   seahorse-plugins
6820   shotwell
6821   software-center
6822   system-config-printer-udev
6823   telepathy-gabble
6824   telepathy-mission-control-5
6825   telepathy-salut
6826   tomboy
6827   totem
6828   totem-coherence
6829   totem-mozilla
6830   totem-plugins
6831   transmission-common
6832   xdg-user-dirs
6833   xdg-user-dirs-gtk
6834   xserver-xephyr
6835 </p></blockquote>
6836
6837 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6838
6839 <blockquote><p>
6840   cheese
6841   ekiga
6842   eog
6843   epiphany-extensions
6844   evolution-exchange
6845   fast-user-switch-applet
6846   file-roller
6847   gcalctool
6848   gconf-editor
6849   gdm
6850   gedit
6851   gedit-common
6852   gnome-games
6853   gnome-games-data
6854   gnome-nettool
6855   gnome-system-tools
6856   gnome-themes
6857   gnuchess
6858   gucharmap
6859   guile-1.8-libs
6860   libavahi-ui0
6861   libdmx1
6862   libgalago3
6863   libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
6864   libgtksourceview2.0-0
6865   liblircclient0
6866   libsdl1.2debian-alsa
6867   libspeexdsp1
6868   libsvga1
6869   rhythmbox
6870   seahorse
6871   sound-juicer
6872   system-config-printer
6873   totem-common
6874   transmission-gtk
6875   vinagre
6876   vino
6877 </p></blockquote>
6878
6879 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6880
6881 <blockquote><p>
6882   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
6883 </p></blockquote>
6884
6885 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6886
6887 <blockquote><p>
6888 [nothing]
6889 </p></blockquote>
6890
6891 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
6892
6893 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
6894
6895 <blockquote><p>
6896   ksmserver
6897 </p></blockquote>
6898
6899 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
6900
6901 <blockquote><p>
6902   kwin
6903   network-manager-kde
6904 </p></blockquote>
6905
6906 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
6907
6908 <blockquote><p>
6909   arts
6910   dolphin
6911   freespacenotifier
6912   google-gadgets-gst
6913   google-gadgets-xul
6914   kappfinder
6915   kcalc
6916   kcharselect
6917   kde-core
6918   kde-plasma-desktop
6919   kde-standard
6920   kde-window-manager
6921   kdeartwork
6922   kdeartwork-emoticons
6923   kdeartwork-style
6924   kdeartwork-theme-icon
6925   kdebase
6926   kdebase-apps
6927   kdebase-workspace
6928   kdebase-workspace-bin
6929   kdebase-workspace-data
6930   kdeeject
6931   kdelibs
6932   kdeplasma-addons
6933   kdeutils
6934   kdewallpapers
6935   kdf
6936   kfloppy
6937   kgpg
6938   khelpcenter4
6939   kinfocenter
6940   konq-plugins-l10n
6941   konqueror-nsplugins
6942   kscreensaver
6943   kscreensaver-xsavers
6944   ktimer
6945   kwrite
6946   libgle3
6947   libkde4-ruby1.8
6948   libkonq5
6949   libkonq5-templates
6950   libnetpbm10
6951   libplasma-ruby
6952   libplasma-ruby1.8
6953   libqt4-ruby1.8
6954   marble-data
6955   marble-plugins
6956   netpbm
6957   nuvola-icon-theme
6958   plasma-dataengines-workspace
6959   plasma-desktop
6960   plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
6961   plasma-runners-addons
6962   plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
6963   plasma-scriptengine-python
6964   plasma-scriptengine-qedje
6965   plasma-scriptengine-ruby
6966   plasma-scriptengine-webkit
6967   plasma-scriptengines
6968   plasma-wallpapers-addons
6969   plasma-widget-folderview
6970   plasma-widget-networkmanagement
6971   ruby
6972   sweeper
6973   update-notifier-kde
6974   xscreensaver-data-extra
6975   xscreensaver-gl
6976   xscreensaver-gl-extra
6977   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
6978 </p></blockquote>
6979
6980 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
6981
6982 <blockquote><p>
6983   ark
6984   google-gadgets-common
6985   google-gadgets-qt
6986   htdig
6987   kate
6988   kdebase-bin
6989   kdebase-data
6990   kdepasswd
6991   kfind
6992   klipper
6993   konq-plugins
6994   konqueror
6995   ksysguard
6996   ksysguardd
6997   libarchive1
6998   libcln6
6999   libeet1
7000   libeina-svn-06
7001   libggadget-1.0-0b
7002   libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
7003   libgps19
7004   libkdecorations4
7005   libkephal4
7006   libkonq4
7007   libkonqsidebarplugin4a
7008   libkscreensaver5
7009   libksgrd4
7010   libksignalplotter4
7011   libkunitconversion4
7012   libkwineffects1a
7013   libmarblewidget4
7014   libntrack-qt4-1
7015   libntrack0
7016   libplasma-geolocation-interface4
7017   libplasmaclock4a
7018   libplasmagenericshell4
7019   libprocesscore4a
7020   libprocessui4a
7021   libqalculate5
7022   libqedje0a
7023   libqtruby4shared2
7024   libqzion0a
7025   libruby1.8
7026   libscim8c2a
7027   libsmokekdecore4-3
7028   libsmokekdeui4-3
7029   libsmokekfile3
7030   libsmokekhtml3
7031   libsmokekio3
7032   libsmokeknewstuff2-3
7033   libsmokeknewstuff3-3
7034   libsmokekparts3
7035   libsmokektexteditor3
7036   libsmokekutils3
7037   libsmokenepomuk3
7038   libsmokephonon3
7039   libsmokeplasma3
7040   libsmokeqtcore4-3
7041   libsmokeqtdbus4-3
7042   libsmokeqtgui4-3
7043   libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
7044   libsmokeqtopengl4-3
7045   libsmokeqtscript4-3
7046   libsmokeqtsql4-3
7047   libsmokeqtsvg4-3
7048   libsmokeqttest4-3
7049   libsmokeqtuitools4-3
7050   libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
7051   libsmokeqtxml4-3
7052   libsmokesolid3
7053   libsmokesoprano3
7054   libtaskmanager4a
7055   libtidy-0.99-0
7056   libweather-ion4a
7057   libxklavier16
7058   libxxf86misc1
7059   okteta
7060   oxygencursors
7061   plasma-dataengines-addons
7062   plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
7063   plasma-widget-lancelot
7064   plasma-widgets-addons
7065   plasma-widgets-workspace
7066   polkit-kde-1
7067   ruby1.8
7068   systemsettings
7069   update-notifier-common
7070 </p></blockquote>
7071
7072 <p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
7073 aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
7074 differences.  I have no idea what packages should be installed after
7075 the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</p>
7076
7077       </div>
7078       <div class="tags">
7079
7080
7081         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>.
7082
7083
7084       </div>
7085     </div>
7086     <div class="padding"></div>
7087
7088     <div class="entry">
7089       <div class="title">
7090         <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>
7091       </div>
7092       <div class="date">
7093         22nd November 2010
7094       </div>
7095       <div class="body">
7096         <p>Most of the computers in use by the
7097 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
7098 are virtual machines.  And they have been Xen machines running on a
7099 fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
7100 them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine.  This was a
7101 bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
7102 machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
7103 know is not supported by KVM.  So to migrate, we had to convert
7104 several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
7105
7106 <p>I found
7107 <a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
7108 nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
7109 migration.  It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
7110 image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
7111 image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data.  I NFS mounted the
7112 new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
7113
7114 <pre>
7115 #!/bin/sh
7116
7117 # Based on
7118 # http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
7119
7120 set -e
7121 set -x
7122
7123 if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
7124     echo "Usage: $0 &lt;hostname&gt;"
7125     exit 1
7126 else
7127     host="$1"
7128 fi
7129
7130 if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
7131     echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
7132     exit 1
7133 fi
7134
7135 # Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs.  not sure why.
7136 disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
7137 swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
7138 totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
7139
7140 img=$host.img
7141 #dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
7142 qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
7143
7144 parted $img mklabel msdos
7145 parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
7146 parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
7147 parted $img set 1 boot on
7148
7149 modprobe dm-mod
7150 losetup /dev/loop0 $img
7151 kpartx -a /dev/loop0
7152
7153 dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
7154 fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
7155 mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
7156
7157 kpartx -d /dev/loop0
7158 losetup -d /dev/loop0
7159 </pre>
7160
7161 <p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
7162 if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
7163
7164 <p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
7165 the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
7166 set up grub to boot from the disk image.  After this, the KVM machines
7167 seem to work just fine.</p>
7168
7169       </div>
7170       <div class="tags">
7171
7172
7173         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>.
7174
7175
7176       </div>
7177     </div>
7178     <div class="padding"></div>
7179
7180     <div class="entry">
7181       <div class="title">
7182         <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>
7183       </div>
7184       <div class="date">
7185         20th November 2010
7186       </div>
7187       <div class="body">
7188         <p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
7189 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
7190 Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
7191 status.  Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
7192
7193 <p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
7194 report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
7195 can see if anything should be changed.</p>
7196
7197 <p>This is for Gnome:</p>
7198
7199 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7200
7201 <blockquote><p>
7202   apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
7203   browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
7204   dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
7205   freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
7206   gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
7207   geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
7208   gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
7209   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
7210   gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
7211   gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
7212   gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
7213   gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
7214   gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
7215   libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
7216   libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
7217   libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
7218   libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
7219   libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
7220   libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
7221   libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
7222   libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
7223   libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
7224   libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
7225   libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
7226   libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
7227   libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
7228   libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
7229   libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
7230   libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
7231   libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
7232   libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
7233   libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
7234   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
7235   libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
7236   libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
7237   libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
7238   mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
7239   nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
7240   openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
7241   python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
7242   python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
7243   python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
7244   python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
7245   python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
7246   python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
7247   python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
7248   python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
7249   python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
7250   python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
7251   python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
7252   python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
7253   python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
7254   remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
7255   rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
7256   software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
7257   telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
7258   totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
7259   transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
7260   zip
7261 </p></blockquote>
7262
7263 Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
7264
7265 <blockquote><p>
7266   arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
7267   epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
7268   fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
7269   gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
7270   gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
7271   gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
7272   guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
7273   libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
7274   libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
7275   libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
7276   libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
7277   libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
7278   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
7279   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
7280   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
7281   libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
7282   libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
7283   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
7284   libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
7285   libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
7286   libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
7287   libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
7288   libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
7289   libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
7290   libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
7291   libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
7292   libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
7293   sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
7294   totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
7295 </p></blockquote>
7296
7297 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7298
7299 <blockquote><p>
7300   gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
7301 </p></blockquote>
7302
7303 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7304
7305 <blockquote><p>
7306 [nothing]
7307 </p></blockquote>
7308
7309 <p>This is for KDE:</p>
7310
7311 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
7312
7313 <blockquote><p>
7314   autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
7315   edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
7316   ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
7317   gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
7318   kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
7319   kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
7320   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
7321   kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
7322   kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
7323   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
7324   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
7325   kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
7326   killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
7327   kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
7328   ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
7329   libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
7330   libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
7331   libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
7332   libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
7333   libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
7334   libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
7335   libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
7336   libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
7337   libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
7338   lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
7339   openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
7340   parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
7341   pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
7342   speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
7343   ttf-sazanami-gothic
7344 </p></blockquote>
7345
7346 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
7347
7348 <blockquote><p>
7349   amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
7350   dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
7351   kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
7352   kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
7353   keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
7354   kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
7355   kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
7356   klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
7357   kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
7358   kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
7359   kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
7360   ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
7361   ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
7362   kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
7363   kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
7364   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
7365   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
7366   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
7367   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
7368   libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
7369   libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
7370   libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
7371   libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
7372   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
7373   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
7374   libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
7375   libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
7376   libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
7377   libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
7378   libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
7379   mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
7380   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
7381   ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
7382 </p></blockquote>
7383
7384 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
7385
7386 <blockquote><p>
7387   dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
7388   kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
7389   kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
7390   kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
7391   netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
7392   xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
7393   xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
7394 </p></blockquote>
7395
7396 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
7397
7398 <blockquote><p>
7399   kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
7400 </p></blockquote>
7401
7402       </div>
7403       <div class="tags">
7404
7405
7406         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>.
7407
7408
7409       </div>
7410     </div>
7411     <div class="padding"></div>
7412
7413     <div class="entry">
7414       <div class="title">
7415         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
7416       </div>
7417       <div class="date">
7418         20th November 2010
7419       </div>
7420       <div class="body">
7421         <p>Answering
7422 <a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
7423 call from the Gnash project</a> for
7424 <a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
7425 current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
7426 Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
7427 Debian/Squeeze.  I hope this can help the developers in getting new
7428 releases out more often.</p>
7429
7430 <p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
7431 I have considered setting up a <a
7432 href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
7433 machine as well.  I have also considered using the kfreebsd
7434 architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
7435 TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video.  Because of this, I
7436 finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
7437 kfreebsd.  Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
7438 visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
7439 screen at random locations).  Have not gotten very far with the
7440 testing.  Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
7441 fatal problem.  Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
7442 useful as a file server for NUUG.  Will try to find time to set up a
7443 gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</p>
7444
7445       </div>
7446       <div class="tags">
7447
7448
7449         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>.
7450
7451
7452       </div>
7453     </div>
7454     <div class="padding"></div>
7455
7456     <div class="entry">
7457       <div class="title">
7458         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
7459       </div>
7460       <div class="date">
7461          9th November 2010
7462       </div>
7463       <div class="body">
7464         <p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
7465
7466 <p>3D printing is just great.  I just came across this Debian logo in
7467 3D linked in from
7468 <a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
7469 thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
7470
7471       </div>
7472       <div class="tags">
7473
7474
7475         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>.
7476
7477
7478       </div>
7479     </div>
7480     <div class="padding"></div>
7481
7482     <div class="entry">
7483       <div class="title">
7484         <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>
7485       </div>
7486       <div class="date">
7487          7th November 2010
7488       </div>
7489       <div class="body">
7490         <p>Prioritising packages for the Debian Edu /
7491 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> DVD, which is
7492 supposed provide a school with all the services and user applications
7493 needed on the pupils computer network has always been hard.  Even
7494 schools without Internet connections should be able to get Debian Edu
7495 working using this DVD.</p>
7496
7497 <p>The job became a lot harder when apt and aptitude started
7498 installing recommended packages by default.  We want the same set of
7499 packages to be installed when using the DVD and the netinst CD, and
7500 that means all recommended packages need to be on the DVD.  I created
7501 a patch for debian-cd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/601203">BTS
7502 report #601203</a> to do this, and since this change was applied to
7503 the Debian Edu DVD build, we have been seriously short on space.</p>
7504
7505 <p>A few days ago we decided to drop blender, wxmaxima and kicad from
7506 the default installation to save space on the DVD, believing that
7507 those needing these applications are few and can get them from the
7508 Debian archive.</p>
7509
7510 <p>Yesterday, I had a look what source packages to see which packages
7511 were using most space.  A few large packages are well know;
7512 openoffice.org, openclipart and fluid-soundfont.  But I also
7513 discovered that lilypond used 106 MiB and fglrx-driver used 53 MiB.
7514 The lilypond package is pulled in as a dependency for rosegarden, and
7515 when looking a bit closer I discovered that 99 MiB of the 106 MiB were
7516 the documentation package, which is recommended by the binary package.
7517 I decided to drop this documentation package from our DVD, as most of
7518 our users will use the GUI front-ends and do not need the lilypond
7519 documentation.  Similarly, I dropped the non-free fglrx-driver package
7520 which might be installed by d-i when its hardware is detected, as the
7521 free X driver should work.</p>
7522
7523 <p>With this change, we finally got space for the LXDE and Gnome
7524 desktop packages as well as the language specific packages making the
7525 DVD more useful again.</p>
7526
7527       </div>
7528       <div class="tags">
7529
7530
7531         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>.
7532
7533
7534       </div>
7535     </div>
7536     <div class="padding"></div>
7537
7538     <div class="entry">
7539       <div class="title">
7540         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
7541       </div>
7542       <div class="date">
7543         24th October 2010
7544       </div>
7545       <div class="body">
7546         <p>Some updates.</p>
7547
7548 <p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
7549 raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
7550 signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
7551 More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
7552 how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
7553 :)</p>
7554
7555 <p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
7556 about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
7557 generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
7558 It is called
7559 <a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
7560 and can be used using <tt>kcov &lt;directory&gt; &lt;binary&gt;</tt>.
7561 It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
7562 after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
7563 libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
7564 solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
7565
7566 <p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
7567 href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
7568 new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
7569 alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
7570 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
7571 release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
7572 school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
7573 client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
7574 yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
7575 clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</p>
7576
7577       </div>
7578       <div class="tags">
7579
7580
7581         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>.
7582
7583
7584       </div>
7585     </div>
7586     <div class="padding"></div>
7587
7588     <div class="entry">
7589       <div class="title">
7590         <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>
7591       </div>
7592       <div class="date">
7593         19th October 2010
7594       </div>
7595       <div class="body">
7596         <p><a href="http://www.getgnash.org/">The Gnash project</a> is the
7597 most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
7598 has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
7599 funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
7600 continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
7601 AVM2 flash files.</p>
7602
7603 <p>To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
7604 <a href="http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">a pledge</a> with the
7605 following text:</P>
7606
7607 <p><blockquote>
7608
7609   <p>"I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
7610   only if 10 other people will do the same."</p>
7611
7612   <p>- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer</p>
7613
7614   <p>Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010</p>
7615
7616   <p>The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
7617   format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
7618   web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
7619   format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
7620   days. The project web page is available from
7621   http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
7622   of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
7623   the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.</p>
7624
7625   <p>The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
7626   time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
7627   to get this to happen.</p>
7628
7629   <p>The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
7630   <a href="http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32">http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32</a> .</p>
7631
7632 </blockquote></p>
7633
7634 <p>I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
7635 people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
7636 project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
7637 :)</p>
7638
7639       </div>
7640       <div class="tags">
7641
7642
7643         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>.
7644
7645
7646       </div>
7647     </div>
7648     <div class="padding"></div>
7649
7650     <div class="entry">
7651       <div class="title">
7652         <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>
7653       </div>
7654       <div class="date">
7655          9th October 2010
7656       </div>
7657       <div class="body">
7658         <p>This summer I got the chance to buy cheap Spykee robots, and since
7659 then I have worked on getting Linux software in place to control them.
7660 The firmware for the robot is available from the producer, and using
7661 that source it was trivial to figure out the protocol specification.
7662 I've started on a perl library to control it, and made some demo
7663 programs using this perl library to allow one to control the
7664 robots.</p>
7665
7666 <p>The library is quite functional already, and capable of controlling
7667 the driving, fetching video, uploading MP3s and play them.  There are
7668 a few less important features too.</p>
7669
7670 <p>Since a few weeks ago, I ran out of time to spend on this project,
7671 but I never got around to releasing the current source.  I decided
7672 today that it was time to do something about it, and uploaded the
7673 source to my Debian package store at people.skolelinux.org.</p>
7674
7675 <p>Because it was simpler for me, I made a Debian package and
7676 published the source and deb.  If you got a spykee robot, grab the
7677 source or binary package:</p>
7678
7679 <p><ul>
7680 <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>
7681 <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>
7682 <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>
7683 </ul></p>
7684
7685 <p>If you are interested in helping out with developing this library,
7686 please let me know.</p>
7687
7688       </div>
7689       <div class="tags">
7690
7691
7692         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>.
7693
7694
7695       </div>
7696     </div>
7697     <div class="padding"></div>
7698
7699     <div class="entry">
7700       <div class="title">
7701         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Links_for_2010_10_03.html">Links for 2010-10-03</a>
7702       </div>
7703       <div class="date">
7704          3rd October 2010
7705       </div>
7706       <div class="body">
7707         <p><ul>
7708
7709 <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
7710 is no Plan B: why the IPv4-to-IPv6 transition will be ugly</a></li>
7711
7712 <li>Scanner looking under clothes
7713 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/10/03/nyheter/utenriks/reise/overvakingskamera/flyplasser/13667192/">has
7714 already been misused at Heathrow</a>.</li>
7715
7716 <li><a href="http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/Landell">Landell
7717 Webcasting</a> - interesting alternative for
7718 <ahref="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/wiki/">DVSwitch</a> with
7719 simple setup.
7720
7721 </ul></p>
7722
7723       </div>
7724       <div class="tags">
7725
7726
7727         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>.
7728
7729
7730       </div>
7731     </div>
7732     <div class="padding"></div>
7733
7734     <div class="entry">
7735       <div class="title">
7736         <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>
7737       </div>
7738       <div class="date">
7739          9th September 2010
7740       </div>
7741       <div class="body">
7742         <p>A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
7743 camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
7744 be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
7745 specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
7746 Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
7747 are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
7748 problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
7749 MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
7750 without asking for permissions that is at risk.
7751
7752 <p>On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
7753 written:</p>
7754
7755 <blockquote>
7756 <p>This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
7757 and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
7758 MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
7759 non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
7760 AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.</p>
7761
7762 <p>No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
7763 standard.</p>
7764 </blockquote>
7765
7766 <p>In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
7767 (MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
7768 non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
7769 holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.</p>
7770
7771 <p>This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
7772 read
7773 "<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA">Why
7774 Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
7775 MPEG-LA</a>" by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
7776 "<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/">H.264 Is Not
7777 The Sort Of Free That Matters</a>" by Simon Phipps to learn more about
7778 the issue.  The solution is to support the
7779 <a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">free and
7780 open standards</a> for video, like <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg
7781 Theora</a>, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.</p>
7782
7783       </div>
7784       <div class="tags">
7785
7786
7787         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>.
7788
7789
7790       </div>
7791     </div>
7792     <div class="padding"></div>
7793
7794     <div class="entry">
7795       <div class="title">
7796         <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>
7797       </div>
7798       <div class="date">
7799          4th September 2010
7800       </div>
7801       <div class="body">
7802         <p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
7803 popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
7804 second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
7805 most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
7806 working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
7807 users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
7808 installed.</p>
7809
7810 <p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
7811 («<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
7812 i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
7813 stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
7814 schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
7815 Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
7816 web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
7817 the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
7818 good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
7819
7820 <p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
7821 said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
7822 everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
7823 comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
7824 non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
7825 understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
7826 example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
7827 it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
7828 distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
7829 pages they want to visit.</p>
7830
7831 <p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
7832 and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
7833 distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
7834 Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
7835 to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
7836 the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
7837 unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
7838 The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
7839 release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
7840 with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
7841 accept the new package into Squeeze.</p>
7842
7843       </div>
7844       <div class="tags">
7845
7846
7847         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>.
7848
7849
7850       </div>
7851     </div>
7852     <div class="padding"></div>
7853
7854     <div class="entry">
7855       <div class="title">
7856         <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>
7857       </div>
7858       <div class="date">
7859          1st September 2010
7860       </div>
7861       <div class="body">
7862         <p>This evening I made my first Perl GUI application.  The last few
7863 days I have worked on a Perl module for controlling my recently
7864 aquired Spykee robots, and the module is now getting complete enought
7865 that it is possible to use it to control the robot driving at least.
