+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">The new "best" multimedia player in Debian?</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 6th June 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which
+multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats /
+MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types
+the various players claimed support for. The range was from 55 to 130
+MIME types. I suspect most media formats are supported by all
+players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in
+their desktop files. There are probably also some bogus MIME types
+listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of
+the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files,
+and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my
+favorite media player VLC. The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable
+yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia
+player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p>
+
+<p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian? It is VLC, followed by
+totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and
+kmplayer. I am sure some of the other players desktop files support
+several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc,
+toten and parole.</p>
+
+<p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as
+supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their
+desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl,
+audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg,
+video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska,
+video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo. Personally I find
+it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media
+players in Debian. As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both
+formats.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ 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>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">What is the best multimedia player in Debian?</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 8th May 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p><strong>Where I set out to figure out which multimedia player in
+Debian claim support for most file formats.</strong></p>
+
+<p>A few years ago, I had a look at the media support for Browser
+plugins in Debian, to get an idea which plugins to include in Debian
+Edu. I created a script to extract the set of supported MIME types
+for each plugin, and used this to find out which multimedia browser
+plugin supported most file formats / media types.
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">The
+result</a> can still be seen on the Debian wiki, even though it have
+not been updated for a while. But browser plugins are less relevant
+these days, so I thought it was time to look at standalone
+players.</p>
+
+<p>A few days ago I was tired of VLC not being listed as a viable
+player when I wanted to play videos from the Norwegian National
+Broadcasting Company, and decided to investigate why. The cause is a
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/822245">missing MIME type in the VLC
+desktop file</a>. In the process I wrote a script to compare the set
+of MIME types announced in the desktop file and the browser plugin,
+only to discover that there is quite a large difference between the
+two for VLC. This discovery made me dig up the script I used to
+compare browser plugins, and adjust it to compare desktop files
+instead, to try to figure out which multimedia player in Debian
+support most file formats.</p>
+
+<p>The result can be seen on the Debian Wiki, as
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">a
+table listing all MIME types supported by one of the packages included
+in the table</a>, with the package supporting most MIME types being
+listed first in the table.</p>
+
+</p>The best multimedia player in Debian? It is totem, followed by
+parole, kplayer, mpv, vlc, smplayer mplayer-gui gnome-mpv and
+kmplayer. Time for the other players to update their announced MIME
+support?</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ 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>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ny_utgave__v2_2__av_den_frie_norske_stavekontrollen_gitt_ut.html">Ny utgave (v2.2) av den frie norske stavekontrollen gitt ut</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 15th April 2016
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>I dag tok jeg mot til meg og pakket sammen en ny versjon av den
+frie norske stavekontrollen, ca. tre og et halvt år etter forrige
+gang. Resultatet kan lastes ned fra
+<a href="http://no.speling.org/">no.speling.org-prosjeksiden</a>, både
+som kildekodepakke og som "pack"-fil som kanskje fortsatt kan brukes
+av OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice. Byggesystemet trenger oppussing, men i
+denne omgang hadde jeg bare tid til å fikse byggefeil forårsaket av
+endringer i GNU grep. De øvrige endringene var gjort tidligere i
+påvente av en ny utgave.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Her er det som er nytt (fra NEWS-fila i
+kildekodepakken):</strong></p>
+
+<p>Release 2.2 (2016-04-15)</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+ <li>Rewrite how scripts/speling2words handle tripple consonants, to
+ avoid importing duplicate words from no.speling.org, and getting
+ rid of the existing duplicates in norsk.words.</li>
+ <li>Remove duplicate entries with tripple consonants from norsk.words.</li>
+ <li>Update frequency for entries in norsk.words based on
+ <URL:http://helmer.aksis.uib.no/nta/ordlistf.zip> (ran 'make
+ freq-update').</li>
+ <li>Correct nn ispell build, avoid crash in munchlist causing lots of
+ words to fall out of the database.</li>
+ <li>Use grep -a to convince grep it is working on text files, to work
+ with newer grep versions.</li>
+
+ <li>Remove some words disputed in the no.speling.org review process:
+ <ul>
+ <li>apparent (nb)</li>
+ <li>likke (nb)</li>
+ <li>ugjest, ugjesten, ugjestens (nb)</li>
+ </ul></li>
+
+</ul>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_GNU_General_Public_License_is_not_magic_pixie_dust.html">The GNU General Public License is not magic pixie dust</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 30th November 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>A blog post from my fellow Debian developer Paul Wise titled
+"<a href="http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2015/11/27/sfc-supporter/">The
+GPL is not magic pixie dust</a>" explain the importance of making sure
+the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a> is enforced.
