Petter Reinholdtsen

På tur mot jobb i dag fikk jeg se en av Ruters billettautomater i Nydalen som var brutt sammen. Tok bilde av det hele, og lot meg overraske over at den så ut til å kjøre Windows 2000 Professional.

Jeg ble overrasket da den versjonen av operativsystemene til Microsoft så vidt jeg vet ikke lenger mottar sikkerhetsoppdateringer. I følge Wikipedia og Microsoft har den ikke hatt støtte fra Microsoft siden 2010-07-13. Det er en ganske stor sikkerhetsrisiko å bruke operativsystemer i et og et halvt år etter at de ikke lenger blir tatt vare på sikkerhetsmessig.

Bildet er tilgjengelig for bruk med bruksvilkårene til Creative Commons Navngivelse 3.0 Norge (CC BY 3.0).

Many years ago, the Skolelinux / Debian Edu project initiated a student project to create a tool for making stop motion movies. The proposal came from a teacher needing such tool on Skolelinux. The project, called "stopmotion", was manned by two extraordinary students and won a school award and a national aware with this great project. The project was initiated and mentored by Herman Robak, and manned by the students Bjørn Erik Nilsen and Fredrik Berg Kjølstad. They got in touch with people at Aardman Animation studio and received feedback on how professionals would like such stopmotion tool to work, and the end result was and is used by animators around the globe. But as is usual after studying, both got jobs and went elsewhere, and did not have time to properly tend to the project, and it has been lingering for a few years now. Until last year...

Last year some of the users got together with Herman, and moved the project to Sourceforge and in effect restarted the project under a new name, linuxstopmotion. The name change was done to make it possible to find the project using Internet search engines (try to search for 'stopmotion' to see what I mean). I've been following the mailing list and the improvement already in place and planned for the future is encouraging. If you want to make stop motion movies. Check it out. :)

This weekend we wrapped up and published the third release candidate for Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze. The full announcement is available from the project announcement list. Check it out if you need a software solution for your school.

Tok nettopp en titt på listen over løste problemer i FiksGataMi (hentet via Open311-søkegrensesnittet), og lot meg imponere over Hamar kommunes raske respons. Sjekk rapport #10791, der Hamar kommune kl. 10:19 i dag får beskjed om at det er dårlig brøyting, allerede 10:50 melder kommunen tilbake at de er på saken. 18:26 samme dag melder så innsender at problemet er løst. Hatten av for folkene i Hamar kommune!

Apropos bra respons. En bruker sendte for noen dager inn følgende tilbakemelding til oss som står bak tjenesten.

Rapporterte inn slukte gatelys på Torsnesveien, og to uker etterpå er lysene tilbake. Flott service!

Det er veldig hyggelig å høre at FiksGataMi fungerer bra for innbyggerne. Måtte alle landets innbyggere få samme gode erfaring med FiksGataMi og det offentlige. I dag er det 52 kommuner som har lenke til FiksGataMi fra sine nettsider, og dermed indikerer at de liker vår tjeneste. Måtte de få følge av resten av landets kommuner snart. :)

One of the Debian Edu developers, Wolfgang Schweer, just created a screen cast documenting how to create a lot of new users in LDAP on Debian Edu Squeeze. The video is embedded here in quarter size, and also available from vimeo and download as a Ogg Theora file. Check it out below.

Download video as Ogg.

Inspired by the interview series conducted by Raphael, I started a Norwegian interview series with people involved in the Debian Edu / Skolelinux community. This was so popular that I believe it is time to move to a more international audience.

While Debian Edu and Skolelinux originated in France and Norway, and have most users in Europe, there are users all around the globe. One of those far away from me is Nigel Barker, a long time Debian Edu system administrator and contributor. It is thanks to him that Debian Edu is adjusted to work out of the box in Japan. I got him to answer a few questions, and am happy to share the response with you. :)

Who are you, and how do you spend your days?

My name is Nigel Barker, and I am British. I am married to Yumiko, and we have three lovely children, aged 15, 14 and 4(!) I am the IT Coordinator at Hiroshima International School, Japan. I am also a teacher, and in fact I spend most of my day teaching Mathematics, Science, IT, and Chemistry. I was originally a Chemistry teacher, but I have always had an interest in computers. Another teacher teaches primary school IT, but apart from that I am the only computer person, so that means I am the network manager, technician and webmaster, also, and I help people with their computer problems. I teach python to beginners in an after-school club. I am way too busy, so I really appreciate the simplicity of Skolelinux.

How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu project?