7866 It was now time to figure out how to use it to create some GUI to
7867 allow me to drive the robot around.  I picked PerlQt as I have had
7868 positive experiences with the Qt API before, and spent a few minutes
7869 browsing the web for examples.  Using Qt Designer seemed like a short
7870 cut, so I ended up writing the perl GUI using Qt Designer and
7871 compiling it into a perl program using the puic program from
7872 libqt-perl.  Nothing fancy yet, but it got buttons to connect and
7873 drive around.</p>
7874
7875 <p>The perl module I have written provide a object oriented API for
7876 controlling the robot.  Here is an small example on how to use it:</p>
7877
7878 <p><pre>
7879 use Spykee;
7880 Spykee::discover(sub {$robot{$_[0]} = $_[1]});
7881 my $host = (keys %robot)[0];
7882 my $spykee = Spykee->new();
7883 $spykee->contact($host, "admin", "admin");
7884 $spykee->left();
7885 sleep 2;
7886 $spykee->right();
7887 sleep 2;
7888 $spykee->forward();
7889 sleep 2;
7890 $spykee->back();
7891 sleep 2;
7892 $spykee->stop();
7893 </pre></p>
7894
7895 <p>Thanks to the release of the source of the robot firmware, I could
7896 peek into the implementation at the other end to figure out how to
7897 implement the protocol used by the robot.  I've implemented several of
7898 the commands the robot understand, but is still missing the camera
7899 support to make it possible to control the robot from remote.  First I
7900 want to implement support for uploading new firmware and configuring
7901 the wireless network, to make it possible to bootstrap a Spykee robot
7902 without the producers Windows and MacOSX software (I only have Linux,
7903 so I had to ask a friend to come over to get the robot testing
7904 going. :).</p>
7905
7906 <p>Will release the source to the public soon, but need to figure out
7907 where to make it available first.  I will add a link to
7908 <a href="http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/robot/">the NUUG wiki</a> for
7909 those that want to check back later to find it.</p>
7910
7911       </div>
7912       <div class="tags">
7913
7914
7915         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>.
7916
7917
7918       </div>
7919     </div>
7920     <div class="padding"></div>
7921
7922     <div class="entry">
7923       <div class="title">
7924         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_hard_link_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken hard link handling with sshfs</a>
7925       </div>
7926       <div class="date">
7927         30th August 2010
7928       </div>
7929       <div class="body">
7930         <p>Just got an email from Tobias Gruetzmacher as a followup on my
7931 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">previous
7932 post about sshfs</a>.  He reported another problem with sshfs.  It
7933 fail to handle hard links properly.  A simple way to spot this is to
7934 look at the . and .. entries in the directory tree.  These should have
7935 a link count >1, but on sshfs the count is 1.  I just tested to see
7936 what happen when trying to hardlink, and this fail as well:</p>
7937
7938 <pre>
7939 % ln foo bar
7940 ln: creating hard link `bar' => `foo': Function not implemented
7941 %
7942 </pre>
7943
7944 <p>I have not yet found time to implement a test for this in my file
7945 system test code, but believe having working hard links is useful to
7946 avoid surprised unix programs.  Not as useful as working file locking
7947 and symlinks, which are required to get a working desktop, but useful
7948 nevertheless. :)</p>
7949
7950 <p>The latest version of the file system test code is available via
7951 git from
7952 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a></p>
7953
7954       </div>
7955       <div class="tags">
7956
7957
7958         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>.
7959
7960
7961       </div>
7962     </div>
7963     <div class="padding"></div>
7964
7965     <div class="entry">
7966       <div class="title">
7967         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Broken_umask_handling_with_sshfs.html">Broken umask handling with sshfs</a>
7968       </div>
7969       <div class="date">
7970         26th August 2010
7971       </div>
7972       <div class="body">
7973         <p>My file system sematics program
7974 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_if_a_file_system_can_be_used_for_home_directories___.html">presented
7975 a few days ago</a> is very useful to verify that a file system can
7976 work as a unix home directory,and today I had to extend it a bit.  I'm
7977 looking into alternatives for home directory access here at the
7978 University of Oslo, and one of the options is sshfs.  My friend
7979 Finn-Arne mentioned a while back that they had used sshfs with Debian
7980 Edu, but stopped because of problems.  I asked today what the problems
7981 where, and he mentioned that sshfs failed to handle umask properly.
7982 Trying to detect the problem I wrote this addition to my fs testing
7983 script:</p>
7984
7985 <pre>
7986 mode_t touch_get_mode(const char *name, mode_t mode) {
7987   mode_t retval = 0;
7988   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, mode);
7989   if (-1 != fd) {
7990     unlink(name);
7991     struct stat statbuf;
7992     if (-1 != fstat(fd, &statbuf)) {
7993       retval = statbuf.st_mode & 0x1ff;
7994     }
7995     close(fd);
7996   }
7997   return retval;
7998 }
7999
8000 /* Try to detect problem discovered using sshfs */
8001 int test_umask(void) {
8002   printf("info: testing umask effect on file creation\n");
8003
8004   mode_t orig_umask = umask(000);
8005   mode_t newmode;
8006   if (0666 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
8007     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 000\n",
8008            newmode);
8009   }
8010   umask(007);
8011   if (0660 != (newmode = touch_get_mode("foobar", 0666))) {
8012     printf("  error: Wrong file mode %o when creating using mode 666 and umask 007\n",
8013            newmode);
8014   }
8015
8016   umask (orig_umask);
8017   return 0;
8018 }
8019
8020 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
8021   [...]
8022   test_umask();
8023   return 0;
8024 }
8025 </pre>
8026
8027 <p>Sure enough.  On NFS to a netapp, I get this result:</p>
8028
8029 <pre>
8030 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
8031 info: testing symlink creation
8032 info: testing subdirectory creation
8033 info: testing fcntl locking
8034   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
8035   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
8036   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
8037   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
8038   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
8039   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
8040 info: testing umask effect on file creation
8041 </pre>
8042
8043 <p>When mounting the same directory using sshfs, I get this
8044 result:</p>
8045
8046 <pre>
8047 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
8048 info: testing symlink creation
8049 info: testing subdirectory creation
8050 info: testing fcntl locking
8051   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
8052   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
8053   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
8054   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
8055   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
8056   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
8057 info: testing umask effect on file creation
8058   error: Wrong file mode 644 when creating using mode 666 and umask 000
8059   error: Wrong file mode 640 when creating using mode 666 and umask 007
8060 </pre>
8061
8062 <p>So, I can conclude that sshfs is better than smb to a Netapp or a
8063 Windows server, but not good enough to be used as a home
8064 directory.</p>
8065
8066 <p>Update 2010-08-26: Reported the issue in
8067 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/594498">BTS report #594498</a></p>
8068
8069 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
8070 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
8071 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
8072
8073       </div>
8074       <div class="tags">
8075
8076
8077         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>.
8078
8079
8080       </div>
8081     </div>
8082     <div class="padding"></div>
8083
8084     <div class="entry">
8085       <div class="title">
8086         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Rob_Weir__How_to_Crush_Dissent.html">Rob Weir: How to Crush Dissent</a>
8087       </div>
8088       <div class="date">
8089         15th August 2010
8090       </div>
8091       <div class="body">
8092         <p>I found the notes from Rob Weir on
8093 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/VGb23-kta8c/how-to-crush-dissent.html">how
8094 to crush dissent</a> matching my own thoughts on the matter quite
8095 well.  Highly recommended for those wondering which road our society
8096 should go down.  In my view we have been heading the wrong way for a
8097 long time.</p>
8098
8099       </div>
8100       <div class="tags">
8101
8102
8103         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>.
8104
8105
8106       </div>
8107     </div>
8108     <div class="padding"></div>
8109
8110     <div class="entry">
8111       <div class="title">
8112         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/No_hardcoded_config_on_Debian_Edu_clients.html">No hardcoded config on Debian Edu clients</a>
8113       </div>
8114       <div class="date">
8115          9th August 2010
8116       </div>
8117       <div class="body">
8118         <p>As reported earlier, the last few days I have looked at how Debian
8119 Edu clients are configured, and tried to get rid of all hardcoded
8120 configuration settings on the clients.  I believe the work to be
8121 mostly done, and the clients seem to work just fine with dynamically
8122 generated configuration.</p>
8123
8124 <p>What is the point, you might ask?  The point is to allow a Debian
8125 Edu desktop to integrate into an existing network infrastructure
8126 without any manual configuration.</p>
8127
8128 <p>This is what happens when installing a Debian Edu client here at
8129 the University of Oslo using PXE.  With the PXE installation, I am
8130 asked for language (Norwegian Bokmål), locality (Norway) and keyboard
8131 layout (no-latin1), Debian Edu profile (Roaming Workstation), if I
8132 accept to reformat the hard drive (yes), if I want to submit info to
8133 popcon.debian.org (no) and root password (secret).  After answering
8134 these questions, the installer goes ahead and does its thing, and
8135 after around 50 minutes it is done.  I press enter to finish the
8136 installation, and the machine reboots into KDE.  When the machine is
8137 ready and kdm asks for login information, I enter my university
8138 username and password, am told by kdm that a local home directory has
8139 been created and that I must log in again, and finally log in with the
8140 same username and password to the KDE 4.4 desktop.  At no point during
8141 this process did it ask for university specific settings, and all the
8142 required configuration was dynamically detected using information
8143 fetched via DHCP and DNS.  The roaming workstation is now ready for
8144 use.</p>
8145
8146 <p>How was this done, you might wonder?  First of all, here is the
8147 list of things that need to be configured on the client to get it
8148 working properly out of the box:</p>
8149
8150 <ul>
8151 <li>IP address/netmask and DNS server.</li>
8152 <li>Web proxy URL.</li>
8153 <li>LDAP server for NSS directory information (user, group, etc).</li>
8154 <li>Kerberos server for PAM password checking.</li>
8155 <li>SMB mount point to access the network home directory. (*)</li>
8156 <li>Central syslog server to send syslog messages to. (*)</li>
8157 <li>Sitesummary collector URL to submit info to central server. (*)</li>
8158 </ul>
8159
8160 <p>(Hm, did I forget anything?  Let me knew if I did.)</p>
8161
8162 <p>The points marked (*) are not required to be able to use the
8163 machine, but needed to provide central storage and allowing system
8164 administrators to track their machines.  Since yesterday, everything
8165 but the sitesummary collector URL is dynamically discovered at boot
8166 and installation time in the svn version of Debian Edu.</p>
8167
8168 <p>The IP and DNS setup is fetched during boot using DHCP as usual.
8169 When a DHCP update arrives, the proxy setup is updated by looking for
8170 http://wpat/wpad.dat and using the content of this WPAD file to
8171 configure the http and ftp proxy in /etc/environment and
8172 /etc/apt/apt.conf.  I decided to update the proxy setup using a DHCP
8173 hook to ensure that the client stops using the Debian Edu proxy when
8174 it is moved outside the Debian Edu network, and instead uses any local
8175 proxy present on the new network when it moves around.</p>
8176
8177 <p>The DNS names of the LDAP, Kerberos and syslog server and related
8178 configuration are generated using DNS information at boot.  First the
8179 installer looks for a host named ldap in the current DNS domain.  If
8180 not found, it looks for _ldap._tcp SRV records in DNS instead.  If an
8181 LDAP server is found, its root DSE entry is requested and the
8182 attributes namingContexts and defaultNamingContext are used to
8183 determine which LDAP base to use for NSS.  If there are several
8184 namingContexts attibutes and the defaultNamingContext is present, that
8185 LDAP subtree is used as the base.  If defaultNamingContext is missing,
8186 the subtrees listed as namingContexts are searched in sequence for any
8187 object with class posixAccount or posixGroup, and the first one with
8188 such an object is used as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
8189 search is done by first looking for a host named kerberos, and then
8190 for the _kerberos._tcp SRV record.  I've been unable to find a way to
8191 look up the Kerberos realm, so for this the upper case string of the
8192 current DNS domain is used.</p>
8193
8194 <p>For the syslog server, the hosts syslog and loghost are searched
8195 for, and the _syslog._udp SRV record is consulted if no such host is
8196 found.  This algorithm works for both Debian Edu and the University of
8197 Oslo.  A similar strategy would work for locating the sitesummary
8198 server, but have not been implemented yet.  I decided to fetch and
8199 save these settings during installation, to make sure moving to a
8200 different network does not change the set of users being allowed to
8201 log in nor the passwords required to log in.  Usernames and passwords
8202 will be cached by sssd when the user logs in on the Debian Edu
8203 network, and will not change as the laptop move around.  For a
8204 non-roaming machine, there is no caching, but given that it is
8205 supposed to stay in place it should not matter much.  Perhaps we
8206 should switch those to use sssd too?</p>
8207
8208 <p>The user's SMB mount point for the network home directory is
8209 located when the user logs in for the first time.  The LDAP server is
8210 consulted to look for the user's LDAP object and the sambaHomePath
8211 attribute is used if found.  If it isn't found, the home directory
8212 path fetched from NSS is used instead.  Assuming the path is of the
8213 form /site/server/directory/username, the second part is looked up in
8214 DNS and used to generate a SMB URL of the form
8215 smb://server.domain/username.  This algorithm works for both Debian
8216 edu and the University of Oslo.  Perhaps there are better attributes
8217 to use or a better algorithm that works for more sites, but this will
8218 do for now. :)</p>
8219
8220 <p>This work should make it easier to integrate the Debian Edu clients
8221 into any LDAP/Kerberos infrastructure, and make the current setup even
8222 more flexible than before.  I suspect it will also work for thin
8223 client servers, allowing one to easily set up LTSP and hook it into a
8224 existing network infrastructure, but I have not had time to test this
8225 yet.</p>
8226
8227 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
8228 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8229
8230 <p>Update 2010-08-09: Simon Farnsworth gave me a heads-up on how to
8231 detect Kerberos realm from DNS, by looking for _kerberos TXT entries
8232 before falling back to the upper case DNS domain name.  Will have to
8233 implement it for Debian Edu. :)</p>
8234
8235       </div>
8236       <div class="tags">
8237
8238
8239         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>.
8240
8241
8242       </div>
8243     </div>
8244     <div class="padding"></div>
8245
8246     <div class="entry">
8247       <div class="title">
8248         <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>
8249       </div>
8250       <div class="date">
8251          8th August 2010
8252       </div>
8253       <div class="body">
8254         <p>A few years ago, I was involved in a project planning to use
8255 Windows file servers as home directory servers for Debian
8256 Edu/Skolelinux machines.  This was thought to be no problem, as the
8257 access would be through the SMB network file system protocol, and we
8258 knew other sites used SMB with unix and samba as the file server to
8259 mount home directories without any problems.  But, after months of
8260 struggling, we had to conclude that our goal was impossible.</p>
8261
8262 <p>The reason is simply that while SMB can be used for home
8263 directories when the file server is Samba running on Unix, this only
8264 work because of Samba have some extensions and the fact that the
8265 underlying file system is a unix file system.  When using a Windows
8266 file server, the underlying file system do not have POSIX semantics,
8267 and several programs will fail if the users home directory where they
8268 want to store their configuration lack POSIX semantics.</p>
8269
8270 <p>As part of this work, I wrote a small C program I want to share
8271 with you all, to replicate a few of the problematic applications (like
8272 OpenOffice.org and GCompris) and see if the file system was working as
8273 it should.  If you find yourself in spooky file system land, it might
8274 help you find your way out again.  This is the fs-test.c source:</p>
8275
8276 <pre>
8277 /*
8278  * Some tests to check the file system sematics.  Used to verify that
8279  * CIFS from a windows server do not work properly as a linux home
8280  * directory.
8281  * License: GPL v2 or later
8282  *
8283  * needs libsqlite3-dev and build-essential installed
8284  * compile with: gcc -Wall -lsqlite3 -DTEST_SQLITE fs-test.c -o fs-test
8285 */
8286
8287 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
8288 #define _LARGEFILE_SOURCE 1
8289 #define _LARGEFILE64_SOURCE 1
8290
8291 #define _GNU_SOURCE /* for asprintf() */
8292
8293 #include &lt;errno.h>
8294 #include &lt;fcntl.h>
8295 #include &lt;stdio.h>
8296 #include &lt;string.h>
8297 #include &lt;stdlib.h>
8298 #include &lt;sys/file.h>
8299 #include &lt;sys/stat.h>
8300 #include &lt;sys/types.h>
8301 #include &lt;unistd.h>
8302
8303 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
8304 /*
8305  * Test sqlite open, as done by gcompris require the libsqlite3-dev
8306  * package and linking with -lsqlite3.  A more low level test is
8307  * below.
8308  * See also &lt;URL: http://www.sqlite.org./faq.html#q5 >.
8309  */
8310 #include &lt;sqlite3.h>
8311 #define CREATE_TABLE_USERS                                              \
8312   "CREATE TABLE users (user_id INT UNIQUE, login TEXT, lastname TEXT, firstname TEXT, birthdate TEXT, class_id INT ); "
8313 int test_sqlite_open(void) {
8314   char *zErrMsg;
8315   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
8316   sqlite3 *db=NULL;
8317   unlink(name);
8318   int rc = sqlite3_open(name, &db);
8319   if( rc ){
8320     printf("error: sqlite open of %s failed: %s\n", name, sqlite3_errmsg(db));
8321     sqlite3_close(db);
8322     return -1;
8323   }
8324
8325   /* create tables */
8326   rc = sqlite3_exec(db,CREATE_TABLE_USERS, NULL,  0, &zErrMsg);
8327   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
8328     printf("error: sqlite table create failed: %s\n", zErrMsg);
8329     sqlite3_close(db);
8330     return -1;
8331   }
8332   printf("info: sqlite worked\n");
8333   sqlite3_close(db);
8334   return 0;
8335 }
8336 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
8337
8338 /*
8339  * Demonstrate locking issue found in gcompris using sqlite3.  This
8340  * work with ext3, but not with cifs server on Windows 2003.  This is
8341  * done in the sqlite3 library.
8342  * See also
8343  * &lt;URL:http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2001-08/msg00854.html> and the
8344  * POSIX specification
8345  * &lt;URL:http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/fcntl.html>.
8346  */
8347 int test_gcompris_locking(void) {
8348   struct flock fl;
8349   char *name = "testsqlite.db";
8350   unlink(name);
8351   int fd = open(name, O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_LARGEFILE, 0644);
8352   printf("info: testing fcntl locking\n");
8353
8354   fl.l_whence = SEEK_SET;
8355   fl.l_pid    = getpid();
8356   printf("  Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
8357   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
8358   fl.l_len    = 1;
8359   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
8360   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
8361
8362   printf("  Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
8363   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
8364   fl.l_len    = 510;
8365   fl.l_type   = F_RDLCK;
8366   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
8367
8368   printf("  Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824");
8369   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
8370   fl.l_len    = 1;
8371   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
8372   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
8373
8374   printf("  Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824");
8375   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
8376   fl.l_len    = 1;
8377   fl.l_type   = F_WRLCK;
8378   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
8379
8380   printf("  Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826");
8381   fl.l_start  = 1073741826;
8382   fl.l_len    = 510;
8383   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
8384
8385   printf("  Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824");
8386   fl.l_start  = 1073741824;
8387   fl.l_len    = 2;
8388   fl.l_type   = F_UNLCK;
8389   if (0 != fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, &fl) ) printf(" - error!\n"); else printf("\n");
8390
8391   close(fd);
8392   return 0;
8393 }
8394
8395 /*
8396  * Test if permissions of freshly created directories allow entries
8397  * below them.  This was a problem with OpenOffice.org and gcompris.
8398  * Mounting with option 'sync' seem to solve this problem while
8399  * slowing down file operations.
8400  */
8401 int test_subdirectory_creation(void) {
8402 #define LEVELS 5
8403   char *path = strdup("test");
8404   char *dirs[LEVELS];
8405   int level;
8406   printf("info: testing subdirectory creation\n");
8407   for (level = 0; level &lt; LEVELS; level++) {
8408     char *newpath = NULL;
8409     if (-1 == mkdir(path, 0777)) {
8410       printf("  error: Unable to create directory '%s': %s\n",
8411              path, strerror(errno));
8412       break;
8413     }
8414     asprintf(&newpath, "%s/%s", path, "test");
8415     free(path);
8416     path = newpath;
8417   }
8418   return 0;
8419 }
8420
8421 /*
8422  * Test if symlinks can be created.  This was a problem detected with
8423  * KDE.
8424  */
8425 int test_symlinks(void) {
8426   printf("info: testing symlink creation\n");
8427   unlink("symlink");
8428   if (-1 == symlink("file", "symlink"))
8429     printf("  error: Unable to create symlink\n");
8430   return 0;
8431 }
8432
8433 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
8434   printf("Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system\n");
8435   test_symlinks();
8436   test_subdirectory_creation();
8437 #ifdef TEST_SQLITE
8438   test_sqlite_open();
8439 #endif /* TEST_SQLITE */
8440   test_gcompris_locking();
8441   return 0;
8442 }
8443 </pre>
8444
8445 <p>When everything is working, it should print something like
8446 this:</p>
8447
8448 <pre>
8449 Testing POSIX/Unix sematics on file system
8450 info: testing symlink creation
8451 info: testing subdirectory creation
8452 info: sqlite worked
8453 info: testing fcntl locking
8454   Read-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
8455   Read-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
8456   Unlocking 1 byte from 1073741824
8457   Write-locking 1 byte from 1073741824
8458   Write-locking 510 byte from 1073741826
8459   Unlocking 2 byte from 1073741824
8460 </pre>
8461
8462 <p>I do not remember the exact details of the problems we saw, but one
8463 of them was with locking, where if I remember correctly, POSIX allow a
8464 read-only lock to be upgraded to a read-write lock without unlocking
8465 the read-only lock (while Windows do not).  Another was a bug in the
8466 CIFS/SMB client implementation in the Linux kernel where directory
8467 meta information would be wrong for a fraction of a second, making
8468 OpenOffice.org fail to create its deep directory tree because it was
8469 not allowed to create files in its freshly created directory.</p>
8470
8471 <p>Anyway, here is a nice tool for your tool box, might you never need
8472 it. :)</p>
8473
8474 <p>Update 2010-08-27: Michael Gebetsroither report that he found the
8475 script so useful that he created a GIT repository and stored it in
8476 <a href="http://github.com/gebi/fs-test">http://github.com/gebi/fs-test</a>.</p>
8477
8478       </div>
8479       <div class="tags">
8480
8481
8482         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>.
8483
8484
8485       </div>
8486     </div>
8487     <div class="padding"></div>
8488
8489     <div class="entry">
8490       <div class="title">
8491         <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>
8492       </div>
8493       <div class="date">
8494          7th August 2010
8495       </div>
8496       <div class="body">
8497         <p>A few days ago, I
8498 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_roaming_workstation___at_the_university_of_Oslo.html">tried
8499 to install</a> a Roaming workation profile from Debian Edu/Squeeze
8500 while on the university network here at the University of Oslo, and
8501 noticed how much had to change to get it operational using the
8502 university infrastructure.  It was fairly easy, but it occured to me
8503 that Debian Edu would improve a lot if I could get the client to
8504 connect without any changes at all, and thus let the client configure
8505 itself during installation and first boot to use the infrastructure
8506 around it.  Now I am a huge step further along that road.</p>
8507
8508 <p>With our current squeeze-test packages, I can select the roaming
8509 workstation profile and get a working laptop connecting to the
8510 university LDAP server for user and group and our active directory
8511 servers for Kerberos authentication.  All this without any
8512 configuration at all during installation.  My users home directory got
8513 a bookmark in the KDE menu to mount it via SMB, with the correct URL.