+I quote the blog post from Paul in full here with his permission:<p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/"><img src="https://sfconservancy.org/img/supporter-badge.png" width="194" height="90" alt="Become a Software Freedom Conservancy Supporter!" align="right" border="0" /></a></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+The GPL is not magic pixie dust. It does not work by itself.<br/>
+
+The first step is to choose a
+<a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft</a> license for your
+code.<br/>
+
+The next step is, when someone fails to follow that copyleft license,
+<b>it must be enforced</b><br/>
+
+and its a simple fact of our modern society that such type of
+work<br/>
+
+is incredibly expensive to do and incredibly difficult to do.
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><small>-- <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley Kuhn</a>, in
+<a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in Freedom">FaiF</a>
+<a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode
+0x57</a></small></p>
+
+<p>As the Debian Website
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/794116">used</a>
+<a href="https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/intro/free.wml?r1=1.24&r2=1.25">to</a>
+imply, public domain and permissively licensed software can lead to
+the production of more proprietary software as people discover useful
+software, extend it and or incorporate it into their hardware or
+software products. Copyleft licenses such as the GNU GPL were created
+to close off this avenue to the production of proprietary software but
+such licenses are not enough. With the ongoing adoption of Free
+Software by individuals and groups, inevitably the community's
+expectations of license compliance are violated, usually out of
+ignorance of the way Free Software works, but not always. As Karen
+and Bradley explained in <a href="http://faif.us/" title="Free as in
+Freedom">FaiF</a>
+<a href="http://faif.us/cast/2015/nov/24/0x57/">episode 0x57</a>,
+copyleft is nothing if no-one is willing and able to stand up in court
+to protect it. The reality of today's world is that legal
+representation is expensive, difficult and time consuming. With
+<a href="http://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org</a> in hiatus
+<a href="http://gpl-violations.org/news/20151027-homepage-recovers/">until</a>
+some time in 2016, the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
+Freedom Conservancy</a> (a tax-exempt charity) is the major defender
+of the Linux project, Debian and other groups against GPL violations.
+In March the SFC supported a
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">lawsuit
+by Christoph Hellwig</a> against VMware for refusing to
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">comply
+with the GPL</a> in relation to their use of parts of the Linux
+kernel. Since then two of their sponsors pulled corporate funding and
+conferences
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">blocked
+or cancelled their talks</a>. As a result they have decided to rely
+less on corporate funding and more on the broad community of
+individuals who support Free Software and copyleft. So the SFC has
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/23/2015fundraiser/">launched</a>
+a <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">campaign</a> to create
+a community of folks who stand up for copyleft and the GPL by
+supporting their work on promoting and supporting copyleft and Free
+Software.</p>
+
+<p>If you support Free Software,
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/26/like-what-I-do/">like</a>
+what the SFC do, agree with their
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">compliance
+principles</a>, are happy about their
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">successes</a> in 2015,
+work on a project that is an SFC
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member</a> and or
+just want to stand up for copyleft, please join
+<a href="https://identi.ca/cwebber/image/JQGPA4qbTyyp3-MY8QpvuA">Christopher
+Allan Webber</a>,
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/nov/24/faif-carols-fundraiser/">Carol
+Smith</a>,
+<a href="http://www.jonobacon.org/2015/11/25/supporting-software-freedom-conservancy/">Jono
+Bacon</a>, myself and
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/#supporters">others</a> in
+becoming a
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">supporter</a>. For the
+next week your donation will be
+<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/nov/27/black-friday/">matched</a>
+by an anonymous donor. Please also consider asking your employer to
+match your donation or become a sponsor of SFC. Don't forget to
+spread the word about your support for SFC via email, your blog and or
+social media accounts.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>I agree with Paul on this topic and just signed up as a Supporter
+of Software Freedom Conservancy myself. Perhaps you should be a
+supporter too?</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ 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/opphavsrett">opphavsrett</a>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_beta_release.html">First Jessie based Debian Edu beta release</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 26th April 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>I am happy to report that the Debian Edu team sent out
+<a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2015/04/msg00000.html">this
+announcement today</a>:</p>
+
+<pre>
+the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is pleased to announce the first
+*beta* release of Debian Edu "Jessie" 8.0+edu0~b1, which for the first
+time is composed entirely of packages from the current Debian stable
+release, Debian 8 "Jessie".