In around 2004 or 5 I discovered the ltsp project, and set up a server in the IT lab. I wanted some way to connect it to our central samba server, which I was also quite poor at configuring. I discovered Edubuntu when it came out, but it didn't really improve my setup. I did various desperate searches for things like "school Linux server" and ended up in a document called "Drift" something or other. Reading there it became clear that Skolelinux was going to solve all my problems in one go. I was very excited, but apprehensive, because my previous attempts to install Debian had ended in failure (I used Mandrake for everything - ltsp, samba, apache, mail, ns...). I downloaded a beta version, had some problems, so subscribed to the Debian Edu list for help. I have remained subscribed ever since, and my school has run a Skolelinux network since Sarge.

What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu?

For me the integrated setup. This is not just the server, or the workstation, or the ltsp. Its all of them, and its all configured ready to go. I read somewhere in the early documentation that it is designed to be setup and managed by the Maths or Science teacher, who doesn't necessarily know much about computers, in a small Norwegian school. That describes me perfectly if you replace Norway with Japan.

What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian Edu?

The desktop is fairly plain. If you compare it with Edubuntu, who have fun themes for children, or with distributions such as Mint, who make the desktop beautiful. They create a good impression on people who don't need to understand how to use any of it, but who might be important to the school. School administrators or directors, for instance, or parents. Even kids. Debian itself usually has ugly default theme settings. It was my dream a few years back that some kind of integration would allow Edubuntu to do the desktop stuff and Debian Edu the servers, but now I realise how impossible that is. A second disadvantage is that if something goes wrong, or you need to customise something, then suddenly the level of expertise required multiplies. For example, backup wasn't working properly in Lenny. It took me ages to learn how to set up my own server to do rsync backups. I am afraid of anything to do with ldap, but perhaps Gosa will help.

Which free software do you use daily?

Nowadays I only use Debian on my personal computers. I have one for studio work (I play guitar and write songs), running AV Linux (customised Debian) a netbook running Squeeze, and a bigger laptop still running Skolelinux Lenny workstation. I have a Tjener in my house, that's very useful for the family photos and music. At school the students only use Skolelinux. (Some teachers and the office still have windows). So that means we only use free software all day every day. Open office, The GIMP, Firefox/Iceweasel, VLC and Audacity are installed on every computer in school, irrespective of OS. We also have Koha on Debian for the library, and Apache, Moodle, b2evolution and Etomite on Debian for the www. The firewall is Untangle.

Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to get schools to use free software?

Current trends are in our favour. Open source is big in industry, and ordinary people have heard of it. The spread of Android and the popularity of Apple have helped to weaken the impression that you have to have Microsoft on everything. People complain to me much less about file formats and Word than they did 5 years ago. The Edu aspect is also a selling point. This is all customised for schools. Where is the Windows-edu, or the Mac-edu? But of course the main attraction is budget.The trick is to convince people that the quality is not compromised when you stop paying and use free software instead. That is one reason why I say the desktop experience is a weakness. People are not impressed when their USB drive doesn't work, or their browser doesn't play flash, for example.

This weekend we finally published the first stable release of Skolelinux / Debian Edu based on Debian/Squeeze. The full announcement is available from the project announcement list. Now is a good time to test if it you have not done so already.

I plan to present the new version at a NUUG meeting on tuesday. I look forward to seeing you there if you are in Oslo, Norway.

Første ut i serien med intervjuer av folk i Skolelinux-miljøet etter at ny versjon av Skolelinux ble lansert i helga, er nylig valgte styremedlem i foreningen Fri programvare i Skolen (FRiSK) som organiserer Skolelinux-utviklingen og daglig leder i Skolelinux Drift AS, selskapet prosjektet opprettet som et tilbud til skoler som ønsket en kommersiell samarbeidsparter. Det bør nevnes at jeg er styremedlem i Skolelinux Drift AS og styreleder i selskapets hovedeier stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs som beskytter verdiene til Skolelinux-prosjektet, og kjenner Kåre den veien.

Hvem er du, og hva driver du med til daglig?

Jeg har siden januar 2010 vært daglig leder i Skolelinux Drift AS, som leverer support, installasjon, tilpasning, drift, og opplæring på Debian Edu / Skolelinux. Fra 2012 er jeg valgt inn som styremedlem i FRiSK. Min forrige jobb var som KAM i Redpill Linpro (som er en av eierne i Skolelinux Drift). Før det var jeg daglig leder i et eget 7 manns konsulent selskap som også startet med fri programvare mot slutten.

Hvordan kom du i kontakt med Skolelinux-prosjektet?