8514 In short, openldap and sssd is correctly configured.  In addition to
8515 this, the client look for http://wpad/wpad.dat to configure a web
8516 proxy, and when it fail to find it no proxy settings are stored in
8517 /etc/environment and /etc/apt/apt.conf.  Iceweasel and KDE is
8518 configured to look for the same wpad configuration and also do not use
8519 a proxy when at the university network.  If the machine is moved to a
8520 network with such wpad setup, it would automatically use it when DHCP
8521 gave it a IP address.</p>
8522
8523 <p>The LDAP server is located using DNS, by first looking for the DNS
8524 entry ldap.$domain.  If this do not exist, it look for the
8525 _ldap._tcp.$domain SRV records and use the first one as the LDAP
8526 server.  Next, it connects to the LDAP server and search all
8527 namingContexts entries for posixAccount or posixGroup objects, and
8528 pick the first one as the LDAP base.  For Kerberos, a similar
8529 algorithm is used to locate the LDAP server, and the realm is the
8530 uppercase version of $domain.</p>
8531
8532 <p>So, what is not working, you might ask.  SMB mounting my home
8533 directory do not work.  No idea why, but suspected the incorrect
8534 Kerberos settings in /etc/krb5.conf and /etc/samba/smb.conf might be
8535 the cause.  These are not properly configured during installation, and
8536 had to be hand-edited to get the correct Kerberos realm and server,
8537 but SMB mounting still do not work. :(</p>
8538
8539 <p>With this automatic configuration in place, I expect a Debian Edu
8540 roaming profile installation would be able to automatically detect and
8541 connect to any site using LDAP and Kerberos for NSS directory and PAM
8542 authentication.  It should also work out of the box in a Active
8543 Directory environment providing posixAccount and posixGroup objects
8544 with UID and GID values.</p>
8545
8546 <p>If you want to help out with implementing these things for Debian
8547 Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8548
8549       </div>
8550       <div class="tags">
8551
8552
8553         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>.
8554
8555
8556       </div>
8557     </div>
8558     <div class="padding"></div>
8559
8560     <div class="entry">
8561       <div class="title">
8562         <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>
8563       </div>
8564       <div class="date">
8565          3rd August 2010
8566       </div>
8567       <div class="body">
8568         <p>The new roaming workstation profile in Debian Edu/Squeeze is fairly
8569 similar to the laptop setup am I working on using Ubuntu for the
8570 University of Oslo, and just for the heck of it, I tested today how
8571 hard it would be to integrate that profile into the university
8572 infrastructure.  In this case, it is the university LDAP server,
8573 Active Directory Kerberos server and SMB mounting from the Netapp file
8574 servers.</p>
8575
8576 <p>I was pleasantly surprised that the only three files needed to be
8577 changed (/etc/sssd/sssd.conf, /etc/ldap.conf and
8578 /etc/mklocaluser.d/20-debian-edu-config) and one file had to be added
8579 (/usr/share/perl5/Debian/Edu_Local.pm), to get the client working.
8580 Most of the changes were to get the client to use the university LDAP
8581 for NSS and Kerberos server for PAM, but one was to change a hard
8582 coded DNS domain name in the mklocaluser hook from .intern to
8583 .uio.no.</p>
8584
8585 <p>This testing was so encouraging, that I went ahead and adjusted the
8586 Debian Edu scripts and setup in subversion to centralise the roaming
8587 workstation setup a bit more and avoid the hardcoded DNS domain name,
8588 so that when I test this tomorrow, I expect to get away with modifying
8589 only /etc/sssd/sssd.conf and /etc/ldap.conf to get it to use the
8590 university servers.</p>
8591
8592 <p>My goal is to get the clients to have no hardcoded settings and
8593 fetch all their initial setup during installation and first boot, to
8594 allow them to be inserted also into environments where the default
8595 setup in Debian Edu has been changed or as with the university, where
8596 the environment is different but provides the protocols Debian Edu
8597 uses.</p>
8598
8599       </div>
8600       <div class="tags">
8601
8602
8603         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>.
8604
8605
8606       </div>
8607     </div>
8608     <div class="padding"></div>
8609
8610     <div class="entry">
8611       <div class="title">
8612         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Circular_package_dependencies_harms_apt_recovery.html">Circular package dependencies harms apt recovery</a>
8613       </div>
8614       <div class="date">
8615         27th July 2010
8616       </div>
8617       <div class="body">
8618         <p>I discovered this while doing
8619 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">automated
8620 testing of upgrades from Debian Lenny to Squeeze</a>.  A few packages
8621 in Debian still got circular dependencies, and it is often claimed
8622 that apt and aptitude should be able to handle this just fine, but
8623 some times these dependency loops causes apt to fail.</p>
8624
8625 <p>An example is from todays
8626 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing//test-20100727-lenny-squeeze-kde-aptitude.txt">upgrade
8627 of KDE using aptitude</a>.  In it, a bug in kdebase-workspace-data
8628 causes perl-modules to fail to upgrade.  The cause is simple.  If a
8629 package fail to unpack, then only part of packages with the circular
8630 dependency might end up being unpacked when unpacking aborts, and the
8631 ones already unpacked will fail to configure in the recovery phase
8632 because its dependencies are unavailable.</p>
8633
8634 <p>In this log, the problem manifest itself with this error:</p>
8635
8636 <blockquote><pre>
8637 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of perl-modules:
8638  perl-modules depends on perl (>= 5.10.1-1); however:
8639   Version of perl on system is 5.10.0-19lenny2.
8640 dpkg: error processing perl-modules (--configure):
8641  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
8642 </pre></blockquote>
8643
8644 <p>The perl/perl-modules circular dependency is already
8645 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/527917">reported as a bug</a>, and will
8646 hopefully be solved as soon as possible, but it is not the only one,
8647 and each one of these loops in the dependency tree can cause similar
8648 failures.  Of course, they only occur when there are bugs in other
8649 packages causing the unpacking to fail, but it is rather nasty when
8650 the failure of one package causes the problem to become worse because
8651 of dependency loops.</p>
8652
8653 <p>Thanks to
8654 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/06/msg00116.html">the
8655 tireless effort by Bill Allombert</a>, the number of circular
8656 dependencies
8657 <a href="http://debian.semistable.com/debgraph.out.html">left in Debian
8658 is dropping</a>, and perhaps it will reach zero one day. :)</p>
8659
8660 <p>Todays testing also exposed a bug in
8661 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590605">update-notifier</a> and
8662 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/590604">different behaviour</a> between
8663 apt-get and aptitude, the latter possibly caused by some circular
8664 dependency.  Reported both to BTS to try to get someone to look at
8665 it.</p>
8666
8667       </div>
8668       <div class="tags">
8669
8670
8671         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>.
8672
8673
8674       </div>
8675     </div>
8676     <div class="padding"></div>
8677
8678     <div class="entry">
8679       <div class="title">
8680         <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>
8681       </div>
8682       <div class="date">
8683         27th July 2010
8684       </div>
8685       <div class="body">
8686         <p>I just posted this announcement culminating several months of work
8687 with the next Debian Edu release.  Not nearly done, but one major step
8688 completed.</p>
8689
8690 <blockquote>
8691 <p>This is the first test release based on Squeeze. The focus of this
8692 release is to test the user application selection. To have a look,
8693 install the standalone profile and let the developers know if the set
8694 of installed packages i.e. applications should be modified. If some
8695 user application is missing, or if there are some applications that no
8696 longer make sense to be included in Debian Edu, please let us know.
8697 Also, if a useful application is missing the translation for your
8698 language of choice, please let us know too.</p>
8699
8700 <p>In addition, feedback and help to polish the desktop (menus,
8701 artwork, starters, etc.) is appreciated. We would like to ship a nice
8702 and handy KDE4 desktop targeted for schools out of the box.</p>
8703
8704 <p>The other profiles should be installable, but there is a lot more
8705 work left to be done before they are ready, so do not expect to
8706 much.</p>
8707
8708 <p>Changes compared to the lenny based version</p>
8709
8710 <ul>
8711 <li>Everything from Debian Squeeze
8712 <ul>
8713   <li>Desktop environment KDE 4.4 => the new KDE desktop in
8714          combination with some new artwork
8715   <li>Web browser Iceweasel 3.5
8716   <li>OpenOffice.org 3.2
8717   <li>Educational toolbox GCompris 9.3
8718   <li>Music creator Rosegarden 10.04.2
8719   <li>Image editor Gimp 2.6.10
8720   <li>Virtual universe Celestia 1.6.0
8721   <li>Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.10.4
8722   <li>3D modeler Blender 2.49.2 (new application)
8723   <li>Video editor Kdenlive 0.7.7 (new application)
8724 </ul></li>
8725 <li>Now using Kerberos for password checking (migration not finished).
8726     Enabled for:
8727 <ul>
8728   <li>PAM
8729   <li>LDAP
8730   <li>IMAP
8731   <li>SMTP (sender verification)
8732 </ul>
8733 </li>
8734 <li>New experimental roaming workstation profile for laptops.</li>
8735 <li>Show welcome page to users when they first log in. The URL is
8736     fetched from LDAP.</li>
8737 <li>New LXDE desktop option, in addition to KDE (default) and Gnome.</li>
8738 <li>General cleanup (not finished)</li>
8739 </ul>
8740 <p>The following features are not working as they should</p>
8741
8742 <ul>
8743 <li>No web based administration tool for creating users and groups. The
8744     scripts ldap-createuser-krb and ldap-add-user-to-group can be used
8745     for testing.</li>
8746 <li>DVD installs are missing debian-installer images for the PXE boot,
8747     and do not set up the PXE menu on eth0 because of this. LTSP
8748     clients should still boot from eth1 on thin client servers.</li>
8749 <li>The restructured KDE menu is not implemented.</li>
8750 <li>The LDAP server setup need to be reviewed for security.</li>
8751 <li>The LDAP directory structure need to be reworked.</li>
8752 <li>Different sets of packages are installed when using the DVD and the
8753     netinst CD. More packages are installed using the netinst CD.</li>
8754 <li>The jackd package fail to install. This is believed to be caused by
8755     some ongoing transition, and hopefully should be solved soon. The
8756     jackd1 package can be installed manually for those that need it.</li>
8757 <li>Some packages lack translations. See
8758     http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Squeeze for updated status,
8759     and help out with translations.</li>
8760 </ul>
8761
8762 <p>To download this multiarch netinstall release you can use</p>
8763
8764 <ul>
8765 <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>
8766 <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>
8767 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
8768 </ul>
8769 <p>To download this multiarch dvd release you can use</p>
8770
8771 <ul>
8772 <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>
8773 <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>
8774 <li>rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/squeeze-alpha/debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
8775 </ul>
8776
8777 <p>There is no source DVD available yet. It will be prepared when we
8778 get closer to the final release.</p>
8779
8780 <p>The MD5SUM of these images are</p>
8781
8782 <ul>
8783 <li>3dbf45d59f42a53518b6e3c9ec3b5eb6 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
8784 <li>22f2cbfce281d1c6e478be452638675d debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
8785 </ul>
8786
8787 <p>The SHA1SUM of these images are</p>
8788 <ul>
8789 <li>c53d1b69b40cf37cd27aefaf33f6f6a3821bedf0 debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-CD.iso</li>
8790 <li>2ec29d7db676d59d32197b05c277ffe16348376c debian-edu-6.0.0+edua0-DVD.iso</li>
8791 </ul>
8792 <p>How to report bugs:
8793 http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugsInBugzilla</p>
8794
8795 <p>Please direct replies to debian-edu@lists.debian.org</p>
8796 </blockquote>
8797
8798       </div>
8799       <div class="tags">
8800
8801
8802         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>.
8803
8804
8805       </div>
8806     </div>
8807     <div class="padding"></div>
8808
8809     <div class="entry">
8810       <div class="title">
8811         <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>
8812       </div>
8813       <div class="date">
8814         25th July 2010
8815       </div>
8816       <div class="body">
8817         <p>The last few months me and the other Debian Edu developers have
8818 been working hard to get the Debian/Squeeze based version of Debian
8819 Edu/Skolelinux into shape.  This future version will use Kerberos for
8820 authentication, and services are slowly migrated to single signon,
8821 getting rid of password questions one at the time.</p>
8822
8823 <p>It will also feature a roaming workstation profile with local home
8824 directory, for laptops that are only some times on the Skolelinux
8825 network, and for this profile a shortcut is created in Gnome and KDE
8826 to gain access to the users home directory on the file server.  This
8827 shortcut uses SMB at the moment, and yesterday I had time to test if
8828 SMB mounting had started working in KDE after we added the cifs-utils
8829 package.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked.</p>
8830
8831 <p>Thanks to the recent changes to our samba configuration to get it
8832 to use Kerberos for authentication, there were no question about user
8833 password when mounting the SMB volume.  A simple click on the shortcut
8834 in the KDE menu, and a window with the home directory popped
8835 up. :)</p>
8836
8837 <p>One step closer to a single signon solution out of the box in
8838 Debian Edu.  We already had PAM, LDAP, IMAP and SMTP in place, and now
8839 also Samba.  Next step is Cups and hopefully also NFS.</p>
8840
8841 <p>We had planned a alpha0 release of Debian Edu for today, but thanks
8842 to the autobuilder administrators for some architectures being slow to
8843 sign packages, we are still missing the fixed LTSP package we need for
8844 the release.  It was uploaded three days ago with urgency=high, and if
8845 it had entered testing yesterday we would have been able to test it in
8846 time for a alpha0 release today.  As the binaries for ia64 and powerpc
8847 still not uploaded to the Debian archive, we need to delay the alpha
8848 release another day.</p>
8849
8850 <p>If you want to help out with implementing Kerberos for Debian Edu,
8851 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
8852
8853       </div>
8854       <div class="tags">
8855
8856
8857         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>.
8858
8859
8860       </div>
8861     </div>
8862     <div class="padding"></div>
8863
8864     <div class="entry">
8865       <div class="title">
8866         <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>
8867       </div>
8868       <div class="date">
8869         18th July 2010
8870       </div>
8871       <div class="body">
8872         <p>Thanks to
8873 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Opengeodata/~3/wUTCzDZk3lc/project-of-the-week-which-way-home">todays
8874 opengeodata blog entry</a>, I just discovered that the
8875 OpenStreetmap.org site have gotten
8876 <a href="http://nroets.dev.openstreetmap.org/demo/index.html?layers=B000FTFTT">support
8877 for calculating routes</a>.  The support is still experimental and
8878 only available from the development server, until more experience is
8879 gathered on the user interface and any scalability issues.</p>
8880
8881 <p>Earlier, the routing I knew about using the OpenStreetmap.org data
8882 was provided by <a href="http://maps.cloudmade.com/">Cloudmade</a>,
8883 but having it on the main page is required to make everyone aware of
8884 the issue.  I've had people reject Openstreetmap.org as a viable
8885 alternative for them because the front page lacked routing support,
8886 and I hope their needs will be catered for when routing show up on the
8887 www.openstreetmap.org front page.</p>
8888
8889       </div>
8890       <div class="tags">
8891
8892
8893         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>.
8894
8895
8896       </div>
8897     </div>
8898     <div class="padding"></div>
8899
8900     <div class="entry">
8901       <div class="title">
8902         <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>
8903       </div>
8904       <div class="date">
8905         17th July 2010
8906       </div>
8907       <div class="body">
8908         <p>This is a
8909 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">followup</a>
8910 on my
8911 <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
8912 work</a> on
8913 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">merging
8914 all</a> the computer related LDAP objects in Debian Edu.</p>
8915
8916 <p>As a step to try to see if it possible to merge the DNS and DHCP
8917 LDAP objects, I have had a look at how the packages pdns-backend-ldap
8918 and dhcp3-server-ldap in Debian use the LDAP server.  The two
8919 implementations are quite different in how they use LDAP.</p>
8920
8921 To get this information, I started slapd with debugging enabled and
8922 dumped the debug output to a file to get the LDAP searches performed
8923 on a Debian Edu main-server.  Here is a summary.
8924
8925 <p><strong>powerdns</strong></p>
8926
8927 <a href="http://www.linuxnetworks.de/doc/index.php/PowerDNS_LDAP_Backend">Clues
8928 on how to</a> set up PowerDNS to use a LDAP backend is available on
8929 the web.
8930
8931 <p>PowerDNS have two modes of operation using LDAP as its backend.
8932 One "strict" mode where the forward and reverse DNS lookups are done
8933 using the same LDAP objects, and a "tree" mode where the forward and
8934 reverse entries are in two different subtrees in LDAP with a structure
8935 based on the DNS names, as in tjener.intern and
8936 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa.</p>
8937
8938 <p>In tree mode, the server is set up to use a LDAP subtree as its
8939 base, and uses a "base" scoped search for the DNS name by adding
8940 "dc=tjener,dc=intern," to the base with a filter for
8941 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" for the forward entry and
8942 "dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa," with a filter for
8943 "(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)" for the reverse entry.  For
8944 forward entries, it is looking for attributes named dnsttl, arecord,
8945 nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord,
8946 txtrecord, rprecord, afsdbrecord, keyrecord, aaaarecord, locrecord,
8947 srvrecord, naptrrecord, kxrecord, certrecord, dsrecord, sshfprecord,
8948 ipseckeyrecord, rrsigrecord, nsecrecord, dnskeyrecord, dhcidrecord,
8949 spfrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entries it is looking for
8950 the attributes dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord,
8951 ptrrecord, hinforecord, mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord,
8952 locrecord, srvrecord, naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  The equivalent
8953 ldapsearch commands could look like this:</p>
8954
8955 <blockquote><pre>
8956 ldapsearch -h ldap \
8957   -b dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
8958   -s base -x '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
8959   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
8960   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
8961   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
8962   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
8963
8964 ldapsearch -h ldap \
8965   -b dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no \
8966   -s base -x '(associateddomain=2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa)'
8967   dnsttl, arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord soarecord ptrrecord \
8968   hinforecord mxrecord txtrecord rprecord aaaarecord locrecord \
8969   srvrecord naptrrecord modifytimestamp
8970 </pre></blockquote>
8971
8972 <p>In Debian Edu/Lenny, the PowerDNS tree mode is used with
8973 ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no as the base, and these are two
8974 example LDAP objects used there.  In addition to these objects, the
8975 parent objects all th way up to ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8976 also exist.</p>
8977
8978 <blockquote><pre>
8979 dn: dc=tjener,dc=intern,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8980 objectclass: top
8981 objectclass: dnsdomain
8982 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
8983 dc: tjener
8984 arecord: 10.0.2.2
8985 associateddomain: tjener.intern
8986
8987 dn: dc=2,dc=2,dc=0,dc=10,dc=in-addr,dc=arpa,ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
8988 objectclass: top
8989 objectclass: dnsdomain2
8990 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
8991 dc: 2
8992 ptrrecord: tjener.intern
8993 associateddomain: 2.2.0.10.in-addr.arpa
8994 </pre></blockquote>
8995
8996 <p>In strict mode, the server behaves differently.  When looking for
8997 forward DNS entries, it is doing a "subtree" scoped search with the
8998 same base as in the tree mode for a object with filter
8999 "(associateddomain=tjener.intern)" and requests the attributes dnsttl,
9000 arecord, nsrecord, cnamerecord, soarecord, ptrrecord, hinforecord,
9001 mxrecord, txtrecord, rprecord, aaaarecord, locrecord, srvrecord,
9002 naptrrecord and modifytimestamp.  For reverse entires it also do a
9003 subtree scoped search but this time the filter is "(arecord=10.0.2.2)"
9004 and the requested attributes are associateddomain, dnsttl and
9005 modifytimestamp.  In short, in strict mode the objects with ptrrecord
9006 go away, and the arecord attribute in the forward object is used
9007 instead.</p>
9008
9009 <p>The forward and reverse searches can be simulated using ldapsearch
9010 like this:</p>
9011
9012 <blockquote><pre>
9013 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
9014   '(associateddomain=tjener.intern)' dNSTTL aRecord nSRecord \
9015   cNAMERecord sOARecord pTRRecord hInfoRecord mXRecord tXTRecord \
9016   rPRecord aFSDBRecord KeyRecord aAAARecord lOCRecord sRVRecord \
9017   nAPTRRecord kXRecord certRecord dSRecord sSHFPRecord iPSecKeyRecord \
9018   rRSIGRecord nSECRecord dNSKeyRecord dHCIDRecord sPFRecord modifyTimestamp
9019
9020 ldapsearch -h ldap -b ou=hosts,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no -s sub -x \
9021   '(arecord=10.0.2.2)' associateddomain dnsttl modifytimestamp
9022 </pre></blockquote>
9023
9024 <p>In addition to the forward and reverse searches , there is also a
9025 search for SOA records, which behave similar to the forward and
9026 reverse lookups.</p>
9027
9028 <p>A thing to note with the PowerDNS behaviour is that it do not
9029 specify any objectclass names, and instead look for the attributes it
9030 need to generate a DNS reply.  This make it able to work with any
9031 objectclass that provide the needed attributes.</p>
9032
9033 <p>The attributes are normally provided in the cosine (RFC 1274) and
9034 dnsdomain2 schemas.  The latter is used for reverse entries like
9035 ptrrecord and recent DNS additions like aaaarecord and srvrecord.</p>
9036
9037 <p>In Debian Edu, we have created DNS objects using the object classes
9038 dcobject (for dc), dnsdomain or dnsdomain2 (structural, for the DNS
9039 attributes) and domainrelatedobject (for associatedDomain).  The use
9040 of structural object classes make it impossible to combine these
9041 classes with the object classes used by DHCP.</p>
9042
9043 <p>There are other schemas that could be used too, for example the
9044 dnszone structural object class used by Gosa and bind-sdb for the DNS
9045 attributes combined with the domainrelatedobject object class, but in
9046 this case some unused attributes would have to be included as well
9047 (zonename and relativedomainname).</p>
9048
9049 <p>My proposal for Debian Edu would be to switch PowerDNS to strict
9050 mode and not use any of the existing objectclasses (dnsdomain,
9051 dnsdomain2 and dnszone) when one want to combine the DNS information
9052 with DHCP information, and instead create a auxiliary object class
9053 defined something like this (using the attributes defined for
9054 dnsdomain and dnsdomain2 or dnszone):</p>
9055
9056 <blockquote><pre>
9057 objectclass ( some-oid NAME 'dnsDomainAux'
9058     SUP top
9059     AUXILIARY
9060     MAY ( ARecord $ MDRecord $ MXRecord $ NSRecord $ SOARecord $ CNAMERecord $
9061           DNSTTL $ DNSClass $ PTRRecord $ HINFORecord $ MINFORecord $
9062           TXTRecord $ SIGRecord $ KEYRecord $ AAAARecord $ LOCRecord $
9063           NXTRecord $ SRVRecord $ NAPTRRecord $ KXRecord $ CERTRecord $
9064           A6Record $ DNAMERecord
9065     ))
9066 </pre></blockquote>
9067
9068 <p>This will allow any object to become a DNS entry when combined with
9069 the domainrelatedobject object class, and allow any entity to include
9070 all the attributes PowerDNS wants.  I've sent an email to the PowerDNS
9071 developers asking for their view on this schema and if they are
9072 interested in providing such schema with PowerDNS, and I hope my
9073 message will be accepted into their mailing list soon.</p>
9074
9075 <p><strong>ISC dhcp</strong></p>
9076
9077 <p>The DHCP server searches for specific objectclass and requests all
9078 the object attributes, and then uses the attributes it want.  This
9079 make it harder to figure out exactly what attributes are used, but
9080 thanks to the working example in Debian Edu I can at least get an idea
9081 what is needed without having to read the source code.</p>
9082
9083 <p>In the DHCP server configuration, the LDAP base to use and the
9084 search filter to use to locate the correct dhcpServer entity is
9085 stored.  These are the relevant entries from
9086 /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf:</p>
9087
9088 <blockquote><pre>
9089 ldap-base-dn "dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no";
9090 ldap-dhcp-server-cn "dhcp";
9091 </pre></blockquote>
9092
9093 <p>The DHCP server uses this information to nest all the DHCP
9094 configuration it need.  The cn "dhcp" is located using the given LDAP
9095 base and the filter "(&(objectClass=dhcpServer)(cn=dhcp))".  The
9096 search result is this entry:</p>
9097
9098 <blockquote><pre>
9099 dn: cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9100 cn: dhcp
9101 objectClass: top
9102 objectClass: dhcpServer
9103 dhcpServiceDN: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9104 </pre></blockquote>
9105
9106 <p>The content of the dhcpServiceDN attribute is next used to locate the
9107 subtree with DHCP configuration.  The DHCP configuration subtree base
9108 is located using a base scope search with base "cn=DHCP
9109 Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" and filter
9110 "(&(objectClass=dhcpService)(|(dhcpPrimaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)(dhcpSecondaryDN=cn=dhcp,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no)))".