+
+(As most reading this will know, Debian "Jessie" hasn't actually been
+released by now. The release is still in progress but should finish
+later today ;)
+
+We expect to make a final release of Debian Edu "Jessie" in the coming
+weeks, timed with the first point release of Debian Jessie. Upgrades
+from this beta release of Debian Edu Jessie to the final release will
+be possible and encouraged!
+
+Please report feedback to debian-edu@lists.debian.org and/or submit
+bugs: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs
+
+Debian Edu - sometimes also known as "Skolelinux" - is a complete
+operating system for schools, universities and other
+organisations. Through its pre- prepared installation profiles
+administrators can install servers, workstations and laptops which
+will work in harmony on the school network. With Debian Edu, the
+teachers themselves or their technical support staff can roll out a
+complete multi-user, multi-machine study environment within hours or
+days.
+
+Debian Edu is already in use at several hundred schools all over the
+world, particularly in Germany, Spain and Norway. Installations come
+with hundreds of applications pre-installed, plus the whole Debian
+archive of thousands of compatible packages within easy reach.
+
+For those who want to give Debian Edu Jessie a try, download and
+installation instructions are available, including detailed
+instructions in the manual explaining the first steps, such as setting
+up a network or adding users. Please note that the password for the
+user your prompted for during installation must have a length of at
+least 5 characters!
+
+== Where to download ==
+
+A multi-architecture CD / usbstick image (649 MiB) for network booting
+can be downloaded at the following locations:
+
+ http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-CD.iso
+ rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-CD.iso .
+
+The SHA1SUM of this image is: 54a524d16246cddd8d2cfd6ea52f2dd78c47ee0a
+
+Alternatively an extended DVD / usbstick image (4.9 GiB) is also
+available, with more software included (saving additional download
+time):
+
+ http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-USB.iso
+ rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~b1-USB.iso
+
+The SHA1SUM of this image is: fb1f1504a490c077a48653898f9d6a461cb3c636
+
+Sources are available from the Debian archive, see
+http://ftp.debian.org/debian-cd/8.0.0/source/ for some download
+options.
+
+== Debian Edu Jessie manual in seven languages ==
+
+Please see https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/ for
+the English version of the Debian Edu jessie manual.
+
+This manual has been fully translated to German, French, Italian,
+Danish, Dutch and Norwegian Bokmål. A partly translated version exists
+for Spanish. See http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/ for
+online version of the translated manual.
+
+More information about Debian 8 "Jessie" itself is provided in the
+release notes and the installation manual:
+- http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes
+- http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual
+
+
+== Errata / known problems ==
+
+ It takes up to 15 minutes for a changed hostname to be updated via
+ DHCP (#780461).
+
+ The hostname script fails to update LTSP server hostname (#783087).
+
+Workaround: run update-hostname-from-ip on the client to update the
+hostname immediately.
+
+Check https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie for a possibly
+more current and complete list.
+
+== Some more details about Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~b1 Codename Jessie released 2015-04-25 ==
+
+=== Software updates ===
+
+Everything which is new in Debian 8 Jessie, e.g.:
+
+ * Linux kernel 3.16.7-ctk9; for the i386 architecture, support for
+ i486 processors has been dropped; oldest supported ones: i586 (like
+ Intel Pentium and AMD K5).
+
+ * Desktop environments KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.11.13, GNOME 3.14,
+ Xfce 4.12, LXDE 0.5.6
+ * new optional desktop environment: MATE 1.8
+ * KDE Plasma Workspaces is installed by default; to choose one of
+ the others see the manual.
+ * the browsers Iceweasel 31 ESR and Chromium 41
+ * LibreOffice 4.3.3
+ * GOsa 2.7.4
+ * LTSP 5.5.4
+ * CUPS print system 1.7.5
+ * new boot framework: systemd
+ * Educational toolbox GCompris 14.12
+ * Music creator Rosegarden 14.02
+ * Image editor Gimp 2.8.14
+ * Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.13.1
+ * golearn 0.9
+ * tuxpaint 0.9.22
+ * New version of debian-installer from Debian Jessie.
+ * Debian Jessie includes about 43000 packages available for installation.
+ * More information about Debian 8 Jessie is provided in its release
+ notes and the installation manual, see the link above.