Jeg hørte om det først når jeg jobbet i Redpill Linpro. Men jeg har også en datter som går på en friskole, som også bruker Skolelinux. Som kjent har ikke friskoler de samme økonomiske rammebetingelsene som offentlige skoler, så for dem var det det absolutt beste alternativet. De anser også Skolelinux som et stabilt system, som bare går og går (i motsetning til det lille Windows-baserte nettverket de har på admin-siden).

Hva er fordelene med Skolelinux slik du ser det?

Sentralisert drift av tynne og diskløse arbeidsstasjoner. Således lydløse og raskere arbeidsstasjoner som er bedre i klasserommet. Lengre levetid på PC'er. Store besparelser på maskinvare og drift. Og så klart fjerning av alle lisenskostnader. Personlig synes jeg også at mange av programmene er bedre enn alternativene. Men dette er ofte en smakssak og avhengig om man må ha det man er vant til fra før.

Hva er ulempene med Skolelinux slik du ser det?

For lite kjentskap til løsningen. Noen ganger for dårlig kompatibilitet med arbeidsstasjoners/bærbare maskiner sine nettverksdrivere eller skjermkort. Men dette løser vi i skolene ved standardisering. Ellers er det få, om nesten ingen, av de kjente maskinvare / infrastruktur leverandørene til fylkes- / kommuner som tilbyr denne plattformen. Skal dette endre seg så må kommunene selv sette slike krav til leverandørene.

Hvilken fri programvare bruker du til daglig?

Har brukt OpenOffice.org siden starten (2001 ?), Kun Linux på desktop siden 2005. Bruker i dag Kubuntu, Libreoffice og ymse annet programvare til ulik kontorbruk som er lett å installere / teste via alle programarkivene som finnes.

Hvilken strategi tror du er den rette å bruke for å få skoler til å ta i bruk fri programvare?

Fortsette å presentere flere av de gode eksemplene hvor Debian Edu / Skolelinux brukes i kommuner og enkeltskoler. Vi må få bedre frem at det er mulig tilknytte både Windows og Mac klienter på denne plattformen (selv om det vil øke driftskostnadene). Dette gjøres mange steder. Spesielt er det mange lærere som ønsker å bruke Windows/Mac-bærbare, gjerne som sin private PC også. Det er også mulig for kommunen å integrere med Active Directory i stedet for OpenLDAP som kommer med ut av boksen (selv om også dette øker kostnadene). Dette vil muligens bidra til å fjerne noe motstand hos noen potensielle brukere / driftpersonell for å ta i bruk noe nytt. Fremveksten av mobile brukere og nettbrett går i vår favør. Brukerne blir kjent og vant til flere nye operativsystemer / brukergrensesnitt. Så utviklerfellesskapet bør jobbe videre med å integrere flere nye klienttyper, som ultra lav-kostklienter og nettbrett (blant annet fri programvare-alternativet Spark med Mer OS og KDE Active Plasma).

I dag presenterte jeg ny versjon av Skolelinux for NUUGs medlemmer. Lysark er tilgjengelige allerede og video-opptak kommer så snart videogruppa til NUUG får publisert den. Jeg kom på endel punkter om nye ting i Squeeze-utgaven under veis som jeg burde hatt med, og har sikkert skrevet noe tull på lysarkene som jeg ennå ikke har oppdaget. Denne presentasjonen ble smurt ihop på veldig kort tid, og jeg rakk ikke finpusse den. Håper den kan være lærerik likevel.

Documentation in Debian Edu is provided in several languages, and it is important to make it both easy to contribute and to keep the translated versions in sync. To do this we have come up with what we believe is a very efficient work flow.

1. The documentation is written in a moinmoin wiki (see for example the Squeeze release manual) with support for exporting the content as docbook XML.
2. This docbook document is given to po4a to extract a gettext style .pot file with the content, which in turn is used to create .po files with the translated text.
3. The .po files are given to translators, and they can always tell which part of the original wiki document is new or changed. They can use their normal translation tools like lokalize or poedit to write the translation. There is even a system in place to handle translated images.
4. The translated .po files are combined with the original docbook XML document using po4a to create a translated docbook document.
5. The final step is to use all the generated docbook files and create PDF and HTML version of the original and translated documents.

This setup work very well, but have a few issues. The biggest issue is that the docbook support we use in moinmoin is not actively maintained. The docbook support is also buggy, and our build system contain of workarounds to make sure the generated docbook is usable despite these bugs.

If you want to have a look at our setup, it is all there in the debian-edu-doc package.