9111 The search result is this entry:</p>
9112
9113 <blockquote><pre>
9114 dn: cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9115 cn: DHCP Config
9116 objectClass: top
9117 objectClass: dhcpService
9118 objectClass: dhcpOptions
9119 dhcpPrimaryDN: cn=dhcp, dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9120 dhcpStatements: ddns-update-style none
9121 dhcpStatements: authoritative
9122 dhcpOption: smtp-server code 69 = array of ip-address
9123 dhcpOption: www-server code 72 = array of ip-address
9124 dhcpOption: wpad-url code 252 = text
9125 </pre></blockquote>
9126
9127 <p>Next, the entire subtree is processed, one level at the time.  When
9128 all the DHCP configuration is loaded, it is ready to receive requests.
9129 The subtree in Debian Edu contain objects with object classes
9130 top/dhcpService/dhcpOptions, top/dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions,
9131 top/dhcpSubnet, top/dhcpGroup and top/dhcpHost.  These provide options
9132 and information about netmasks, dynamic range etc.  Leaving out the
9133 details here because it is not relevant for the focus of my
9134 investigation, which is to see if it is possible to merge dns and dhcp
9135 related computer objects.</p>
9136
9137 <p>When a DHCP request come in, LDAP is searched for the MAC address
9138 of the client (00:00:00:00:00:00 in this example), using a subtree
9139 scoped search with "cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no" as
9140 the base and "(&(objectClass=dhcpHost)(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet
9141 00:00:00:00:00:00))" as the filter.  This is what a host object look
9142 like:</p>
9143
9144 <blockquote><pre>
9145 dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9146 cn: hostname
9147 objectClass: top
9148 objectClass: dhcpHost
9149 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
9150 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname
9151 </pre></blockquote>
9152
9153 <p>There is less flexiblity in the way LDAP searches are done here.
9154 The object classes need to have fixed names, and the configuration
9155 need to be stored in a fairly specific LDAP structure.  On the
9156 positive side, the invidiual dhcpHost entires can be anywhere without
9157 the DN pointed to by the dhcpServer entries.  The latter should make
9158 it possible to group all host entries in a subtree next to the
9159 configuration entries, and this subtree can also be shared with the
9160 DNS server if the schema proposed above is combined with the dhcpHost
9161 structural object class.
9162
9163 <p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
9164
9165 <p>The PowerDNS implementation seem to be very flexible when it come
9166 to which LDAP schemas to use.  While its "tree" mode is rigid when it
9167 come to the the LDAP structure, the "strict" mode is very flexible,
9168 allowing DNS objects to be stored anywhere under the base cn specified
9169 in the configuration.</p>
9170
9171 <p>The DHCP implementation on the other hand is very inflexible, both
9172 regarding which LDAP schemas to use and which LDAP structure to use.
9173 I guess one could implement ones own schema, as long as the
9174 objectclasses and attributes have the names used, but this do not
9175 really help when the DHCP subtree need to have a fairly fixed
9176 structure.</p>
9177
9178 <p>Based on the observed behaviour, I suspect a LDAP structure like
9179 this might work for Debian Edu:</p>
9180
9181 <blockquote><pre>
9182 ou=services
9183   cn=machine-info (dhcpService) - dhcpServiceDN points here
9184     cn=dhcp (dhcpServer)
9185     cn=dhcp-internal (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
9186       cn=10.0.2.0 (dhcpSubnet)
9187         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
9188     cn=dhcp-thinclients (dhcpSharedNetwork/dhcpOptions)
9189       cn=192.168.0.0 (dhcpSubnet)
9190         cn=group1 (dhcpGroup/dhcpOptions)
9191     ou=machines - PowerDNS base points here
9192       cn=hostname (dhcpHost/domainrelatedobject/dnsDomainAux)
9193 </pre></blockquote>
9194
9195 <P>This is not tested yet.  If the DHCP server require the dhcpHost
9196 entries to be in the dhcpGroup subtrees, the entries can be stored
9197 there instead of a common machines subtree, and the PowerDNS base
9198 would have to be moved one level up to the machine-info subtree.</p>
9199
9200 <p>The combined object under the machines subtree would look something
9201 like this:</p>
9202
9203 <blockquote><pre>
9204 dn: dc=hostname,ou=machines,cn=machine-info,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9205 dc: hostname
9206 objectClass: top
9207 objectClass: dhcpHost
9208 objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9209 objectclass: dnsDomainAux
9210 associateddomain: hostname.intern
9211 arecord: 10.11.12.13
9212 dhcpHWAddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
9213 dhcpStatements: fixed-address hostname.intern
9214 </pre></blockquote>
9215
9216 </p>One could even add the LTSP configuration associated with a given
9217 machine, as long as the required attributes are available in a
9218 auxiliary object class.</p>
9219
9220       </div>
9221       <div class="tags">
9222
9223
9224         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>.
9225
9226
9227       </div>
9228     </div>
9229     <div class="padding"></div>
9230
9231     <div class="entry">
9232       <div class="title">
9233         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Combining_PowerDNS_and_ISC_DHCP_LDAP_objects.html">Combining PowerDNS and ISC DHCP LDAP objects</a>
9234       </div>
9235       <div class="date">
9236         14th July 2010
9237       </div>
9238       <div class="body">
9239         <p>For a while now, I have wanted to find a way to change the DNS and
9240 DHCP services in Debian Edu to use the same LDAP objects for a given
9241 computer, to avoid the possibility of having a inconsistent state for
9242 a computer in LDAP (as in DHCP but no DNS entry or the other way
9243 around) and make it easier to add computers to LDAP.</p>
9244
9245 <p>I've looked at how powerdns and dhcpd is using LDAP, and using this
9246 information finally found a solution that seem to work.</p>
9247
9248 <p>The old setup required three LDAP objects for a given computer.
9249 One forward DNS entry, one reverse DNS entry and one DHCP entry.  If
9250 we switch powerdns to use its strict LDAP method (ldap-method=strict
9251 in pdns-debian-edu.conf), the forward and reverse DNS entries are
9252 merged into one while making it impossible to transfer the reverse map
9253 to a slave DNS server.</p>
9254
9255 <p>If we also replace the object class used to get the DNS related
9256 attributes to one allowing these attributes to be combined with the
9257 dhcphost object class, we can merge the DNS and DHCP entries into one.
9258 I've written such object class in the dnsdomainaux.schema file (need
9259 proper OIDs, but that is a minor issue), and tested the setup.  It
9260 seem to work.</p>
9261
9262 <p>With this test setup in place, we can get away with one LDAP object
9263 for both DNS and DHCP, and even the LTSP configuration I suggested in
9264 an earlier email.  The combined LDAP object will look something like
9265 this:</p>
9266
9267 <blockquote><pre>
9268   dn: cn=hostname,cn=group1,cn=THINCLIENTS,cn=DHCP Config,dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9269   cn: hostname
9270   objectClass: dhcphost
9271   objectclass: domainrelatedobject
9272   objectclass: dnsdomainaux
9273   associateddomain: hostname.intern
9274   arecord: 10.11.12.13
9275   dhcphwaddress: ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00
9276   dhcpstatements: fixed-address hostname
9277   ldapconfigsound: Y
9278 </pre></blockquote>
9279
9280 <p>The DNS server uses the associateddomain and arecord entries, while
9281 the DHCP server uses the dhcphwaddress and dhcpstatements entries
9282 before asking DNS to resolve the fixed-adddress.  LTSP will use
9283 dhcphwaddress or associateddomain and the ldapconfig* attributes.</p>
9284
9285 <p>I am not yet sure if I can get the DHCP server to look for its
9286 dhcphost in a different location, to allow us to put the objects
9287 outside the "DHCP Config" subtree, but hope to figure out a way to do
9288 that.  If I can't figure out a way to do that, we can still get rid of
9289 the hosts subtree and move all its content into the DHCP Config tree
9290 (which probably should be renamed to be more related to the new
9291 content.  I suspect cn=dnsdhcp,ou=services or something like that
9292 might be a good place to put it.</p>
9293
9294 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9295 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9296
9297       </div>
9298       <div class="tags">
9299
9300
9301         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>.
9302
9303
9304       </div>
9305     </div>
9306     <div class="padding"></div>
9307
9308     <div class="entry">
9309       <div class="title">
9310         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Idea_for_storing_LTSP_configuration_in_LDAP.html">Idea for storing LTSP configuration in LDAP</a>
9311       </div>
9312       <div class="date">
9313         11th July 2010
9314       </div>
9315       <div class="body">
9316         <p>Vagrant mentioned on IRC today that ltsp_config now support
9317 sourcing files from /usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ on the thin
9318 clients, and that this can be used to fetch configuration from LDAP if
9319 Debian Edu choose to store configuration there.</p>
9320
9321 <p>Armed with this information, I got inspired and wrote a test module
9322 to get configuration from LDAP.  The idea is to look up the MAC
9323 address of the client in LDAP, and look for attributes on the form
9324 ltspconfigsetting=value, and use this to export SETTING=value to the
9325 LTSP clients.</p>
9326
9327 <p>The goal is to be able to store the LTSP configuration attributes
9328 in a "computer" LDAP object used by both DNS and DHCP, and thus
9329 allowing us to store all information about a computer in one place.</p>
9330
9331 <p>This is a untested draft implementation, and I welcome feedback on
9332 this approach.  A real LDAP schema for the ltspClientAux objectclass
9333 need to be written.  Comments, suggestions, etc?</p>
9334
9335 <blockquote><pre>
9336 # Store in /opt/ltsp/$arch/usr/share/ltsp/ltsp_config.d/ldap-config
9337 #
9338 # Fetch LTSP client settings from LDAP based on MAC address
9339 #
9340 # Uses ethernet address as stored in the dhcpHost objectclass using
9341 # the dhcpHWAddress attribute or ethernet address stored in the
9342 # ieee802Device objectclass with the macAddress attribute.
9343 #
9344 # This module is written to be schema agnostic, and only depend on the
9345 # existence of attribute names.
9346 #
9347 # The LTSP configuration variables are saved directly using a
9348 # ltspConfig prefix and uppercasing the rest of the attribute name.
9349 # To set the SERVER variable, set the ltspConfigServer attribute.
9350 #
9351 # Some LDAP schema should be created with all the relevant
9352 # configuration settings.  Something like this should work:
9353 #
9354 # objectclass ( 1.1.2.2 NAME 'ltspClientAux'
9355 #     SUP top
9356 #     AUXILIARY
9357 #     MAY ( ltspConfigServer $ ltsConfigSound $ ... )
9358
9359 LDAPSERVER=$(debian-edu-ldapserver)
9360 if [ "$LDAPSERVER" ] ; then
9361     LDAPBASE=$(debian-edu-ldapserver -b)
9362     for MAC in $(LANG=C ifconfig |grep -i hwaddr| awk '{print $5}'|sort -u) ; do
9363         filter="(|(dhcpHWAddress=ethernet $MAC)(macAddress=$MAC))"
9364         ldapsearch -h "$LDAPSERVER" -b "$LDAPBASE" -v -x "$filter" | \
9365             grep '^ltspConfig' | while read attr value ; do
9366             # Remove prefix and convert to upper case
9367             attr=$(echo $attr | sed 's/^ltspConfig//i' | tr a-z A-Z)
9368             # bass value on to clients
9369             eval "$attr=$value; export $attr"
9370         done
9371     done
9372 fi
9373 </pre></blockquote>
9374
9375 <p>I'm not sure this shell construction will work, because I suspect
9376 the while block might end up in a subshell causing the variables set
9377 there to not show up in ltsp-config, but if that is the case I am sure
9378 the code can be restructured to make sure the variables are passed on.
9379 I expect that can be solved with some testing. :)</p>
9380
9381 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9382 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9383
9384 <p>Update 2010-07-17: I am aware of another effort to store LTSP
9385 configuration in LDAP that was created around year 2000 by
9386 <a href="http://www.pcxperience.com/thinclient/documentation/ldap.html">PC
9387 Xperience, Inc., 2000</a>.  I found its
9388 <a href="http://people.redhat.com/alikins/ltsp/ldap/">files</a> on a
9389 personal home page over at redhat.com.</p>
9390
9391       </div>
9392       <div class="tags">
9393
9394
9395         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>.
9396
9397
9398       </div>
9399     </div>
9400     <div class="padding"></div>
9401
9402     <div class="entry">
9403       <div class="title">
9404         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/jXplorer__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">jXplorer, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
9405       </div>
9406       <div class="date">
9407          9th July 2010
9408       </div>
9409       <div class="body">
9410         <p>Since
9411 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">my
9412 last post</a> about available LDAP tools in Debian, I was told about a
9413 LDAP GUI that is even better than luma.  The java application
9414 <a href="http://jxplorer.org/">jXplorer</a> is claimed to be capable of
9415 moving LDAP objects and subtrees using drag-and-drop, and can
9416 authenticate using Kerberos.  I have only tested the Kerberos
9417 authentication, but do not have a LDAP setup allowing me to rewrite
9418 LDAP with my test user yet.  It is
9419 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/j/jxplorer.html">available in
9420 Debian</a> testing and unstable at the moment.  The only problem I
9421 have with it is how it handle errors.  If something go wrong, its
9422 non-intuitive behaviour require me to go through some query work list
9423 and remove the failing query.  Nothing big, but very annoying.</p>
9424
9425       </div>
9426       <div class="tags">
9427
9428
9429         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>.
9430
9431
9432       </div>
9433     </div>
9434     <div class="padding"></div>
9435
9436     <div class="entry">
9437       <div class="title">
9438         <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>
9439       </div>
9440       <div class="date">
9441          3rd July 2010
9442       </div>
9443       <div class="body">
9444         <p>Here is a short update on my <a
9445 href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">my
9446 Debian Lenny->Squeeze upgrade testing</a>.  Here is a summary of the
9447 difference for Gnome when it is upgraded by apt-get and aptitude.  I'm
9448 not reporting the status for KDE, because the upgrade crashes when
9449 aptitude try because of missing conflicts
9450 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> and
9451 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585716">#585716</a>).</p>
9452
9453 <p>At the end of the upgrade test script, dpkg -l is executed to get a
9454 complete list of the installed packages.  Based on this I see these
9455 differences when I did a test run today.  As usual, I do not really
9456 know what the correct set of packages would be, but thought it best to
9457 publish the difference.</p>
9458
9459 <p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
9460
9461 <blockquote><p>
9462   at-spi cpp-4.3 finger gnome-spell gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
9463   libatspi1.0-0 libcupsys2 libeel2-data libgail-common libgdl-1-common
9464   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin
9465   libgtksourceview-common libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
9466   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libservlet2.4-java libxalan2-java
9467   libxerces2-java openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
9468   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gtkhtml2
9469   python-gtkmozembed svgalibg1 xserver-xephyr zip
9470 </p></blockquote>
9471
9472 <p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
9473
9474 <blockquote><p>
9475   bluez-utils dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop epiphany-gecko
9476   gnome-app-install gnome-mount gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager
9477   libao2 libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libbind9-50
9478   libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcurl3
9479   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9
9480   libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3
9481   libfaad0 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
9482   libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
9483   libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
9484   libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
9485   libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50
9486   libisccfg50 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick++10
9487   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4
9488   libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5
9489   libparted1.8-10 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3
9490   libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8 libsensors3 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
9491   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1
9492   libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0 libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj
9493   libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3
9494   mysql-common swfdec-gnome totem-gstreamer wodim
9495 </p></blockquote>
9496
9497 <p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
9498
9499 <blockquote><p>
9500   gnome gnome-desktop-environment hamster-applet python-gnomeapplet
9501   python-gnomekeyring python-wnck rhythmbox-plugins xorg
9502   xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
9503   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
9504   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-video-all
9505   xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark xserver-xorg-video-ati
9506   xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
9507   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
9508   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
9509   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-mach64
9510   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
9511   xserver-xorg-video-nouveau xserver-xorg-video-nv
9512   xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon
9513   xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-rendition
9514   xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge
9515   xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion
9516   xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb
9517   xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga
9518   xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng
9519   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
9520   xserver-xorg-video-voodoo
9521 </p></blockquote>
9522
9523 <p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
9524
9525 <blockquote><p>
9526   deskbar-applet xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
9527   xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-intel
9528   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome
9529 </p></blockquote>
9530
9531 <p>I was told on IRC that the xorg-xserver package was
9532 <a href="http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-xorg/xserver/xorg-server.git;a=commit;h=9c8080d06c457932d3bfec021c69ac000aa60120">changed
9533 in git</a> today to try to get apt-get to not remove xorg completely.
9534 No idea when it hits Squeeze, but when it does I hope it will reduce
9535 the difference somewhat.
9536
9537       </div>
9538       <div class="tags">
9539
9540
9541         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>.
9542
9543
9544       </div>
9545     </div>
9546     <div class="padding"></div>
9547
9548     <div class="entry">
9549       <div class="title">
9550         <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>
9551       </div>
9552       <div class="date">
9553          1st July 2010
9554       </div>
9555       <div class="body">
9556         <p>For a laptop, centralized user directories and password checking is
9557 a bit troubling.  Laptops are typically used also when not connected
9558 to the network, and it is vital for a user to be able to log in or
9559 unlock the screen saver also when a central server is unavailable.
9560 This is possible by caching passwords and directory information (user
9561 and group attributes) locally, and the packages to do so are available
9562 in Debian.  Here follow two recipes to set this up in Debian/Squeeze.
9563 It is also possible to set up in Debian/Lenny, but require more manual
9564 setup there because pam-auth-update is missing in Lenny.</p>
9565
9566 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nscd + libpam-ccreds + libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
9567
9568 This is the traditional method with a twist.  The password caching is
9569 provided by libpam-ccreds (version 10-4 or later is needed on
9570 Squeeze), and the directory caching is done by nscd.  The directory
9571 lookup and password checking is done using LDAP.  If one want to use
9572 Kerberos for password checking the libpam-ldapd package can be
9573 replaced with libpam-krb5 or libpam-heimdal.  If one is happy having a
9574 local home directory with the path listed in LDAP, one can use the
9575 pam_mkhomedir module from pam-modules to make this happen instead of
9576 using libpam-mklocaluser.  A setup for pam-auth-update to enable
9577 pam_mkhomedir will have to be written until a fix for
9578 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/568577">bug #568577</a> is in the
9579 archive.  Because I believe it is a bad idea to have local home
9580 directories using misleading paths like /site/server/partition/, I
9581 prefer to create a local user with the home directory in /home/.  This
9582 is done using the libpam-mklocaluser package.</p>
9583
9584 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured</p>
9585
9586 <blockquote><pre>
9587 libnss-ldapd libpam-ldapd nscd libpam-ccreds libpam-mklocaluser
9588 </pre></blockquote>
9589
9590 <p>The ldapd packages will ask for LDAP connection information, and
9591 one have to fill in the values that fits ones own site.  Make sure the
9592 PAM part uses encrypted connections, to make sure the password is not
9593 sent in clear text to the LDAP server.  I've been unable to get TLS
9594 certificate checking for a self signed certificate working, which make
9595 LDAP authentication unsafe for Debian Edu (nslcd is not checking if it
9596 is talking to the correct LDAP server), and very much welcome feedback
9597 on how to get this working.</p>
9598
9599 <p>Because nscd do not have a default configuration fit for offline
9600 caching until <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">bug #485282</a>
9601 is fixed, this configuration should be used instead of the one
9602 currently in /etc/nscd.conf.  The changes are in the fields
9603 reload-count and positive-time-to-live, and is based on the
9604 instructions I found in the
9605 <a href="http://www.flyn.org/laptopldap/">LDAP for Mobile Laptops</a>
9606 instructions by Flyn Computing.</p>
9607
9608 <blockquote><pre>
9609         debug-level             0
9610         reload-count            unlimited
9611         paranoia                no
9612
9613         enable-cache            passwd          yes
9614         positive-time-to-live   passwd          2592000
9615         negative-time-to-live   passwd          20
9616         suggested-size          passwd          211
9617         check-files             passwd          yes
9618         persistent              passwd          yes
9619         shared                  passwd          yes
9620         max-db-size             passwd          33554432
9621         auto-propagate          passwd          yes
9622
9623         enable-cache            group           yes
9624         positive-time-to-live   group           2592000
9625         negative-time-to-live   group           20
9626         suggested-size          group           211
9627         check-files             group           yes
9628         persistent              group           yes
9629         shared                  group           yes
9630         max-db-size             group           33554432
9631         auto-propagate          group           yes
9632
9633         enable-cache            hosts           no
9634         positive-time-to-live   hosts           2592000
9635         negative-time-to-live   hosts           20
9636         suggested-size          hosts           211
9637         check-files             hosts           yes
9638         persistent              hosts           yes
9639         shared                  hosts           yes
9640         max-db-size             hosts           33554432
9641
9642         enable-cache            services        yes
9643         positive-time-to-live   services        2592000
9644         negative-time-to-live   services        20
9645         suggested-size          services        211
9646         check-files             services        yes
9647         persistent              services        yes
9648         shared                  services        yes
9649         max-db-size             services        33554432
9650 </pre></blockquote>
9651
9652 <p>While we wait for a mechanism to update /etc/nsswitch.conf
9653 automatically like the one provided in
9654 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/496915">bug #496915</a>, the file
9655 content need to be manually replaced to ensure LDAP is used as the
9656 directory service on the machine.  /etc/nsswitch.conf should normally
9657 look like this:</p>
9658
9659 <blockquote><pre>
9660 passwd:         files ldap
9661 group:          files ldap
9662 shadow:         files ldap
9663 hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
9664 networks:       files
9665 protocols:      files
9666 services:       files
9667 ethers:         files
9668 rpc:            files
9669 netgroup:       files ldap
9670 </pre></blockquote>
9671
9672 <p>The important parts are that ldap is listed last for passwd, group,
9673 shadow and netgroup.</p>
9674
9675 <p>With these changes in place, any user in LDAP will be able to log
9676 in locally on the machine using for example kdm, get a local home
9677 directory created and have the password as well as user and group
9678 attributes cached.