+
+=== Installation changes ===
+
+ Installations done via PXE now also install firmware automatically
+ for the hardware present.
+
+=== Fixed bugs ===
+
+A number of bugs have been fixed in this release; the most noticeable
+from a user perspective:
+
+ * Inserting incorrect DNS information in Gosa will no longer break
+ DNS completely, but instead stop DNS updates until the incorrect
+ information is corrected (710362)
+
+ * shutdown-at-night now shuts the system down if gdm3 is used (775608).
+
+=== Sugar desktop removed ===
+
+As the Sugar desktop was removed from Debian Jessie, it is also not
+available in Debian Edu jessie.
+
+
+== About Debian Edu / Skolelinux ==
+
+Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux, is a Linux distribution based on
+Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
+configured school network. Directly after installation a school server
+running all services needed for a school network is set up just
+waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
+Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
+initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
+machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
+provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
+centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
+services. The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
+packages and more are available from the Debian archive, and schools
+can choose between KDE, GNOME, LXDE, Xfce and MATE desktop
+environment.
+
+== About Debian ==
+
+The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
+free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
+the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
+volunteers from all over the world work together to create and
+maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a
+huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal
+operating system.
+
+== Thanks ==
+
+Thanks to everyone making Debian and Debian Edu / Skolelinux happen!
+You rock.
+</pre>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ 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>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Shirish_Agarwal.html">Debian Edu interview: Shirish Agarwal</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 15th April 2015
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>It was a surprise to me to learn that project to create a complete
+computer system for schools I've involved in,
+<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a>, was
+being used in India. But apparently it is, and I managed to get an
+interview with one of the friends of the project there, Shirish
+Agarwal.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
+
+<p>My name is Shirish Agarwal. Based out of the educational and
+historical city of Pune, from the western state of Maharashtra, India.
+My bread comes from giving training, giving policy tips,
+installations on free software to mom and pop shops in different
+fields from Desktop publishing to retail shops as well as work with
+few software start-ups as well.</p>
+
+<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
+project?</strong></p>
+
+<p>It started innocently enough. I have been using Debian for a few
+years and in one local minidebconf / debutsav I was asked if there was
+anything for schools or education. I had worked / played with free
+educational softwares such as Gcompris and Stellarium for my many
+nieces and nephews so researched and found Debian Edu or Skolelinux as
+it was known then. Since then I have started using the various
+education meta-packages provided by the project.</p>
+
+<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
+Edu?</strong></p>
+
+<p>It's closest I have seen where a package full of educational
+software are packed, which are free and open (both literally and
+figuratively). Even if I take the simplest software which is
+gcompris, the number of activities therein are amazing. Another one of
+the softwares that I have liked for a long time is stellarium. Even
+pysycache is cool except for couple of issues I encountered
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/781841">#781841</a> and
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/781842">#781842</a>.</p>
+
+<p>I prefer software installed on the system over web based solutions,
+as a web site can disappear any time but the software on disk has the
+possibility of a larger life span. Of course with both it's more a
+question if it has enough users who make it fun or sustainable or both
+for the developer per-se.</p>
+
+<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
+Edu?</strong></p>
+
+<p>I do see that the Debian Edu team seems to be short-handed and I
+think more efforts should be made to make it popular and ask and take
+help from people and the larger community wherever possible.</p>
+
+<p>I don't see any disadvantage to use Skolelinux apart from the fact
+that most apps. are generic which is good or bad how you see it.
+However, saying that I do acknowledge the fact that the canvas is
+pretty big and there are lot of interesting ideas that could be done
+but for reasons not known not done or if done I don't know about them.
+Let me share some of the ideas (these are more upstream based but
+still) I have had for a long time :</p>
+
+<p>1. Classical maths question of two trains in opposing directions
+each running @x kmph/mph at y distance, when they will meet and how
+far would each travel and similar questions like these.
+
+<p>The computer is a fantastic system where questions like these can
+be drawn, animated and the methodology and answers teased out in
+interactive manner. While sites such as the
+<a href="http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.two.trains.html">Ask
+Dr. Math FAQ on The Two Trains problem</a> (as an example or point of
+inspiration) can be used there is lot more that can be done. I dunno
+if there is a free software which does something like this. The idea
+being a blend of objects + animation + interaction which does
+this. The whole interaction could be gamified with points or sounds or
+colourful celebration whenever the user gets even part of the question
+or/and methodology right. That would help reinforce good behaviour.