9679
9680 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + nss-updatedb + libpam-ccreds +
9681   libpam-mklocaluser/pam_mkhomedir</h2>
9682
9683 <p>Because nscd have had its share of problems, and seem to have
9684 problems doing proper caching, I've seen suggestions and recipes to
9685 use nss-updatedb to copy parts of the LDAP database locally when the
9686 LDAP database is available.  I have not tested such setup, because I
9687 discovered sssd.</p>
9688
9689 <h2>LDAP/Kerberos + sssd + libpam-mklocaluser</h2>
9690
9691 <p>A more flexible and robust setup than the nscd combination
9692 mentioned earlier that has shown up recently, is the
9693 <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/sssd/">sssd</a> package from Redhat.
9694 It is part of the <a href="http://www.freeipa.org/">FreeIPA</A> project
9695 to provide a Active Directory like directory service for Linux
9696 machines.  The sssd system combines the caching of passwords and user
9697 information into one package, and remove the need for nscd and
9698 libpam-ccreds.  It support LDAP and Kerberos, but not NIS.  Version
9699 1.2 do not support netgroups, but it is said that it will support this
9700 in version 1.5 expected to show up later in 2010.  Because the
9701 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd package</a>
9702 was missing in Debian, I ended up co-maintaining it with Werner, and
9703 version 1.2 is now in testing.
9704
9705 <p>These packages need to be installed and configured to get the
9706 roaming setup I want</p>
9707
9708 <blockquote><pre>
9709 libpam-sss libnss-sss libpam-mklocaluser
9710 </pre></blockquote>
9711
9712 The complete setup of sssd is done by editing/creating
9713 <tt>/etc/sssd/sssd.conf</tt>.
9714
9715 <blockquote><pre>
9716 [sssd]
9717 config_file_version = 2
9718 reconnection_retries = 3
9719 sbus_timeout = 30
9720 services = nss, pam
9721 domains = INTERN
9722
9723 [nss]
9724 filter_groups = root
9725 filter_users = root
9726 reconnection_retries = 3
9727
9728 [pam]
9729 reconnection_retries = 3
9730
9731 [domain/INTERN]
9732 enumerate = false
9733 cache_credentials = true
9734
9735 id_provider = ldap
9736 auth_provider = ldap
9737 chpass_provider = ldap
9738
9739 ldap_uri = ldap://ldap
9740 ldap_search_base = dc=skole,dc=skolelinux,dc=no
9741 ldap_tls_reqcert = never
9742 ldap_tls_cacert = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
9743 </pre></blockquote>
9744
9745 <p>I got the same problem here with certificate checking.  Had to set
9746 "ldap_tls_reqcert = never" to get it working.</p>
9747
9748 <p>With the libnss-sss package in testing at the moment, the
9749 nsswitch.conf file is update automatically, so there is no need to
9750 modify it manually.</p>
9751
9752 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9753 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9754
9755       </div>
9756       <div class="tags">
9757
9758
9759         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>.
9760
9761
9762       </div>
9763     </div>
9764     <div class="padding"></div>
9765
9766     <div class="entry">
9767       <div class="title">
9768         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/LUMA__a_very_nice_LDAP_GUI.html">LUMA, a very nice LDAP GUI</a>
9769       </div>
9770       <div class="date">
9771         28th June 2010
9772       </div>
9773       <div class="body">
9774         <p>The last few days I have been looking into the status of the LDAP
9775 directory in Debian Edu, and in the process I started to miss a GUI
9776 tool to browse the LDAP tree.  The only one I was able to find in
9777 Debian/Squeeze and Lenny is
9778 <a href="http://luma.sourceforge.net/">LUMA</a>, which has proved to
9779 be a great tool to get a overview of the current LDAP directory
9780 populated by default in Skolelinux.  Thanks to it, I have been able to
9781 find empty and obsolete subtrees, misplaced objects and duplicate
9782 objects.  It will be installed by default in Debian/Squeeze.  If you
9783 are working with LDAP, give it a go. :)</p>
9784
9785 <p>I did notice one problem with it I have not had time to report to
9786 the BTS yet.  There is no .desktop file in the package, so the tool do
9787 not show up in the Gnome and KDE menus, but only deep down in in the
9788 Debian submenu in KDE.  I hope that can be fixed before Squeeze is
9789 released.</p>
9790
9791 <p>I have not yet been able to get it to modify the tree yet.  I would
9792 like to move objects and remove subtrees directly in the GUI, but have
9793 not found a way to do that with LUMA yet.  So in the mean time, I use
9794 <a href="http://www.lichteblau.com/ldapvi/">ldapvi</a> for that.</p>
9795
9796 <p>If you have tips on other GUI tools for LDAP that might be useful
9797 in Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9798
9799 <p>Update 2010-06-29: Ross Reedstrom tipped us about the
9800 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/g/gq.html">gq</a> package as a
9801 useful GUI alternative.  It seem like a good tool, but is unmaintained
9802 in Debian and got a RC bug keeping it out of Squeeze.  Unless that
9803 changes, it will not be an option for Debian Edu based on Squeeze.</p>
9804
9805       </div>
9806       <div class="tags">
9807
9808
9809         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>.
9810
9811
9812       </div>
9813     </div>
9814     <div class="padding"></div>
9815
9816     <div class="entry">
9817       <div class="title">
9818         <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>
9819       </div>
9820       <div class="date">
9821         24th June 2010
9822       </div>
9823       <div class="body">
9824         <p>A while back, I
9825 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_for_new__LDAP_schemas_replacing_RFC_2307_.html">complained
9826 about the fact</a> that it is not possible with the provided schemas
9827 for storing DNS and DHCP information in LDAP to combine the two sets
9828 of information into one LDAP object representing a computer.</p>
9829
9830 <p>In the mean time, I discovered that a simple fix would be to make
9831 the dhcpHost object class auxiliary, to allow it to be combined with
9832 the dNSDomain object class, and thus forming one object for one
9833 computer when storing both DHCP and DNS information in LDAP.</p>
9834
9835 <p>If I understand this correctly, it is not safe to do this change
9836 without also changing the assigned number for the object class, and I
9837 do not know enough about LDAP schema design to do that properly for
9838 Debian Edu.</p>
9839
9840 <p>Anyway, for future reference, this is how I believe we could change
9841 the
9842 <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dhc-ldap-schema-00">DHCP
9843 schema</a> to solve at least part of the problem with the LDAP schemas
9844 available today from IETF.</p>
9845
9846 <pre>
9847 --- dhcp.schema    (revision 65192)
9848 +++ dhcp.schema    (working copy)
9849 @@ -376,7 +376,7 @@
9850  objectclass ( 2.16.840.1.113719.1.203.6.6
9851         NAME 'dhcpHost'
9852         DESC 'This represents information about a particular client'
9853 -       SUP top
9854 +       SUP top AUXILIARY
9855         MUST cn
9856         MAY  (dhcpLeaseDN $ dhcpHWAddress $ dhcpOptionsDN $ dhcpStatements $ dhcpComments $ dhcpOption)
9857         X-NDS_CONTAINMENT ('dhcpService' 'dhcpSubnet' 'dhcpGroup') )
9858 </pre>
9859
9860 <p>I very much welcome clues on how to do this properly for Debian
9861 Edu/Squeeze.  We provide the DHCP schema in our debian-edu-config
9862 package, and should thus be free to rewrite it as we see fit.</p>
9863
9864 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
9865 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
9866
9867       </div>
9868       <div class="tags">
9869
9870
9871         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>.
9872
9873
9874       </div>
9875     </div>
9876     <div class="padding"></div>
9877
9878     <div class="entry">
9879       <div class="title">
9880         <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>
9881       </div>
9882       <div class="date">
9883         16th June 2010
9884       </div>
9885       <div class="body">
9886         <p>A few times I have had the need to simulate the way tasksel
9887 installs packages during the normal debian-installer run.  Until now,
9888 I have ended up letting tasksel do the work, with the annoying problem
9889 of not getting any feedback at all when something fails (like a
9890 conffile question from dpkg or a download that fails), using code like
9891 this:
9892
9893 <blockquote><pre>
9894 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
9895 tasksel --new-install
9896 </pre></blockquote>
9897
9898 This would invoke tasksel, let its automatic task selection pick the
9899 tasks to install, and continue to install the requested tasks without
9900 any output what so ever.
9901
9902 Recently I revisited this problem while working on the automatic
9903 package upgrade testing, because tasksel would some times hang without
9904 any useful feedback, and I want to see what is going on when it
9905 happen.  Then it occured to me, I can parse the output from tasksel
9906 when asked to run in test mode, and use that aptitude command line
9907 printed by tasksel then to simulate the tasksel run.  I ended up using
9908 code like this:
9909
9910 <blockquote><pre>
9911 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
9912 cmd="$(in_target tasksel -t --new-install | sed 's/debconf-apt-progress -- //')"
9913 $cmd
9914 </pre></blockquote>
9915
9916 <p>The content of $cmd is typically something like "<tt>aptitude -q
9917 --without-recommends -o APT::Install-Recommends=no -y install
9918 ~t^desktop$ ~t^gnome-desktop$ ~t^laptop$ ~pstandard ~prequired
9919 ~pimportant</tt>", which will install the gnome desktop task, the
9920 laptop task and all packages with priority standard , required and
9921 important, just like tasksel would have done it during
9922 installation.</p>
9923
9924 <p>A better approach is probably to extend tasksel to be able to
9925 install packages without using debconf-apt-progress, for use cases
9926 like this.</p>
9927
9928       </div>
9929       <div class="tags">
9930
9931
9932         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>.
9933
9934
9935       </div>
9936     </div>
9937     <div class="padding"></div>
9938
9939     <div class="entry">
9940       <div class="title">
9941         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Officeshots_taking_shape.html">Officeshots taking shape</a>
9942       </div>
9943       <div class="date">
9944         13th June 2010
9945       </div>
9946       <div class="body">
9947         <p>For those of us caring about document exchange and
9948 interoperability, <a href="http://www.officeshots.org/">OfficeShots</a>
9949 is a great service.  It is to ODF documents what
9950 <a href="http://browsershots.org/">BrowserShots</a> is for web
9951 pages.</p>
9952
9953 <p>A while back, I was contacted by Knut Yrvin at the part of Nokia
9954 that used to be Trolltech, who wanted to help the OfficeShots project
9955 and wondered if the University of Oslo where I work would be
9956 interested in supporting the project.  I helped him to navigate his
9957 request to the right people at work, and his request was answered with
9958 a spot in the machine room with power and network connected, and Knut
9959 arranged funding for a machine to fill the spot.  The machine is
9960 administrated by the OfficeShots people, so I do not have daily
9961 contact with its progress, and thus from time to time check back to
9962 see how the project is doing.</p>
9963
9964 <p>Today I had a look, and was happy to see that the Dell box in our
9965 machine room now is the host for several virtual machines running as
9966 OfficeShots factories, and the project is able to render ODF documents
9967 in 17 different document processing implementation on Linux and
9968 Windows.  This is great.</p>
9969
9970       </div>
9971       <div class="tags">
9972
9973
9974         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>.
9975
9976
9977       </div>
9978     </div>
9979     <div class="padding"></div>
9980
9981     <div class="entry">
9982       <div class="title">
9983         <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>
9984       </div>
9985       <div class="date">
9986         13th June 2010
9987       </div>
9988       <div class="body">
9989         <p>My
9990 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">testing
9991 of Debian upgrades</a> from Lenny to Squeeze continues, and I've
9992 finally made the upgrade logs available from
9993 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/debian-upgrade-testing/</a>.
9994 I am now testing dist-upgrade of Gnome and KDE in a chroot using both
9995 apt and aptitude, and found their differences interesting.  This time
9996 I will only focus on their removal plans.</p>
9997
9998 <p>After installing a Gnome desktop and the laptop task, apt-get wants
9999 to remove 72 packages when dist-upgrading from Lenny to Squeeze.  The
10000 surprising part is that it want to remove xorg and all
10001 xserver-xorg-video* drivers.  Clearly not a good choice, but I am not
10002 sure why.  When asking aptitude to do the same, it want to remove 129
10003 packages, but most of them are library packages I suspect are no
10004 longer needed.  Both of them want to remove bluetooth packages, which
10005 I do not know.  Perhaps these bluetooth packages are obsolete?</p>
10006
10007 <p>For KDE, apt-get want to remove 82 packages, among them kdebase
10008 which seem like a bad idea and xorg the same way as with Gnome. Asking
10009 aptitude for the same, it wants to remove 192 packages, none which are
10010 too surprising.</p>
10011
10012 <p>I guess the removal of xorg during upgrades should be investigated
10013 and avoided, and perhaps others as well.  Here are the complete list
10014 of planned removals.  The complete logs is available from the URL
10015 above.  Note if you want to repeat these tests, that the upgrade test
10016 for kde+apt-get hung in the tasksel setup because of dpkg asking
10017 conffile questions.  No idea why.  I worked around it by using
10018 '<tt>echo >> /proc/<em>pidofdpkg</em>/fd/0</tt>' to tell dpkg to
10019 continue.</p>
10020
10021 <p><b>apt-get gnome 72</b>
10022 <br>bluez-gnome cupsddk-drivers deskbar-applet gnome
10023   gnome-desktop-environment gnome-network-admin gtkhtml3.14
10024   iceweasel-gnome-support libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libgdl-1-0
10025   libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libmetacity0 libslab0 libxcb-xlib0
10026   nautilus-cd-burner python-gnome2-desktop python-gnome2-extras
10027   serpentine swfdec-mozilla update-manager xorg xserver-xorg
10028   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10029   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10030   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
10031   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
10032   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
10033   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
10034   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10035   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10036   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10037   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10038   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10039   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
10040   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
10041   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
10042   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
10043   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
10044   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
10045   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
10046   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
10047   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
10048   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
10049   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9
10050   xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support</p>
10051
10052 <p><b>aptitude gnome 129</b>
10053
10054 <br>bluez-gnome bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers dhcdbd
10055   djvulibre-desktop finger gnome-app-install gnome-mount
10056   gnome-network-admin gnome-spell gnome-vfs-obexftp
10057   gnome-volume-manager gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs gtkhtml3.14 libao2
10058   libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
10059   libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7 libcucul0 libcupsys2 libcurl3 libdatrie0
10060   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdvdread3 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20
10061   libeel2-data libepc-1.0-1 libepc-ui-1.0-1 libfaad0 libgail-common
10062   libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libgdl-1-0 libgdl-1-common
10063   libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0
10064   libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgnomeprint2.2-0
10065   libgnomeprint2.2-data libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgnomeprintui2.2-common
10066   libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtkhtml2-0
10067   libgtksourceview-common libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgucharmap6
10068   libhesiod0 libicu38 libiw29 libkpathsea4 libltdl3 libmagick++10
10069   libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmetacity0 libmtp7 libmysqlclient15off
10070   libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0 libnm-util0 libopal-2.2
10071   libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10
10072   libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libraw1394-8
10073   libsensors3 libslab0 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8 libssh2-1
10074   libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10
10075   libtrackerclient0 libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0
10076   libxerces2-java libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12 libxtrap6
10077   libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common nautilus-cd-burner
10078   openoffice.org-writer2latex openssl-blacklist p7zip
10079   python-4suite-xml python-eggtrayicon python-gnome2-desktop
10080   python-gnome2-extras python-gtkhtml2 python-gtkmozembed
10081   python-numeric python-sexy serpentine svgalibg1 swfdec-gnome
10082   swfdec-mozilla totem-gstreamer update-manager wodim
10083   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10084   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
10085   zip</p>
10086
10087 <p><b>apt-get kde 82</b>
10088
10089 <br>cupsddk-drivers karm kaudiocreator kcoloredit kcontrol kde kde-core
10090   kdeaddons kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-bin kdebase-bin-kde3
10091   kdebase-kio-plugins kdesktop kdeutils khelpcenter kicker
10092   kicker-applets knewsticker kolourpaint konq-plugins konqueror korn
10093   kpersonalizer kscreensaver ksplash libavcodec51 libdatrie0 libkiten1
10094   libxcb-xlib0 quanta superkaramba texlive-base-bin xorg xserver-xorg
10095   xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev
10096   xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse
10097   xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom
10098   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
10099   xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips
10100   xserver-xorg-video-cirrus xserver-xorg-video-cyrix
10101   xserver-xorg-video-dummy xserver-xorg-video-fbdev
10102   xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128
10103   xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10104   xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64
10105   xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic
10106   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv
10107   xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
10108   xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd
10109   xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
10110   xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
10111   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
10112   xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx
10113   xserver-xorg-video-tga xserver-xorg-video-trident
10114   xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-v4l
10115   xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga
10116   xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo xulrunner-1.9</p>
10117
10118 <p><b>aptitude kde 192</b>
10119 <br>bluez-utils cpp-4.3 cupsddk-drivers cvs dcoprss dhcdbd
10120   djvulibre-desktop dosfstools eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
10121   ghostscript-x imlib-base imlib11 indi kandy karm kasteroids
10122   kaudiocreator kbackgammon kbstate kcoloredit kcontrol kcron kdat
10123   kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
10124   kdebase-bin-kde3 kdebase-kio-plugins kdeedu-data
10125   kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data
10126   kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
10127   kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdeprint kdesktop kdessh
10128   kdict kdnssd kdvi kedit keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs
10129   kghostview khelpcenter khexedit kiconedit kitchensync klatin
10130   klickety kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmoon kmrml kodo kolourpaint
10131   kooka korn kpager kpdf kpercentage kpf kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler
10132   krec kregexpeditor ksayit ksim ksirc ksirtet ksmiletris ksmserver
10133   ksnake ksokoban ksplash ksvg ksysv ktip ktnef kuickshow kverbos
10134   kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kworldclock
10135   kxsldbg libakode2 libao2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
10136   libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
10137   libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libavcodec51 libbluetooth2
10138   libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0 libdatrie0
10139   libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
10140   libgail-common libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0
10141   libicu38 libiec61883-0 libindex0 libiw29 libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1
10142   libkdeedu3 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkiten1 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
10143   libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
10144   libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 libmagick10 libmimelib1c2a
10145   libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9
10146   libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 libsmbios2
10147   libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libtalloc1 libtiff-tools
10148   libxalan2-java libxalan2-java-gcj libxcb-xlib0 libxerces2-java
10149   libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 mpeglib networkstatus
10150   openoffice.org-writer2latex pmount poster psutils quanta quanta-data
10151   superkaramba svgalibg1 tex-common texlive-base texlive-base-bin
10152   texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended
10153   xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-imstt
10154   xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga
10155   xulrunner-1.9</p>
10156
10157
10158       </div>
10159       <div class="tags">
10160
10161
10162         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>.
10163
10164
10165       </div>
10166     </div>
10167     <div class="padding"></div>
10168
10169     <div class="entry">
10170       <div class="title">
10171         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_upgrade_testing_from_Lenny_to_Squeeze.html">Automatic upgrade testing from Lenny to Squeeze</a>
10172       </div>
10173       <div class="date">
10174         11th June 2010
10175       </div>
10176       <div class="body">
10177         <p>The last few days I have done some upgrade testing in Debian, to
10178 see if the upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze will go smoothly.  A few bugs
10179 have been discovered and reported in the process
10180 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/585410">#585410</a> in nagios3-cgi,
10181 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584879">#584879</a> already fixed in
10182 enscript and <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/584861">#584861</a> in
10183 kdebase-workspace-data), and to get a more regular testing going on, I
10184 am working on a script to automate the test.</p>
10185
10186 <p>The idea is to create a Lenny chroot and use tasksel to install a
10187 Gnome or KDE desktop installation inside the chroot before upgrading
10188 it.  To ensure no services are started in the chroot, a policy-rc.d
10189 script is inserted.  To make sure tasksel believe it is to install a
10190 desktop on a laptop, the tasksel tests are replaced in the chroot
10191 (only acceptable because this is a throw-away chroot).</p>
10192
10193 <p>A naive upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze using aptitude dist-upgrade
10194 currently always fail because udev refuses to upgrade with the kernel
10195 in Lenny, so to avoid that problem the file /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
10196 is created.  The bug report
10197 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566000">#566000</a> make me suspect
10198 this problem do not trigger in a chroot, but I touch the file anyway
10199 to make sure the upgrade go well.  Testing on virtual and real
10200 hardware have failed me because of udev so far, and creating this file
10201 do the trick in such settings anyway.  This is a
10202 <a href="http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/failed-dist-upgrade-due-to-udev-config_sysfs_deprecated-nonsense-804130/">known
10203 issue</a> and the current udev behaviour is intended by the udev
10204 maintainer because he lack the resources to rewrite udev to keep
10205 working with old kernels or something like that.  I really wish the
10206 udev upstream would keep udev backwards compatible, to avoid such
10207 upgrade problem, but given that they fail to do so, I guess
10208 documenting the way out of this mess is the best option we got for
10209 Debian Squeeze.</p>
10210
10211 <p>Anyway, back to the task at hand, testing upgrades.  This test
10212 script, which I call <tt>upgrade-test</tt> for now, is doing the
10213 trick:</p>
10214
10215 <blockquote><pre>
10216 #!/bin/sh
10217 set -ex
10218
10219 if [ "$1" ] ; then
10220     desktop=$1
10221 else
10222     desktop=gnome
10223 fi
10224
10225 from=lenny
10226 to=squeeze
10227
10228 exec &lt; /dev/null
10229 unset LANG
10230 mirror=http://ftp.skolelinux.org/debian
10231 tmpdir=chroot-$from-upgrade-$to-$desktop
10232 fuser -mv .
10233 debootstrap $from $tmpdir $mirror
10234 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
10235 cat > $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d &lt;&lt;EOF
10236 #!/bin/sh
10237 exit 101
10238 EOF
10239 chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
10240 exit_cleanup() {
10241     umount $tmpdir/proc
10242 }
10243 mount -t proc proc $tmpdir/proc
10244 # Make sure proc is unmounted also on failure
10245 trap exit_cleanup EXIT INT
10246
10247 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y install debconf-utils
10248
10249 # Make sure tasksel autoselection trigger.  It need the test scripts
10250 # to return the correct answers.
10251 echo tasksel tasksel/desktop multiselect $desktop | \
10252     chroot $tmpdir debconf-set-selections
10253
10254 # Include the desktop and laptop task
10255 for test in desktop laptop ; do
10256     echo > $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test &lt;&lt;EOF
10257 #!/bin/sh
10258 exit 2
10259 EOF
10260     chmod a+rx $tmpdir/usr/lib/tasksel/tests/$test
10261 done
10262
10263 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
10264 DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical
10265 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND DEBIAN_PRIORITY
10266 chroot $tmpdir tasksel --new-install
10267
10268 echo deb $mirror $to main > $tmpdir/etc/apt/sources.list
10269 chroot $tmpdir aptitude update
10270 touch $tmpdir/etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
10271 chroot $tmpdir aptitude -y dist-upgrade
10272 fuser -mv
10273 </pre></blockquote>
10274
10275 <p>I suspect it would be useful to test upgrades with both apt-get and
10276 with aptitude, but I have not had time to look at how they behave
10277 differently so far.  I hope to get a cron job running to do the test
10278 regularly and post the result on the web.  The Gnome upgrade currently
10279 work, while the KDE upgrade fail because of the bug in
10280 kdebase-workspace-data</p>
10281
10282 <p>I am not quite sure what kind of extract from the huge upgrade logs
10283 (KDE 167 KiB, Gnome 516 KiB) it make sense to include in this blog
10284 post, so I will refrain from trying.  I can report that for Gnome,
10285 aptitude report 760 packages upgraded, 448 newly installed, 129 to
10286 remove and 1 not upgraded and 1024MB need to be downloaded while for
10287 KDE the same numbers are 702 packages upgraded, 507 newly installed,
10288 193 to remove and 0 not upgraded and 1117MB need to be downloaded</p>
10289
10290 <p>I am very happy to notice that the Gnome desktop + laptop upgrade
10291 is able to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing and parallel
10292 booting without a hitch.  Was unsure if there were still bugs with
10293 packages failing to clean up their obsolete init.d script during
10294 upgrades, and no such problem seem to affect the Gnome desktop+laptop
10295 packages.</p>
10296
10297       </div>
10298       <div class="tags">
10299
10300
10301         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>.
10302
10303
10304       </div>
10305     </div>
10306     <div class="padding"></div>
10307
10308     <div class="entry">
10309       <div class="title">
10310         <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>
10311       </div>
10312       <div class="date">
10313          6th June 2010
10314       </div>
10315       <div class="body">
10316         <p>If Debian is to migrate to upstart on Linux, I expect some init.d
10317 scripts to migrate (some of) their operations to upstart job while
10318 keeping the init.d for hurd and kfreebsd.  The packages with such
10319 needs will need a way to get their init.d scripts to behave
10320 differently when used with sysvinit and with upstart.  Because of
10321 this, I had a look at the environment variables set when a init.d
10322 script is running under upstart, and when it is not.</p>
10323
10324 <p>With upstart, I notice these environment variables are set when a
10325 script is started from rcS.d/ (ignoring some irrelevant ones like
10326 COLUMNS):</p>
10327
10328 <blockquote><pre>
10329 DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL=2
10330 previous=N
10331 PREVLEVEL=
10332 RUNLEVEL=
10333 runlevel=S
10334 UPSTART_EVENTS=startup
10335 UPSTART_INSTANCE=
10336 UPSTART_JOB=rc-sysinit
10337 </pre></blockquote>
10338
10339 <p>With sysvinit, these environment variables are set for the same
10340 script.</p>
10341
10342 <blockquote><pre>
10343 INIT_VERSION=sysvinit-2.88
10344 previous=N
10345 PREVLEVEL=N
10346 RUNLEVEL=S
10347 runlevel=S
10348 </pre></blockquote>
10349
10350 <p>The RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL environment variables passed on from
10351 sysvinit are not set by upstart.  Not sure if it is intentional or not
10352 to not be compatible with sysvinit in this regard.</p>
10353
10354 <p>For scripts needing to behave differently when upstart is used,
10355 looking for the UPSTART_JOB environment variable seem to be a good
10356 choice.</p>
10357
10358       </div>
10359       <div class="tags">
10360
10361
10362         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>.
10363
10364
10365       </div>
10366     </div>
10367     <div class="padding"></div>
10368
10369     <div class="entry">
10370       <div class="title">
10371         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_manual_for_standards_wars___.html">A manual for standards wars...</a>
10372       </div>
10373       <div class="date">
10374          6th June 2010
10375       </div>
10376       <div class="body">
10377         <p>Via the
10378 <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/robweir/antic-atom/~3/QzU4RgoAGMg/weekly-links-10.html">blog
10379 of Rob Weir</a> I came across the very interesting essay named
10380 <a href="http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/shapiro/wars.pdf">The Art of
10381 Standards Wars</a> (PDF 25 pages).  I recommend it for everyone
10382 following the standards wars of today.</p>
10383
10384       </div>
10385       <div class="tags">
10386
10387
10388         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>.
10389
10390
10391       </div>
10392     </div>
10393     <div class="padding"></div>
10394
10395     <div class="entry">
10396       <div class="title">
10397         <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>
10398       </div>
10399       <div class="date">
10400          3rd June 2010
10401       </div>
10402       <div class="body">
10403         <p>When using sitesummary at a site to track machines, it is possible
10404 to get a list of the machine types in use thanks to the DMI
10405 information extracted from each machine.  The script to do so is
10406 included in the sitesummary package, and here is example output from
10407 the Skolelinux build servers:</p>
10408
10409 <blockquote><pre>
10410 maintainer:~# /usr/lib/sitesummary/hardware-model-summary
10411   vendor                    count
10412   Dell Computer Corporation     1
10413     PowerEdge 1750              1
10414   IBM                           1
10415     eserver xSeries 345 -[8670M1X]-     1
10416   Intel                         2
10417   [no-dmi-info]                 3
10418 maintainer:~#
10419 </pre></blockquote>
10420
10421 <p>The quality of the report depend on the quality of the DMI tables
10422 provided in each machine.  Here there are Intel machines without model
10423 information listed with Intel as vendor and no model, and virtual Xen
10424 machines listed as [no-dmi-info].  One can add -l as a command line
10425 option to list the individual machines.</p>
10426
10427 <p>A larger list is
10428 <a href="http://narvikskolen.no/sitesummary/">available from the the
10429 city of Narvik</a>, which uses Skolelinux on all their shools and also
10430 provide the basic sitesummary report publicly.  In their report there
10431 are ~1400 machines. I know they use both Ubuntu and Skolelinux on
10432 their machines, and as sitesummary is available in both distributions,
10433 it is trivial to get all of them to report to the same central
10434 collector.</p>
10435
10436       </div>
10437       <div class="tags">
10438
10439
10440         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>.
10441
10442
10443       </div>
10444     </div>
10445     <div class="padding"></div>
10446
10447     <div class="entry">
10448       <div class="title">
10449         <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>
10450       </div>
10451       <div class="date">
10452          1st June 2010
10453       </div>
10454       <div class="body">
10455         <p>It is strange to watch how a bug in Debian causing KDM to fail to
10456 start at boot when an NVidia video card is used is handled.  The
10457 problem seem to be that the nvidia X.org driver uses a long time to
10458 initialize, and this duration is longer than kdm is configured to
10459 wait.</p>
10460
10461 <p>I came across two bugs related to this issue,
10462 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">#583312</a> initially filed
10463 against initscripts and passed on to nvidia-glx when it became obvious
10464 that the nvidia drivers were involved, and
10465 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/524751">#524751</a> initially filed against
10466 kdm and passed on to src:nvidia-graphics-drivers for unknown reasons.</p>
10467
10468 <p>To me, it seem that no-one is interested in actually solving the
10469 problem nvidia video card owners experience and make sure the Debian
10470 distribution work out of the box for these users.  The nvidia driver
10471 maintainers expect kdm to be set up to wait longer, while kdm expect
10472 the nvidia driver maintainers to fix the driver to start faster, and
10473 while they wait for each other I guess the users end up switching to a
10474 distribution that work for them.  I have no idea what the solution is,
10475 but I am pretty sure that waiting for each other is not it.</p>
10476
10477 <p>I wonder why we end up handling bugs this way.</p>
10478
10479       </div>
10480       <div class="tags">
10481
10482
10483         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>.
10484
10485
10486       </div>
10487     </div>
10488     <div class="padding"></div>
10489
10490     <div class="entry">
10491       <div class="title">
10492         <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>
10493       </div>
10494       <div class="date">
10495         27th May 2010
10496       </div>
10497       <div class="body">
10498         <p>A few days ago, parallel booting was enabled in Debian/testing.
10499 The feature seem to hold up pretty well, but three fairly serious
10500 issues are known and should be solved:
10501
10502 <p><ul>
10503
10504 <li>The wicd package seen to
10505 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/508289">break NFS mounting</a> and
10506 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/581586">network setup</a> when
10507 parallel booting is enabled.  No idea why, but the wicd maintainer
10508 seem to be on the case.</li>
10509
10510 <li>The nvidia X driver seem to
10511 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/583312">have a race condition</a>
10512 triggered more easily when parallel booting is in effect.  The
10513 maintainer is on the case.</li>
10514
10515 <li>The sysv-rc package fail to properly enable dependency based boot
10516 sequencing (the shutdown is broken) when old file-rc users
10517 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/575080">try to switch back</a> to
10518 sysv-rc.  One way to solve it would be for file-rc to create
10519 /etc/init.d/.legacy-bootordering, and another is to try to make
10520 sysv-rc more robust.  Will investigate some more and probably upload a
10521 workaround in sysv-rc to help those trying to move from file-rc to
10522 sysv-rc get a working shutdown.</li>
10523
10524 </ul></p>
10525
10526 <p>All in all not many surprising issues, and all of them seem
10527 solvable before Squeeze is released.  In addition to these there are
10528 some packages with bugs in their dependencies and run level settings,
10529 which I expect will be fixed in a reasonable time span.</p>
10530
10531 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10532 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10533 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10534 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
10535
10536 <p>Update: Correct bug number to file-rc issue.</p>
10537
10538       </div>
10539       <div class="tags">
10540
10541
10542         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>.
10543
10544
10545       </div>
10546     </div>
10547     <div class="padding"></div>
10548
10549     <div class="entry">
10550       <div class="title">
10551         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/More_flexible_firmware_handling_in_debian_installer.html">More flexible firmware handling in debian-installer</a>
10552       </div>
10553       <div class="date">
10554         22nd May 2010
10555       </div>
10556       <div class="body">
10557         <p>After a long break from debian-installer development, I finally
10558 found time today to return to the project.  Having to spend less time
10559 working dependency based boot in debian, as it is almost complete now,
10560 definitely helped freeing some time.</p>
10561
10562 <p>A while back, I ran into a problem while working on Debian Edu.  We
10563 include some firmware packages on the Debian Edu CDs, those needed to
10564 get disk and network controllers working.  Without having these
10565 firmware packages available during installation, it is impossible to
10566 install Debian Edu on the given machine, and because our target group
10567 are non-technical people, asking them to provide firmware packages on
10568 an external medium is a support pain.  Initially, I expected it to be
10569 enough to include the firmware packages on the CD to get
10570 debian-installer to find and use them.  This proved to be wrong.
10571 Next, I hoped it was enough to symlink the relevant firmware packages
10572 to some useful location on the CD (tried /cdrom/ and
10573 /cdrom/firmware/).  This also proved to not work, and at this point I
10574 found time to look at the debian-installer code to figure out what was
10575 going to work.</p>
10576
10577 <p>The firmware loading code is in the hw-detect package, and a closer
10578 look revealed that it would only look for firmware packages outside
10579 the installation media, so the CD was never checked for firmware
10580 packages.  It would only check USB sticks, floppies and other
10581 "external" media devices.  Today I changed it to also look in the
10582 /cdrom/firmware/ directory on the mounted CD or DVD, which should
10583 solve the problem I ran into with Debian edu.  I also changed it to
10584 look in /firmware/, to make sure the installer also find firmware
10585 provided in the initrd when booting the installer via PXE, to allow us
10586 to provide the same feature in the PXE setup included in Debian
10587 Edu.</p>
10588
10589 <p>To make sure firmware deb packages with a license questions are not
10590 activated without asking if the license is accepted, I extended
10591 hw-detect to look for preinst scripts in the firmware packages, and
10592 run these before activating the firmware during installation.  The
10593 license question is asked using debconf in the preinst, so this should
10594 solve the issue for the firmware packages I have looked at so far.</p>
10595
10596 <p>If you want to discuss the details of these features, please
10597 contact us on debian-boot@lists.debian.org.</p>
10598
10599       </div>
10600       <div class="tags">
10601
10602
10603         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>.
10604
10605
10606       </div>
10607     </div>
10608     <div class="padding"></div>
10609
10610     <div class="entry">
10611       <div class="title">
10612         <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>
10613       </div>
10614       <div class="date">
10615         19th May 2010
10616       </div>
10617       <div class="body">
10618         <p>Today, the last piece of the puzzle for roaming laptops in Debian
10619 Edu finally entered the Debian archive.  Today, the new
10620 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-mklocaluser.html">libpam-mklocaluser</a>
10621 package was accepted.  Two days ago, two other pieces was accepted
10622 into unstable.  The
10623 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam-python.html">pam-python</a>
10624 package needed by libpam-mklocaluser, and the
10625 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sssd.html">sssd</a> package
10626 passed NEW on Monday.  In addition, the
10627 <a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/libp/libpam-ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
10628 package we need is in experimental (version 10-4) since Saturday, and
10629 hopefully will be moved to unstable soon.</p>
10630
10631 <p>This collection of packages allow for two different setups for
10632 roaming laptops.  The traditional setup would be using libpam-ccreds,
10633 nscd and libpam-mklocaluser with LDAP or Kerberos authentication,
10634 which should work out of the box if the configuration changes proposed
10635 for nscd in <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/485282">BTS report
10636 #485282</a> is implemented.  The alternative setup is to use sssd with
10637 libpam-mklocaluser to connect to LDAP or Kerberos and let sssd take
10638 care of the caching of passwords and group information.</p>
10639
10640 <p>I have so far been unable to get sssd to work with the LDAP server
10641 at the University, but suspect the issue is some SSL/GnuTLS related
10642 problem with the server certificate.  I plan to update the Debian
10643 package to version 1.2, which is scheduled for next week, and hope to
10644 find time to make sure the next release will include both the
10645 Debian/Ubuntu specific patches.  Upstream is friendly and responsive,
10646 and I am sure we will find a good solution.</p>
10647
10648 <p>The idea is to set up the roaming laptops to authenticate using
10649 LDAP or Kerberos and create a local user with home directory in /home/
10650 when a usre in LDAP logs in via KDM or GDM for the first time, and
10651 cache the password for offline checking, as well as caching group
10652 memberhips and other relevant LDAP information.  The
10653 libpam-mklocaluser package was created to make sure the local home
10654 directory is in /home/, instead of /site/server/directory/ which would
10655 be the home directory if pam_mkhomedir was used.  To avoid confusion
10656 with support requests and configuration, we do not want local laptops
10657 to have users in a path that is used for the same users home directory
10658 on the home directory servers.</p>
10659
10660 <p>One annoying problem with gdm is that it do not show the PAM
10661 message passed to the user from libpam-mklocaluser when the local user
10662 is created.  Instead gdm simply reject the login with some generic
10663 message.  The message is shown in kdm, ssh and login, so I guess it is
10664 a bug in gdm.  Have not investigated if there is some other message
10665 type that can be used instead to get gdm to also show the message.</p>
10666
10667 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
10668 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10669
10670       </div>
10671       <div class="tags">
10672
10673
10674         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>.
10675
10676
10677       </div>
10678     </div>
10679     <div class="padding"></div>
10680
10681     <div class="entry">
10682       <div class="title">
10683         <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>
10684       </div>
10685       <div class="date">
10686         14th May 2010
10687       </div>
10688       <div class="body">
10689         <p>Since this evening, parallel booting is the default in
10690 Debian/unstable for machines using dependency based boot sequencing.
10691 Apparently the testing of concurrent booting has been wider than
10692 expected, if I am to believe the
10693 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
10694 on debian-devel@</a>, and I concluded a few days ago to move forward
10695 with the feature this weekend, to give us some time to detect any
10696 remaining problems before Squeeze is frozen.  If serious problems are
10697 detected, it is simple to change the default back to sequential boot.
10698 The upload of the new sysvinit package also activate a new upstream
10699 version.</p>
10700
10701 More information about
10702 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10703 based boot sequencing</a> is available from the Debian wiki.  It is
10704 currently possible to disable parallel booting when one run into
10705 problems caused by it, by adding this line to /etc/default/rcS:</p>
10706
10707 <blockquote><pre>
10708 CONCURRENCY=none
10709 </pre></blockquote>
10710
10711 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10712 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10713 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10714 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
10715
10716       </div>
10717       <div class="tags">
10718
10719
10720         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>.
10721
10722
10723       </div>
10724     </div>
10725     <div class="padding"></div>
10726
10727     <div class="entry">
10728       <div class="title">
10729         <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>
10730       </div>
10731       <div class="date">
10732         14th May 2010
10733       </div>
10734       <div class="body">
10735         <p>In the recent Debian Edu versions, the
10736 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">sitesummary
10737 system</a> is used to keep track of the machines in the school
10738 network.  Each machine will automatically report its status to the
10739 central server after boot and once per night.  The network setup is
10740 also reported, and using this information it is possible to get the
10741 MAC address of all network interfaces in the machines.  This is useful
10742 to update the DHCP configuration.</p>
10743
10744 <p>To give some idea how to use sitesummary, here is a one-liner to
10745 ist all MAC addresses of all machines reporting to sitesummary.  Run
10746 this on the collector host:</p>
10747
10748 <blockquote><pre>
10749 perl -MSiteSummary -e 'for_all_hosts(sub { print join(" ", get_macaddresses(shift)), "\n"; });'
10750 </pre></blockquote>
10751
10752 <p>This will list all MAC addresses assosiated with all machine, one
10753 line per machine and with space between the MAC addresses.</p>
10754
10755 <p>To allow system administrators easier job at adding static DHCP
10756 addresses for hosts, it would be possible to extend this to fetch
10757 machine information from sitesummary and update the DHCP and DNS
10758 tables in LDAP using this information.  Such tool is unfortunately not
10759 written yet.</p>
10760
10761       </div>
10762       <div class="tags">
10763
10764
10765         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>.
10766
10767
10768       </div>
10769     </div>
10770     <div class="padding"></div>
10771
10772     <div class="entry">
10773       <div class="title">
10774         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/systemd__an_interesting_alternative_to_upstart.html">systemd, an interesting alternative to upstart</a>
10775       </div>
10776       <div class="date">
10777         13th May 2010
10778       </div>
10779       <div class="body">
10780         <p>The last few days a new boot system called
10781 <a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd">systemd</a>
10782 has been
10783 <a href="http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html">introduced</a>
10784
10785 to the free software world.  I have not yet had time to play around
10786 with it, but it seem to be a very interesting alternative to
10787 <a href="http://upstart.ubuntu.com/">upstart</a>, and might prove to be
10788 a good alternative for Debian when we are able to switch to an event
10789 based boot system.  Tollef is
10790 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/580814">in the process</a> of getting
10791 systemd into Debian, and I look forward to seeing how well it work.  I
10792 like the fact that systemd handles init.d scripts with dependency
10793 information natively, allowing them to run in parallel where upstart
10794 at the moment do not.</p>
10795
10796 <p>Unfortunately do systemd have the same problem as upstart regarding
10797 platform support.  It only work on recent Linux kernels, and also need
10798 some new kernel features enabled to function properly.  This means
10799 kFreeBSD and Hurd ports of Debian will need a port or a different boot
10800 system.  Not sure how that will be handled if systemd proves to be the
10801 way forward.</p>
10802
10803 <p>In the mean time, based on the
10804 <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2010/05/msg00122.html">input
10805 on debian-devel@</a> regarding parallel booting in Debian, I have
10806 decided to enable full parallel booting as the default in Debian as
10807 soon as possible (probably this weekend or early next week), to see if
10808 there are any remaining serious bugs in the init.d dependencies.  A
10809 new version of the sysvinit package implementing this change is
10810 already in experimental.  If all go well, Squeeze will be released
10811 with parallel booting enabled by default.</p>
10812
10813       </div>
10814       <div class="tags">
10815
10816
10817         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>.
10818
10819
10820       </div>
10821     </div>
10822     <div class="padding"></div>
10823
10824     <div class="entry">
10825       <div class="title">
10826         <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>
10827       </div>
10828       <div class="date">
10829          6th May 2010
10830       </div>
10831       <div class="body">
10832         <p>These days, the init.d script dependencies in Squeeze are quite
10833 complete, so complete that it is actually possible to run all the
10834 init.d scripts in parallell based on these dependencies.  If you want
10835 to test your Squeeze system, make sure
10836 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
10837 based boot sequencing</a> is enabled, and add this line to
10838 /etc/default/rcS:</p>
10839
10840 <blockquote><pre>
10841 CONCURRENCY=makefile
10842 </pre></blockquote>
10843
10844 <p>That is it.  It will cause sysv-rc to use the startpar tool to run
10845 scripts in parallel using the dependency information stored in
10846 /etc/init.d/.depend.boot, /etc/init.d/.depend.start and
10847 /etc/init.d/.depend.stop to order the scripts.  Startpar is configured
10848 to try to start the kdm and gdm scripts as early as possible, and will
10849 start the facilities required by kdm or gdm as early as possible to
10850 make this happen.</p>
10851
10852 <p>Give it a try, and see if you like the result.  If some services
10853 fail to start properly, it is most likely because they have incomplete
10854 init.d script dependencies in their startup script (or some of their
10855 dependent scripts have incomplete dependencies).  Report bugs and get
10856 the package maintainers to fix it. :)</p>
10857
10858 <p>Running scripts in parallel could be the default in Debian when we
10859 manage to get the init.d script dependencies complete and correct.  I
10860 expect we will get there in Squeeze+1, if we get manage to test and
10861 fix the remaining issues.</p>
10862
10863 <p>If you report any problems with dependencies in init.d scripts to
10864 the BTS, please usertag the report to get it to show up at
10865 <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=initscripts-ng-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org">the
10866 list of usertagged bugs related to this</a>.</p>
10867
10868       </div>
10869       <div class="tags">
10870
10871
10872         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>.
10873
10874
10875       </div>
10876     </div>
10877     <div class="padding"></div>
10878
10879     <div class="entry">
10880       <div class="title">
10881         <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>
10882       </div>
10883       <div class="date">
10884          2nd May 2010
10885       </div>
10886       <div class="body">
10887         <p>One interesting feature in Active Directory, is the ability to
10888 create a new user with an expired password, and thus force the user to
10889 change the password on the first login attempt.</p>
10890
10891 <p>I'm not quite sure how to do that with the LDAP setup in Debian
10892 Edu, but did some initial testing with a local account.  The account
10893 and password aging information is available in /etc/shadow, but
10894 unfortunately, it is not possible to specify an expiration time for
10895 passwords, only a maximum age for passwords.</p>
10896
10897 <p>A freshly created account (using adduser test) will have these
10898 settings in /etc/shadow:</p>
10899
10900 <blockquote><pre>
10901 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
10902 Last password change                                    : May 02, 2010
10903 Password expires                                        : never
10904 Password inactive                                       : never
10905 Account expires                                         : never
10906 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
10907 Maximum number of days between password change          : 99999
10908 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
10909 root@tjener:~#
10910 </pre></blockquote>
10911
10912 <p>The only way I could come up with to create a user with an expired
10913 account, is to change the date of the last password change to the
10914 lowest value possible (January 1th 1970), and the maximum password age
10915 to the difference in days between that date and today.  To make it
10916 simple, I went for 30 years (30 * 365 = 10950) and January 2th (to
10917 avoid testing if 0 is a valid value).</p>
10918
10919 <p>After using these commands to set it up, it seem to work as
10920 intended:</p>
10921
10922 <blockquote><pre>
10923 root@tjener:~# chage -d 1 test; chage -M 10950 test
10924 root@tjener:~# chage -l test
10925 Last password change                                    : Jan 02, 1970
10926 Password expires                                        : never
10927 Password inactive                                       : never
10928 Account expires                                         : never
10929 Minimum number of days between password change          : 0
10930 Maximum number of days between password change          : 10950
10931 Number of days of warning before password expires       : 7
10932 root@tjener:~#
10933 </pre></blockquote>
10934
10935 <p>So far I have tested this with ssh and console, and kdm (in
10936 Squeeze) login, and all ask for a new password before login in the
10937 user (with ssh, I was thrown out and had to log in again).</p>
10938
10939 <p>Perhaps we should set up something similar for Debian Edu, to make
10940 sure only the user itself have the account password?</p>
10941
10942 <p>If you want to comment on or help out with implementing this for
10943 Debian Edu, please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
10944
10945 <p>Update 2010-05-02 17:20: Paul Tötterman tells me on IRC that the
10946 shadow(8) page in Debian/testing now state that setting the date of
10947 last password change to zero (0) will force the password to be changed
10948 on the first login.  This was not mentioned in the manual in Lenny, so
10949 I did not notice this in my initial testing.  I have tested it on
10950 Squeeze, and '<tt>chage -d 0 username</tt>' do work there.  I have not
10951 tested it on Lenny yet.</p>
10952
10953 <p>Update 2010-05-02-19:05: Jim Paris tells me via email that an
10954 equivalent command to expire a password is '<tt>passwd -e
10955 username</tt>', which insert zero into the date of the last password
10956 change.</p>
10957
10958       </div>
10959       <div class="tags">
10960
10961
10962         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>.