+This understanding could be used to share/showcase everything from how
+the first wheel came to be, to evolution to how astronomy started,
+psychics and everything in-between.</p>
+
+<p>One specific idea in the train part was having the Linux mascot on
+one train and the BSD or GNU mascot on the other train and they
+meeting somewhere in-between. Characters from blender movies could
+also be used.</p>
+
+<p>2. Loads of crossword-puzzles with reference to subjects: We have
+enormous data sets in Wikipedia and Wikitionary. I don't think it
+should be a big job to design crossword puzzles. Using categories and
+sub-categories it should be doable to have Q&A single word answers
+from the existing data-sets. What would make it easy or hard could be
+the length of the word + existence of many or few vowels depending on
+the user's input.</p>
+
+<p>3. Jigsaw puzzles - We already have a great software called
+palapeli with number of slicers making it pretty interesting. What
+needs to be done is to download large number of public domain and
+copyleft images, tease and use IPTC tags to categorise them into
+nature, history etc. and let it loose. This could turn to be really
+huge collection of images. One source could be taken from
+commons.wikimedia.org, others could be huge collection of royalty-free
+stock photos. Potential is immense.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from this, free software suffers in two directions, we lag
+both in development (of using new features per-se) and maintenance a
+lot. This is more so in educational software as these applications
+need to be timely and the opportunity cost of missing deadlines is
+immense. If we are able to solve issues of funding for development and
+maintenance of such software I don't see any big difficulties. I know
+of few start-ups in and around India who would love to develop and
+maintain such software if funding issues could be solved.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
+
+<p>That would be huge list. Some of the softwares are obviously apt,
+aptitude, debdelta, leafpad, the shell of course (zsh nowadays),
+quassel for IRC. In games I use shisen-sho while card-games are evenly
+between kpat and Aiselriot. In desktops it's a tie between
+gnome-flashback and mate.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
+get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
+
+<p>I think it should first start with using specific FOSS apps. in
+whatever environment they are. If it's MS-Windows or Mac so be it.
+Once they are habitual with the apps. and there is buy-in from the
+school management then it could be installed anywhere. Most of the
+people now understand the concept of a repository because of the
+various online stores so it isn't hard to convince on that front.</p>
+
+<p>What is harder is having enough people with technical skills and
+passion to service them. If you get buy-in from one or two teachers
+then ideas like above could also be asked to be done as a project as
+well.</p>
+
+<p>I think where we fall short more than anything is in marketing. For
+instance, Debian has this whole range of fonts in its archive but
+there isn't even a page where all those different fonts in the La
+Ipsum format could be tried out for newcomers.</p>
+
+<p>One of the issues faced constantly in installations is with updates
+and upgrades. People have this myth that each update and upgrade
+means the user interface will / has to change. I have seen this
+innumerable times. That perhaps is one of the reasons which browsers
+like Iceweasel / Firefox change user interfaces so much, not because
+it might be needed or be functional but because people believe that
+changed user interfaces are better. This, can easily be pointed with
+the user interfaces changed with almost every MS-Windows and Mac OS
+releases.</p>
+
+<p>The problems with Debian Edu for deployment are many. The biggest
+is the huge gap between what is taught in schools and what Debian Edu
+is aimed at.
+
+<p>Me and my friends did teach on week-ends in a government school for
+around 2 years, and
+<a href="https://flossexperiences.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/sharings/">gathered
+some experience</a> there. Some of the things we learnt/discovered
+there was :</p>
+
+<ol>
+
+ <li>Most of the teachers are very territorial about their subjects
+ and they do not want you to teach anything out of the
+ portion/syllabus given.</li>
+
+ <li>They want any activity on the system in accordance to whatever
+ is in the syllabus.</li>
+
+ <li>There are huge barriers both with the English language and at
+ times with objects or whatever. An example, let's say in gcompris
+ you have objects falling down and you have to name them and let's
+ say the falling object is a hat or a fedora hat, this would not be
+ as recognizable as say a
+ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puneri_Pagadi">Puneri
+ Pagdi</a> so there is need to inject local objects, words wherever
+ possible. Especially for word-games there are so many hindi words
+ which have become part of english vocabulary (for instance in
+ parley), those could be made into a hinglish collection or
+ something but that is something for upstream to do.</li>
+
+</ol>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ 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>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
+ <div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_released__alpha0_.html">First Jessie based Debian Edu released (alpha0)</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 27th October 2014
+ </div>
+ <div class="body">
+ <p>I am happy to report that I on behalf of the Debian Edu team just
+sent out
+<a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2014/10/msg00000.html">this
+announcement</a>:</p>
+
+<pre>
+The Debian Edu Team is pleased to announce the release of Debian Edu
+Jessie 8.0+edu0~alpha0
+
+Debian Edu is a complete operating system for schools. Through its
+various installation profiles you can install servers, workstations
+and laptops which will work together on the school network. With
+Debian Edu, the teachers themselves or their technical support can
+roll out a complete multi-user multi-machine study environment within
+hours or a few days. Debian Edu comes with hundreds of applications
+pre-installed, but you can always add more packages from Debian.