10963
10964
10965       </div>
10966     </div>
10967     <div class="padding"></div>
10968
10969     <div class="entry">
10970       <div class="title">
10971         <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>
10972       </div>
10973       <div class="date">
10974         28th April 2010
10975       </div>
10976       <div class="body">
10977         <p>For some years now, I have wondered how we should handle laptops in
10978 Debian Edu.  The Debian Edu infrastructure is mostly designed to
10979 handle stationary computers, and less suited for computers that come
10980 and go.</p>
10981
10982 <p>Now I finally believe I have an sensible idea on how to adjust
10983 Debian Edu for laptops, by introducing a new profile for them, for
10984 example called Roaming Workstations.  Here are my thought on this.
10985 The setup would consist of the following:</p>
10986
10987 <ul>
10988
10989  <li>During installation, the user name of the owner / primary user of
10990    the laptop is requested and a local home directory is set up for
10991    the user, with uid and gid information fetched from the LDAP
10992    server.  This allow the user to work also when offline.  The
10993    central home directory can be available in a subdirectory on
10994    request, for example mounted via CIFS.  It could be mounted
10995    automatically when a user log in while on the Debian Edu network,
10996    and unmounted when the machine is taken away (network down,
10997    hibernate, etc), it can be set up to do automatic mounting on
10998    request (using autofs), or perhaps some GUI button on the desktop
10999    can be used to access it when needed.  Perhaps it is enough to use
11000    the fish protocol in KDE?</li>
11001
11002  <li>Password checking is set up to use LDAP or Kerberos
11003    authentication when the machine is on the Debian Edu network, and
11004    to cache the password for offline checking when the machine unable
11005    to reach the LDAP or Kerberos server.  This can be done using
11006    <a href="http://www.padl.com/OSS/pam_ccreds.html">libpam-ccreds</a>
11007    or the Fedora developed
11008    <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SSSD">System
11009    Security Services Daemon</a> packages.</li>
11010
11011  <li>File synchronisation with the central home directory is set up
11012    using a shared directory in both the local and the central home
11013    directory, using unison.</li>
11014
11015  <li>Printing should be set up to print to all printers broadcasting
11016    their existence on the local network, and should then work out of
11017    the box with CUPS.  For sites needing accurate printer quotas, some
11018    system with Kerberos authentication or printing via ssh could be
11019    implemented.</li>
11020
11021  <li>For users that should have local root access to their laptop,
11022    sudo should be used to allow this to the local user.</li>
11023
11024  <li>It would be nice if user and group information from LDAP is
11025    cached on the client, but given that there are entries for the
11026    local user and primary group in /etc/, it should not be needed.</li>
11027
11028 </ul>
11029
11030 <p>I believe all the pieces to implement this are in Debian/testing at
11031 the moment.  If we work quickly, we should be able to get this ready
11032 in time for the Squeeze release to freeze.  Some of the pieces need
11033 tweaking, like libpam-ccreds should get support for pam-auth-update
11034 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/566718">#566718</a>) and nslcd (or
11035 perhaps debian-edu-config) should get some integration code to stop
11036 its daemon when the LDAP server is unavailable to avoid long timeouts
11037 when disconnected from the net.  If we get Kerberos enabled, we need
11038 to make sure we avoid long timeouts there too.</p>
11039
11040 <p>If you want to help out with implementing this for Debian Edu,
11041 please contact us on debian-edu@lists.debian.org.</p>
11042
11043       </div>
11044       <div class="tags">
11045
11046
11047         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>.
11048
11049
11050       </div>
11051     </div>
11052     <div class="padding"></div>
11053
11054     <div class="entry">
11055       <div class="title">
11056         <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>
11057       </div>
11058       <div class="date">
11059         19th April 2010
11060       </div>
11061       <div class="body">
11062         <p>The last few weeks i have had the pleasure of reading a
11063 thought-provoking collection of essays by Cory Doctorow, on topics
11064 touching copyright, virtual worlds, the future of man when the
11065 conscience mind can be duplicated into a computer and many more. The
11066 book titled "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity,
11067 Copyright, and the Future of the Future" is available with few
11068 restrictions on the web, for example from
11069 <a href="http://craphound.com/content/">his own site</a>. I read the
11070 epub-version from
11071 <a href="http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2883">feedbooks</a> using
11072 <a href="http://www.fbreader.org/">fbreader</a> and my N810. I
11073 strongly recommend this book.</p>
11074
11075       </div>
11076       <div class="tags">
11077
11078
11079         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>.
11080
11081
11082       </div>
11083     </div>
11084     <div class="padding"></div>
11085
11086     <div class="entry">
11087       <div class="title">
11088         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Kerberos_for_Debian_Edu_Squeeze_.html">Kerberos for Debian Edu/Squeeze?</a>
11089       </div>
11090       <div class="date">
11091         14th April 2010
11092       </div>
11093       <div class="body">
11094         <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20100413-kerberos/">Yesterdays
11095 NUUG presentation</a> about Kerberos was inspiring, and reminded me
11096 about the need to start using Kerberos in Skolelinux.  Setting up a
11097 Kerberos server seem to be straight forward, and if we get this in
11098 place a long time before the Squeeze version of Debian freezes, we
11099 have a chance to migrate Skolelinux away from NFSv3 for the home
11100 directories, and over to an architecture where the infrastructure do
11101 not have to trust IP addresses and machines, and instead can trust
11102 users and cryptographic keys instead.</p>
11103
11104 <p>A challenge will be integration and administration.  Is there a
11105 Kerberos implementation for Debian where one can control the
11106 administration access in Kerberos using LDAP groups?  With it, the
11107 school administration will have to maintain access control using flat
11108 files on the main server, which give a huge potential for errors.</p>
11109
11110 <p>A related question I would like to know is how well Kerberos and
11111 pam-ccreds (offline password check) work together.  Anyone know?</p>
11112
11113 <p>Next step will be to use Kerberos for access control in Lwat and
11114 Nagios.  I have no idea how much work that will be to implement.  We
11115 would also need to document how to integrate with Windows AD, as such
11116 shared network will require two Kerberos realms that need to cooperate
11117 to work properly.</p>
11118
11119 <p>I believe a good start would be to start using Kerberos on the
11120 skolelinux.no machines, and this way get ourselves experience with
11121 configuration and integration.  A natural starting point would be
11122 setting up ldap.skolelinux.no as the Kerberos server, and migrate the
11123 rest of the machines from PAM via LDAP to PAM via Kerberos one at the
11124 time.</p>
11125
11126 <p>If you would like to contribute to get this working in Skolelinux,
11127 I recommend you to see the video recording from yesterdays NUUG
11128 presentation, and start using Kerberos at home.  The video show show
11129 up in a few days.</p>
11130
11131       </div>
11132       <div class="tags">
11133
11134
11135         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>.
11136
11137
11138       </div>
11139     </div>
11140     <div class="padding"></div>
11141
11142     <div class="entry">
11143       <div class="title">
11144         <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>
11145       </div>
11146       <div class="date">
11147          6th March 2010
11148       </div>
11149       <div class="body">
11150         <p>6 years ago, as part of the Debian Edu development I am involved
11151 in, I asked for a hook in the kdm and gdm setup to run scripts as root
11152 when the user log out.  A bug was submitted against the xfree86-common
11153 package in 2004 (<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/230422">#230422</a>),
11154 and revisited every time Debian Edu was working on a new release.
11155 Today, this finally paid off.</p>
11156
11157 <p>The framework for this feature was today commited to the git
11158 repositry for the xorg package, and the git repository for xdm has
11159 been updated to use this framework.  Next on my agenda is to make sure
11160 kdm and gdm also add code to use this framework.</p>
11161
11162 <p>In Debian Edu, we want to ability to run commands as root when the
11163 user log out, to get rid of runaway processes and do general cleanup
11164 after a user.  With this framework in place, we finally can do that in
11165 a generic way that work with all display managers using this
11166 framework.  My goal is to get all display managers in Debian use it,
11167 similar to how they use the Xsession.d framework today.<p>
11168
11169       </div>
11170       <div class="tags">
11171
11172
11173         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>.
11174
11175
11176       </div>
11177     </div>
11178     <div class="padding"></div>
11179
11180     <div class="entry">
11181       <div class="title">
11182         <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>
11183       </div>
11184       <div class="date">
11185         11th February 2010
11186       </div>
11187       <div class="body">
11188         <p>On Tuesday, the Debian/Lenny based version of
11189 <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a> was finally
11190 shipped.  This was a major leap forward for the project, and I am very
11191 pleased that we finally got the release wrapped up.  Work on the first
11192 point release starts imediately, as we plan to get that one out a
11193 month after the major release, to include all fixes for bugs we found
11194 and fixed too late in the release process to include last Tuesday.</p>
11195
11196 <p>Perhaps it even is time for some partying?</p>
11197
11198 <p>After this first point release, my plan is to focus again on the
11199 next major release, based on Squeeze.  We will try to get as many of
11200 the fixes we need into the official Debian packages before the freeze,
11201 and have just a few weeks or months to make it happen.</p>
11202
11203       </div>
11204       <div class="tags">
11205
11206
11207         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>.
11208
11209
11210       </div>
11211     </div>
11212     <div class="padding"></div>
11213
11214     <div class="entry">
11215       <div class="title">
11216         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Automatic_Munin_and_Nagios_configuration.html">Automatic Munin and Nagios configuration</a>
11217       </div>
11218       <div class="date">
11219         27th January 2010
11220       </div>
11221       <div class="body">
11222         <p>One of the new features in the next Debian/Lenny based release of
11223 Debian Edu/Skolelinux, which is scheduled for release in the next few
11224 days, is automatic configuration of the service monitoring system
11225 Nagios.  The previous release had automatic configuration of trend
11226 analysis using Munin, and this Lenny based release take that a step
11227 further.</p>
11228
11229 <p>When installing a Debian Edu Main-server, it is automatically
11230 configured as a Munin and Nagios server.  In addition, it is
11231 configured to be a server for the
11232 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/SiteSummary">SiteSummary
11233 system</a> I have written for use in Debian Edu.  The SiteSummary
11234 system is inspired by a system used by the University of Oslo where I
11235 work.  In short, the system provide a centralised collector of
11236 information about the computers on the network, and a client on each
11237 computer submitting information to this collector.  This allow for
11238 automatic information on which packages are installed on each machine,
11239 which kernel the machines are using, what kind of configuration the
11240 packages got etc.  This also allow us to automatically generate Munin
11241 and Nagios configuration.</p>
11242
11243 <p>All computers reporting to the sitesummary collector with the
11244 munin-node package installed is automatically enabled as a Munin
11245 client and graphs from the statistics collected from that machine show
11246 up automatically on http://www/munin/ on the Main-server.</p>
11247
11248 <p>All non-laptop computers reporting to the sitesummary collector are
11249 automatically monitored for network presence (ping and any network
11250 services detected).  In addition, all computers (also laptops) with
11251 the nagios-nrpe-server package installed and configured the way
11252 sitesummary would configure it, are monitored for full disks, software
11253 raid status, swap free and other checks that need to run locally on
11254 the machine.</p>
11255
11256 <p>The result is that the administrator on a school using Debian Edu
11257 based on Lenny will be able to check the health of his installation
11258 with one look at the Nagios settings, without having to spend any time
11259 keeping the Nagios configuration up-to-date.</p>
11260
11261 <p>The only configuration one need to do to get Nagios up and running
11262 is to set the password used to get access via HTTP.  The system
11263 administrator need to run "<tt>htpasswd /etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users
11264 nagiosadmin</tt>" to create a nagiosadmin user and set a password for
11265 it to be able to log into the Nagios web pages.  After that,
11266 everything is taken care of.</p>
11267
11268       </div>
11269       <div class="tags">
11270
11271
11272         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>.
11273
11274
11275       </div>
11276     </div>
11277     <div class="padding"></div>
11278
11279     <div class="entry">
11280       <div class="title">
11281         <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>
11282       </div>
11283       <div class="date">
11284         12th August 2009
11285       </div>
11286       <div class="body">
11287         <p>Just for fun, I did a search right now on Google for a few file ODF
11288 and MS Office based formats (not to be mistaken for ISO or ECMA
11289 OOXML), to get an idea of their relative usage.  I searched using
11290 'filetype:odt' and equvalent terms, and got these results:</P>
11291
11292 <table>
11293 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
11294 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:282000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
11295 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:75600</td> <td>pptx:183000</td></tr>
11296 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:145000</td></tr>
11297 </table>
11298
11299 <p>Next, I added a 'site:no' limit to get the numbers for Norway, and
11300 got these numbers:</p>
11301
11302 <table>
11303 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
11304 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480 </td> <td>docx:4460</td></tr>
11305 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:299   </td> <td>pptx:741</td></tr>
11306 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:187       </td> <td>xlsx:372</td></tr>
11307 </table>
11308
11309 <p>I wonder how these numbers change over time.</p>
11310
11311 <p>I am aware of Google returning different results and numbers based
11312 on where the search is done, so I guess these numbers will differ if
11313 they are conduced in another country.  Because of this, I did the same
11314 search from a machine in California, USA, a few minutes after the
11315 search done from a machine here in Norway.</p>
11316
11317
11318 <table>
11319 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
11320 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:129000</td> <td>docx:308000</td></tr>
11321 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:44200</td> <td>pptx:93900</td></tr>
11322 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:26500     </td> <td>xlsx:82400</td></tr>
11323 </table>
11324
11325 <p>And with 'site:no':
11326
11327 <table>
11328 <tr><th>Type</th><th>ODF</th><th>MS Office</th></tr>
11329 <tr><td>Tekst</td> <td>odt:2480</td> <td>docx:3410</td></tr>
11330 <tr><td>Presentasjon</td> <td>odp:175</td> <td>pptx:604</td></tr>
11331 <tr><td>Regneark</td> <td>ods:186       </td> <td>xlsx:296</td></tr>
11332 </table>
11333
11334 <p>Interesting difference, not sure what to conclude from these
11335 numbers.</p>
11336
11337       </div>
11338       <div class="tags">
11339
11340
11341         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>.
11342
11343
11344       </div>
11345     </div>
11346     <div class="padding"></div>
11347
11348     <div class="entry">
11349       <div class="title">
11350         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ISO_still_hope_to_fix_OOXML.html">ISO still hope to fix OOXML</a>
11351       </div>
11352       <div class="date">
11353          8th August 2009
11354       </div>
11355       <div class="body">
11356         <p>According to <a
11357 href="http://twerner.blogspot.com/2009/08/defects-of-office-open-xml.html">a
11358 blog post from Torsten Werner</a>, the current defect report for ISO
11359 29500 (ISO OOXML) is 809 pages.  His interesting point is that the
11360 defect report is 71 pages more than the full ODF 1.1 specification.
11361 Personally I find it more interesting that ISO still believe ISO OOXML
11362 can be fixed in ISO.  Personally, I believe it is broken beyon repair,
11363 and I completely lack any trust in ISO for being able to get anywhere
11364 close to solving the problems.  I was part of the Norwegian committee
11365 involved in the OOXML fast track process, and was not impressed with
11366 Standard Norway and ISO in how they handled it.</p>
11367
11368 <p>These days I focus on ODF instead, which seem like a specification
11369 with the future ahead of it.  We are working in NUUG to organise a ODF
11370 seminar this autumn.</p>
11371
11372       </div>
11373       <div class="tags">
11374
11375
11376         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>.
11377
11378
11379       </div>
11380     </div>
11381     <div class="padding"></div>
11382
11383     <div class="entry">
11384       <div class="title">
11385         <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>
11386       </div>
11387       <div class="date">
11388         27th July 2009
11389       </div>
11390       <div class="body">
11391         <p>Since this evening, with the upload of sysvinit version 2.87dsf-2,
11392 and the upload of insserv version 1.12.0-10 yesterday, Debian unstable
11393 have been migrated to using dependency based boot sequencing.  This
11394 conclude work me and others have been doing for the last three days.
11395 It feels great to see this finally part of the default Debian
11396 installation.  Now we just need to weed out the last few problems that
11397 are bound to show up, to get everything ready for Squeeze.</p>
11398
11399 <p>The next step is migrating /sbin/init from sysvinit to upstart, and
11400 fixing the more fundamental problem of handing the event based
11401 non-predictable kernel in the early boot.</p>
11402
11403       </div>
11404       <div class="tags">
11405
11406
11407         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>.
11408
11409
11410       </div>
11411     </div>
11412     <div class="padding"></div>
11413
11414     <div class="entry">
11415       <div class="title">
11416         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Taking_over_sysvinit_development.html">Taking over sysvinit development</a>
11417       </div>
11418       <div class="date">
11419         22nd July 2009
11420       </div>
11421       <div class="body">
11422         <p>After several years of frustration with the lack of activity from
11423 the existing sysvinit upstream developer, I decided a few weeks ago to
11424 take over the package and become the new upstream.  The number of
11425 patches to track for the Debian package was becoming a burden, and the
11426 lack of synchronization between the distribution made it hard to keep
11427 the package up to date.</p>
11428
11429 <p>On the new sysvinit team is the SuSe maintainer Dr. Werner Fink,
11430 and my Debian co-maintainer Kel Modderman.  About 10 days ago, I made
11431 a new upstream tarball with version number 2.87dsf (for Debian, SuSe
11432 and Fedora), based on the patches currently in use in these
11433 distributions.  We Debian maintainers plan to move to this tarball as
11434 the new upstream as soon as we find time to do the merge.  Since the
11435 new tarball was created, we agreed with Werner at SuSe to make a new
11436 upstream project at <a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/">Savannah</a>, and continue
11437 development there.  The project is registered and currently waiting
11438 for approval by the Savannah administrators, and as soon as it is
11439 approved, we will import the old versions from svn and continue
11440 working on the future release.</p>
11441
11442 <p>It is a bit ironic that this is done now, when some of the involved
11443 distributions are moving to upstart as a syvinit replacement.</p>
11444
11445       </div>
11446       <div class="tags">
11447
11448
11449         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>.
11450
11451
11452       </div>
11453     </div>
11454     <div class="padding"></div>
11455
11456     <div class="entry">
11457       <div class="title">
11458         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_boots_quicker_and_quicker.html">Debian boots quicker and quicker</a>
11459       </div>
11460       <div class="date">
11461         24th June 2009
11462       </div>
11463       <div class="body">
11464         <p>I spent Monday and tuesday this week in London with a lot of the
11465 people involved in the boot system on Debian and Ubuntu, to see if we
11466 could find more ways to speed up the boot system.  This was an Ubuntu
11467 funded
11468 <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FoundationsTeam/BootPerformance/DebianUbuntuSprint">developer
11469 gathering</a>. It was quite productive.  We also discussed the future
11470 of boot systems, and ways to handle the increasing number of boot
11471 issues introduced by the Linux kernel becoming more and more
11472 asynchronous and event base.  The Ubuntu approach using udev and
11473 upstart might be a good way forward.  Time will show.</p>
11474
11475 <p>Anyway, there are a few ways at the moment to speed up the boot
11476 process in Debian.  All of these should be applied to get a quick
11477 boot:</p>
11478
11479 <ul>
11480
11481 <li>Use dash as /bin/sh.</li>
11482
11483 <li>Disable the init.d/hwclock*.sh scripts and make sure the hardware
11484    clock is in UTC.</li>
11485
11486 <li>Install and activate the insserv package to enable
11487    <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot">dependency
11488    based boot sequencing</a>, and enable concurrent booting.</li>
11489
11490 </ul>
11491
11492 These points are based on the Google summer of code work done by
11493 <a href="http://initscripts-ng.alioth.debian.org/soc2006-bootsystem/">Carlos
11494 Villegas</a>.
11495
11496 <p>Support for makefile-style concurrency during boot was uploaded to
11497 unstable yesterday.  When we tested it, we were able to cut 6 seconds
11498 from the boot sequence.  It depend on very correct dependency
11499 declaration in all init.d scripts, so I expect us to find edge cases
11500 where the dependences in some scripts are slightly wrong when we start
11501 using this.</p>
11502
11503 <p>On our IRC channel for this effort, #pkg-sysvinit, a new idea was
11504 introduced by Raphael Geissert today, one that could affect the
11505 startup speed as well.  Instead of starting some scripts concurrently
11506 from rcS.d/ and another set of scripts from rc2.d/, it would be
11507 possible to run a of them in the same process.  A quick way to test
11508 this would be to enable insserv and run 'mv /etc/rc2.d/S* /etc/rcS.d/;
11509 insserv'.  Will need to test if that work. :)</p>
11510
11511       </div>
11512       <div class="tags">
11513
11514
11515         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>.
11516
11517
11518       </div>
11519     </div>
11520     <div class="padding"></div>
11521
11522     <div class="entry">
11523       <div class="title">
11524         <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>
11525       </div>
11526       <div class="date">
11527          2nd May 2009
11528       </div>
11529       <div class="body">
11530         <p>There are two software projects that have had huge influence on the
11531 quality of free software, and I wanted to mention both in case someone
11532 do not yet know them.</p>
11533
11534 <p>The first one is <a href="http://valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, a
11535 tool to detect and expose errors in the memory handling of programs.
11536 It is easy to use, all one need to do is to run 'valgrind program',
11537 and it will report any problems on stdout.  It is even better if the
11538 program include debug information.  With debug information, it is able
11539 to report the source file name and line number where the problem
11540 occurs.  It can report things like 'reading past memory block in file
11541 X line N, the memory block was allocated in file Y, line M', and
11542 'using uninitialised value in control logic'.  This tool has made it
11543 trivial to investigate reproducible crash bugs in programs, and have
11544 reduced the number of this kind of bugs in free software a lot.
11545
11546 <p>The second one is
11547 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverity">Coverity</a> which is
11548 a source code checker.  It is able to process the source of a program
11549 and find problems in the logic without running the program.  It
11550 started out as the Stanford Checker and became well known when it was
11551 used to find bugs in the Linux kernel.  It is now a commercial tool
11552 and the company behind it is running
11553 <a href="http://www.scan.coverity.com/">a community service</a> for the
11554 free software community, where a lot of free software projects get
11555 their source checked for free.  Several thousand defects have been
11556 found and fixed so far.  It can find errors like 'lock L taken in file
11557 X line N is never released if exiting in line M', or 'the code in file
11558 Y lines O to P can never be executed'.  The projects included in the
11559 community service project have managed to get rid of a lot of
11560 reliability problems thanks to Coverity.</p>
11561
11562 <p>I believe tools like this, that are able to automatically find
11563 errors in the source, are vital to improve the quality of software and
11564 make sure we can get rid of the crashing and failing software we are
11565 surrounded by today.</p>
11566
11567       </div>
11568       <div class="tags">
11569
11570
11571         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>.
11572
11573
11574       </div>
11575     </div>
11576     <div class="padding"></div>
11577
11578     <div class="entry">
11579       <div class="title">
11580         <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>
11581       </div>
11582       <div class="date">
11583         28th April 2009
11584       </div>
11585       <div class="body">
11586         <p>Julien Blache
11587 <a href="http://blog.technologeek.org/2009/04/12/214">claim that no
11588 patch is better than a useless patch</a>.  I completely disagree, as a
11589 patch allow one to discuss a concrete and proposed solution, and also
11590 prove that the issue at hand is important enough for someone to spent
11591 time on fixing it.  No patch do not provide any of these positive
11592 properties.</p>
11593
11594       </div>
11595       <div class="tags">
11596
11597
11598         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>.
11599
11600
11601       </div>
11602     </div>
11603     <div class="padding"></div>
11604
11605     <div class="entry">
11606       <div class="title">
11607         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recording_video_from_cron_using_VLC.html">Recording video from cron using VLC</a>
11608       </div>
11609       <div class="date">
11610          5th April 2009
11611       </div>
11612       <div class="body">
11613         <p>One think I have wanted to figure out for a along time is how to
11614 run vlc from cron to do recording of video streams on the net.  The
11615 task is trivial with mplayer, but I do not really trust the security
11616 of mplayer (it crashes too often on strange input), and thus prefer
11617 vlc.  I finally found a way to do it today.  I spent an hour or so
11618 searching the web for recipes and reading the documentation.  The
11619 hardest part was to get rid of the GUI window, but after finding the
11620 dummy interface, the command line finally presented itself:</p>
11621
11622 <blockquote><pre>URL=http://www.ping.uio.no/video/rms-oslo_2009.ogg
11623 SAVEFILE=rms.ogg
11624 DISPLAY= vlc -q $URL \
11625   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
11626   --intf=dummy</pre></blockquote>
11627
11628 <p>The command stream the URL and store it in the SAVEFILE by
11629 duplicating the output stream to "nodisplay" and the file, using the
11630 dummy interface.  The dummy interface and the nodisplay output make
11631 sure no X interface is needed.</p>
11632
11633 <p>The cron job then need to start this job with the appropriate URL
11634 and file name to save, sleep for the duration wanted, and then kill
11635 the vlc process with SIGTERM.  Here is a complete script
11636 <tt>vlc-record</tt> to use from <tt>at</tt> or <tt>cron</tt>:</p>
11637
11638 <blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
11639 set -e
11640 URL="$1"
11641 SAVEFILE="$2"
11642 DURATION="$3"
11643 DISPLAY= vlc -q "$URL" \
11644   --sout="#duplicate{dst=std{access=file,url='$SAVEFILE'},dst=nodisplay}" \
11645   --intf=dummy < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
11646 pid=$!
11647 sleep $DURATION
11648 kill $pid
11649 wait $pid</pre></blockquote>
11650
11651       </div>
11652       <div class="tags">
11653
11654
11655         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>.
11656
11657
11658       </div>
11659     </div>
11660     <div class="padding"></div>
11661
11662     <div class="entry">
11663       <div class="title">
11664         <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>
11665       </div>
11666       <div class="date">
11667         30th March 2009
11668       </div>
11669       <div class="body">
11670         <p>Where I work at the University of Oslo, one decision stand out as a
11671 very good one to form a long lived computer infrastructure.  It is the
11672 simple one, lost by many in todays computer industry: Standardize on
11673 open network protocols and open exchange/storage formats, not applications.
11674 Applications come and go, while protocols and files tend to stay, and
11675 thus one want to make it easy to change application and vendor, while
11676 avoiding conversion costs and locking users to a specific platform or
11677 application.</p>
11678
11679 <p>This approach make it possible to replace the client applications
11680 independently of the server applications.  One can even allow users to
11681 use several different applications as long as they handle the selected
11682 protocol and format.  In the normal case, only one client application
11683 is recommended and users only get help if they choose to use this
11684 application, but those that want to deviate from the easy path are not
11685 blocked from doing so.</p>
11686
11687 <p>It also allow us to replace the server side without forcing the
11688 users to replace their applications, and thus allow us to select the
11689 best server implementation at any moment, when scale and resouce
11690 requirements change.</p>
11691
11692 <p>I strongly recommend standardizing - on open network protocols and
11693 open formats, but I would never recommend standardizing on a single
11694 application that do not use open network protocol or open formats.</p>
11695
11696       </div>
11697       <div class="tags">
11698
11699
11700         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>.
11701
11702
11703       </div>
11704     </div>
11705     <div class="padding"></div>
11706
11707     <div class="entry">
11708       <div class="title">
11709         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Returning_from_Skolelinux_developer_gathering.html">Returning from Skolelinux developer gathering</a>
11710       </div>
11711       <div class="date">
11712         29th March 2009
11713       </div>
11714       <div class="body">
11715         <p>I'm sitting on the train going home from this weekends Debian
11716 Edu/Skolelinux development gathering.  I got a bit done tuning the
11717 desktop, and looked into the dynamic service location protocol
11718 implementation avahi.  It look like it could be useful for us.  Almost
11719 30 people participated, and I believe it was a great environment to
11720 get to know the Skolelinux system.  Walter Bender, involved in the
11721 development of the Sugar educational platform, presented his stuff and
11722 also helped me improve my OLPC installation.  He also showed me that
11723 his Turtle Art application can be used in standalone mode, and we
11724 agreed that I would help getting it packaged for Debian.  As a
11725 standalone application it would be great for Debian Edu.  We also
11726 tried to get the video conferencing working with two OLPCs, but that
11727 proved to be too hard for us.  The application seem to need more work
11728 before it is ready for me.  I look forward to getting home and relax
11729 now. :)</p>
11730
11731       </div>
11732       <div class="tags">
11733
11734
11735         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>.
11736
11737
11738       </div>
11739     </div>
11740     <div class="padding"></div>
11741
11742     <div class="entry">
11743       <div class="title">
11744         <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>
11745       </div>
11746       <div class="date">
11747         29th March 2009
11748       </div>
11749       <div class="body">
11750         <p>The state of standardized LDAP schemas on Linux is far from
11751 optimal.  There is RFC 2307 documenting one way to store NIS maps in
11752 LDAP, and a modified version of this normally called RFC 2307bis, with
11753 some modifications to be compatible with Active Directory.  The RFC
11754 specification handle the content of a lot of system databases, but do
11755 not handle DNS zones and DHCP configuration.</p>
11756
11757 <p>In <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux</a>,
11758 we would like to store information about users, SMB clients/hosts,
11759 filegroups, netgroups (users and hosts), DHCP and DNS configuration,
11760 and LTSP configuration in LDAP.  These objects have a lot in common,
11761 but with the current LDAP schemas it is not possible to have one
11762 object per entity.  For example, one need to have at least three LDAP
11763 objects for a given computer, one with the SMB related stuff, one with
11764 DNS information and another with DHCP information.  The schemas
11765 provided for DNS and DHCP are impossible to combine into one LDAP
11766 object.  In addition, it is impossible to implement quick queries for
11767 netgroup membership, because of the way NIS triples are implemented.
11768 It just do not scale.  I believe it is time for a few RFC
11769 specifications to cleam up this mess.</p>
11770
11771 <p>I would like to have one LDAP object representing each computer in
11772 the network, and this object can then keep the SMB (ie host key), DHCP
11773 (mac address/name) and DNS (name/IP address) settings in one place.
11774 It need to be efficently stored to make sure it scale well.</p>
11775
11776 <p>I would also like to have a quick way to map from a user or
11777 computer and to the net group this user or computer is a member.</p>
11778
11779 <p>Active Directory have done a better job than unix heads like myself
11780 in this regard, and the unix side need to catch up.  Time to start a
11781 new IETF work group?</p>
11782
11783       </div>
11784       <div class="tags">
11785
11786
11787         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>.
11788
11789
11790       </div>
11791     </div>
11792     <div class="padding"></div>
11793
11794     <div class="entry">
11795       <div class="title">
11796         <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>
11797       </div>
11798       <div class="date">
11799         28th February 2009
11800       </div>
11801       <div class="body">
11802         <p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
11803 of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
11804 contract expire for each server.  We have a machine (and service)
11805 register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
11806 machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
11807 each machine.  To make it easier for us to track support contract
11808 status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
11809 include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
11810 machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
11811 machines.  I extended a perl script already being used to import
11812 information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
11813 scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
11814 are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
11815 for the relevant machines.  This make the support status information
11816 easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
11817 owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
11818 The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
11819 registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
11820 them.  27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
11821 using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
11822 last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
11823 services.  After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
11824 at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
11825 them break down.  When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
11826 parts from other machines or move the service to another old
11827 machine.</p>
11828
11829 <p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
11830 written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
11831 Werner Forsbring.  The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
11832 nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
11833 scraping was written by me based on the Dell code.  I know the HTML
11834 parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
11835 introduce more dependencies.  This is the current incarnation:</p>
11836
11837 <pre>
11838 use LWP::Simple;
11839 use POSIX;
11840 use WWW::Mechanize;
11841 use Date::Parse;
11842 [...]
11843 sub get_support_info {
11844     my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
11845     my $str;
11846
11847     if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
11848         # fetch website from Dell support
11849         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";
11850         my $webpage = get($url);
11851         return undef unless ($webpage);
11852
11853         my $daysleft = -1;
11854         my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
11855         foreach my $line (@lines) {
11856             next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
11857             $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
11858             $line =~ s/^.+?;(Beskrivelse;)/$1/;
11859
11860             my @f = split(/\;/, $line);
11861             @f = @f[13 .. $#f];
11862             my $lastend = "";
11863             while ($f[3] eq "DELL") {
11864                 my ($type, $startstr, $endstr, $days) = @f[0, 5, 7, 10];
11865
11866                 my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
11867                                             localtime(str2time($startstr)));
11868                 my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
11869                                           localtime(str2time($endstr)));
11870                 $str .= "$type $start -> $end ";
11871                 @f = @f[14 .. $#f];
11872                 $lastend = $end if ($end gt $lastend);
11873             }
11874             my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
11875             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
11876                 if ($lastend lt $today);
11877         }
11878     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
11879         my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
11880         my $url =
11881             'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
11882         $mech->get($url);
11883         my $fields = {
11884             'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
11885             'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
11886             'country' => 'NO',
11887             'productNumber' => $productnumber,
11888             'serialNumber1' => $serial,
11889         };
11890         $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
11891                             fields      => $fields );
11892         # Next step is screen scraping
11893         my $content = $mech->content();
11894
11895         $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
11896         $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
11897         $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
11898         $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
11899
11900         my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
11901
11902         while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
11903             my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
11904                 m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
11905             $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
11906             my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
11907                                         localtime(str2time($startstr)));
11908             my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
11909                                       localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
11910
11911             $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
11912
11913             tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
11914                 if ($end lt $today);
11915         }
11916     } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
11917         # This code ignore extended support contracts.
11918         my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
11919         if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
11920             my $content =
11921                 get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
11922             if ($content) {
11923                 $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
11924                 $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
11925                 $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
11926                 $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
11927
11928                 $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
11929                 my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
11930
11931                 $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
11932
11933                 my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
11934                 tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
11935                     if ($end lt $today);
11936             }
11937         }
11938     }
11939     return $str;
11940 }
11941 </pre>
11942
11943 <p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
11944 serial numbers.  The information passed in as arguments are fetched
11945 from dmidecode.</p>
11946
11947 <pre>
11948 print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
11949                        "447707-B21");
11950 print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
11951 print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
11952                        "1234567");
11953 </pre>
11954
11955 <p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
11956 everyone with more than a few computers to administer. :)</p>
11957
11958 <p>Update 2009-03-06: The IBM page do not include extended support
11959 contracts, so it is useless in that case.  The original Dell code do
11960 not handle extended support contracts either, but has been updated to
11961 do so.</p>
11962
11963       </div>
11964       <div class="tags">
11965
11966
11967         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>.
11968
11969
11970       </div>
11971     </div>
11972     <div class="padding"></div>
11973
11974     <div class="entry">
11975       <div class="title">
11976         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html">Using bar codes at a computing center</a>
11977       </div>
11978       <div class="date">
11979         20th February 2009
11980       </div>
11981       <div class="body">
11982         <p>At work with the University of Oslo, we have several hundred computers
11983 in our computing center.  This give us a challenge in tracking the
11984 location and cabling of the computers, when they are added, moved and
11985 removed.  Some times the location register is not updated when a
11986 computer is inserted or moved and we then have to search the room for
11987 the "missing" computer.</p>
11988
11989 <p>In the last issue of Linux Journal, I came across a project
11990 <a href="http://www.libdmtx.org/">libdmtx</a> to write and read bar
11991 code blocks as defined in the
11992 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix">The Data Matrix
11993 Standard</a>.  This is bar codes that can be read with a normal
11994 digital camera, for example that on a cell phone, and several such bar
11995 codes can be read by libdmtx from one picture.  The bar code standard
11996 allow up to 2 KiB to be written in the tag.  There is another project
11997 with <a href="http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/">a bar code
11998 writer written in postscript</a> capable of creating such bar codes,
11999 but this was the first time I found a tool to read these bar
12000 codes.</p>
12001
12002 <p>It occurred to me that this could be used to tag and track the
12003 machines in our computing center.  If both racks and computers are
12004 tagged this way, we can use a picture of the rack and all its
12005 computers to detect the rack location of any computer in that rack.
12006 If we do this regularly for the entire room, we will find all
12007 locations, and can detect movements and removals.</p>
12008
12009 <p>I decided to test if this would work in practice, and picked a
12010 random rack and tagged all the machines with their names.  Next, I
12011 took pictures with my digital camera, and gave the dmtxread program
12012 these JPEG pictures to see how many tags it could read.  This worked
12013 fairly well.  If the pictures was well focused and not taken from the
12014 side, all tags in the image could be read.  Because of limited space
12015 between the racks, I was unable to get a good picture of the entire
12016 rack, but could without problem read all tags from a picture covering
12017 about half the rack.  I had to limit the search time used by dmtxread
12018 to 60000 ms to make sure it terminated in a reasonable time frame.</p>
12019
12020 <p>My conclusion is that this could work, and we should probably look
12021 at adjusting our computer tagging procedures to use bar codes for
12022 easier automatic tracking of computers.</p>
12023
12024       </div>
12025       <div class="tags">
12026
12027
12028         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>.
12029
12030
12031       </div>
12032     </div>
12033     <div class="padding"></div>
12034
12035     <div class="entry">
12036       <div class="title">
12037         <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>
12038       </div>
12039       <div class="date">
12040         17th January 2009
12041       </div>
12042       <div class="body">
12043         <p>As part of the work we do in <a href="http://www.nuug.no">NUUG</a>
12044 to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
12045 page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
12046 good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
12047 browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
12048 will become easier when the &lt;video&gt; tag is implemented in all
12049 browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
12050 formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
12051 browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
12052 recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
12053 There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
12054 &lt;video&gt; tag, the &lt;object&gt; tag, the &lt;embed&gt; tag and
12055 the &lt;applet&gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
12056 finding the best options is a major challenge.</p>
12057
12058 <p>I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from <a
12059 href="http://labs.opera.com">labs.opera.com</a>, to see how it handled
12060 a &lt;video&gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
12061 I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
12062 from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
12063 definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
12064 instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
12065 of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
12066 for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
12067 is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
12068 download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
12069 discover that I have to add the controls="true" attribute to be able
12070 to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
12071 autoplay="true" did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
12072 test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
12073 &lt;video&gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
12074 playing when the download is done.</p>
12075
12076 <p>The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
12077 <a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/">available
12078 from the nuug site</a>.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
12079 too.</p>
12080
12081 <p>In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
12082 to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
12083 am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
12084 sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)</p>
12085
12086       </div>
12087       <div class="tags">
12088
12089
12090         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>.
12091
12092
12093       </div>
12094     </div>
12095     <div class="padding"></div>
12096
12097     <div class="entry">
12098       <div class="title">
12099         <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_video_mixer_on_a_USB_stick.html">Software video mixer on a USB stick</a>
12100       </div>
12101       <div class="date">
12102         28th December 2008
12103       </div>
12104       <div class="body">
12105         <p>The <a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group</a> is
12106 recording our montly presentation on video, and recently we have
12107 worked on improving the quality of the recordings by mixing the slides
12108 directly with the video stream.  For this, we use the
12109 <a href="http://dvswitch.alioth.debian.org/">dvswitch</a> package from
12110 the Debian video team.  As this require quite one computer per video
12111 source, and NUUG do not have enough laptops available, we need to
12112 borrow laptops.  And to avoid having to install extra software on
12113 these borrwed laptops, I have wrapped up all the programs needed on a
12114 bootable USB stick.  The software required is dvswitch with assosiated
12115 source, sink and mixer applications and
12116 <a href="http://www.kinodv.org/">dvgrab</a>.  To allow this setup to
12117 work without any configuration, I've patched dvswitch to use
12118 <a href="http://www.avahi.org/">avahi</a> to connect the various parts
12119 together.  And to allow us to use laptops without firewire plugs, I
12120 upgraded dvgrab to the one from Debian/unstable to get one that work
12121 with USB sources.  We have not yet tested this setup in a production
12122 setup, but I hope it will work properly, and allow us to set up a
12123 video mixer in a very short time frame.  We will need it for
12124 <a href="http://www.goopen.no/">Go Open 2009</a>.</p>
12125
12126 <p><a href="http://www.nuug.no/pub/video/bin/usbstick-dvswitch.img.gz">The
12127 USB image</a> is for a 1 GB memory stick, but can be used on any
12128 larger stick as well.</p>
12129
12130       </div>
12131       <div class="tags">
12132
12133
12134         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>.
12135
12136
12137       </div>
12138     </div>
12139     <div class="padding"></div>
12140
12141     <div class="entry">
12142       <div class="title">
12143         <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>
12144       </div>
12145       <div class="date">
12146          7th December 2008
12147       </div>
12148       <div class="body">
12149         <p>This weekend we had a small developer gathering for Debian Edu in
12150 Oslo.  Most of Saturday was used for the general assemly for the
12151 member organization, but the rest of the weekend I used to tune the
12152 LTSP installation.  LTSP now work out of the box on the 10-network.
12153 Acer Aspire One proved to be a very nice thin client, with both
12154 screen, mouse and keybard in a small box.  Was working on getting the
12155 diskless workstation setup configured out of the box, but did not
12156 finish it before the weekend was up.</p>
12157
12158 <p>Did not find time to look at the 4 VGA cards in one box we got from
12159 the Brazilian group, so that will have to wait for the next
12160 development gathering.  Would love to have the Debian Edu installer
12161 automatically detect and configure a multiseat setup when it find one
12162 of these cards.</p>
12163
12164       </div>
12165       <div class="tags">
12166
12167
12168         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>.
12169
12170
12171       </div>
12172     </div>
12173     <div class="padding"></div>
12174
12175     <div class="entry">
12176       <div class="title">
12177         <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>
12178       </div>
12179       <div class="date">
12180         25th November 2008
12181       </div>
12182       <div class="body">
12183         <p>Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
12184 plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
12185 default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
12186 control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
12187 all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
12188 notes are available on
12189 <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">the
12190 Debian wiki</a>.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
12191 fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
12192 bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
12193 types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
12194 video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
12195 audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn't supported by the
12196 totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
12197 wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.</p>
12198
12199 <p>For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
12200 be the only one fitting our needs. :/</p>
12201
12202       </div>
12203       <div class="tags">
12204
12205
12206         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>.
12207
12208
12209       </div>
12210     </div>
12211     <div class="padding"></div>
12212
12213     <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>
12214     <div id="sidebar">
12215
12216
12217
12218 <h2>Archive</h2>
12219 <ul>
12220
12221 <li>2012
12222 <ul>
12223
12224 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
12225
12226 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
12227
12228 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
12229
12230 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
12231
12232 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
12233
12234 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
12235
12236 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
12237
12238 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
12239
12240 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
12241
12242 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
12243
12244 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
12245
12246 </ul></li>
12247
12248 <li>2011
12249 <ul>
12250
12251 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
12252
12253 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
12254
12255 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
12256
12257 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
12258
12259 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
12260
12261 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
12262
12263 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
12264
12265 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
12266
12267 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
12268
12269 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
12270
12271 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
12272
12273 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
12274
12275 </ul></li>
12276
12277 <li>2010
12278 <ul>
12279
12280 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
12281
12282 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
12283
12284 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
12285
12286 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
12287
12288 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
12289
12290 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
12291
12292 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
12293
12294 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
12295
12296 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
12297
12298 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
12299
12300 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
12301
12302 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
12303
12304 </ul></li>
12305
12306 <li>2009
12307 <ul>
12308
12309 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
12310
12311 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
12312
12313 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
12314
12315 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
12316
12317 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
12318
12319 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
12320
12321 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
12322
12323 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
12324
12325 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
12326
12327 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
12328
12329 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
12330
12331 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
12332
12333 </ul></li>
12334
12335 <li>2008
12336 <ul>
12337
12338 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
12339
12340 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
12341
12342 </ul></li>
12343
12344 </ul>
12345
12346
12347
12348 <h2>Tags</h2>
12349 <ul>
12350
12351  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
12352
12353  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
12354
12355  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
12356
12357  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (3)</a></li>
12358
12359  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (12)</a></li>
12360
12361  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
12362
12363  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (57)</a></li>
12364
12365  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (116)</a></li>
12366
12367  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (9)</a></li>
12368
12369  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (7)</a></li>
12370
12371  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
12372
12373  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (160)</a></li>
12374
12375  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (20)</a></li>
12376
12377  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
12378
12379  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (9)</a></li>
12380
12381  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (9)</a></li>
12382
12383  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (32)</a></li>
12384
12385  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (17)</a></li>
12386
12387  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
12388
12389  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (5)</a></li>
12390
12391  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
12392
12393  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (25)</a></li>
12394
12395  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (216)</a></li>
12396
12397  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (147)</a></li>
12398
12399  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (6)</a></li>
12400
12401  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
12402
12403  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (39)</a></li>
12404
12405  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (60)</a></li>
12406
12407  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
12408
12409  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
12410
12411  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
12412
12413  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (4)</a></li>
12414
12415  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
12416
12417  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
12418
12419  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
12420
12421  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (28)</a></li>
12422
12423  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
12424
12425  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
12426
12427  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (39)</a></li>
12428
12429  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
12430
12431  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (5)</a></li>
12432
12433  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (12)</a></li>
12434
12435  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (7)</a></li>
12436
12437  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (35)</a></li>
12438
12439  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
12440
12441  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (26)</a></li>
12442
12443 </ul>
12444
12445
12446     </div>
12447     <p style="text-align: right">
12448  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.4</a>
12449 </p>
12450
12451   </body>
12452 </html>