+
+For those who want to give Debian Edu Jessie a try, download and
+installation instructions are available, including detailed
+instructions in the manual[1] explaining the first steps, such as
+setting up a network or adding users. Please note that the password
+for the user your prompted for during installation must have a length
+of at least 5 characters!
+
+ [1] <URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie</a> >
+
+Would you like to give your school's computer a longer life? Are you
+tired of sneaker administration, running from computer to computer
+reinstalling the operating system? Would you like to administrate all
+the computers in your school using only a couple of hours every week?
+Check out Debian Edu Jessie!
+
+Skolelinux is used by at least two hundred schools all over the world,
+mostly in Germany and Norway.
+
+About Debian Edu and Skolelinux
+===============================
+
+Debian Edu, also known as Skolelinux[2], is a Linux distribution based
+on Debian providing an out-of-the box environment of a completely
+configured school network. Immediately after installation a school
+server running all services needed for a school network is set up just
+waiting for users and machines being added via GOsa², a comfortable
+Web-UI. A netbooting environment is prepared using PXE, so after
+initial installation of the main server from CD or USB stick all other
+machines can be installed via the network. The provided school server
+provides LDAP database and Kerberos authentication service,
+centralized home directories, DHCP server, web proxy and many other
+services. The desktop contains more than 60 educational software
+packages[3] and more are available from the Debian archive, and
+schools can choose between KDE, Gnome, LXDE, Xfce and MATE desktop
+environment.
+
+ [2] <URL: <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">http://www.skolelinux.org/</a> >
+ [3] <URL: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Educational_applications_included_in_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux__the_screenshot_collection____.html</a> >
+
+Full release notes and manual
+=============================
+
+Below the download URLs there is a list of some of the new features
+and bugfixes of Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie. The full
+list is part of the manual. (See the feature list in the manual[4] for
+the English version.) For some languages manual translations are
+available, see the manual translation overview[5].
+
+ [4] <URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Jessie/Features</a> >
+ [5] <URL: <a href="http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/">http://maintainer.skolelinux.org/debian-edu-doc/</a> >
+
+Where to get it
+---------------
+
+To download the multiarch netinstall CD release (624 MiB) you can use
+
+ * <a href="ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso">ftp://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso</a>
+ * <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso">http://ftp.skolelinux.org/skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso</a>
+ * rsync -avzP ftp.skolelinux.org::skolelinux-cd/debian-edu-8.0+edu0~alpha0-CD.iso .
+
+The SHA1SUM of this image is: 361188818e036ce67280a572f757de82ebfeb095
+
+New features for Debian Edu 8.0+edu0~alpha0 Codename Jessie released 2014-10-27
+===============================================================================
+
+
+Installation changes
+--------------------
+
+ * PXE installation now installs firmware automatically for the hardware present.
+
+Software updates
+----------------
+
+Everything which is new in Debian Jessie 8.0, eg:
+
+ * Linux kernel 3.16.x
+ * Desktop environments KDE "Plasma" 4.11.12, GNOME 3.14, Xfce 4.10,
+ LXDE 0.5.6 and MATE 1.8 (KDE "Plasma" is installed by default; to
+ choose one of the others see manual.)
+ * the browsers Iceweasel 31 ESR and Chromium 38
+ * !LibreOffice 4.3.3
+ * GOsa 2.7.4
+ * LTSP 5.5.4
+ * CUPS print system 1.7.5
+ * new boot framework: systemd
+ * Educational toolbox GCompris 14.07
+ * Music creator Rosegarden 14.02
+ * Image editor Gimp 2.8.14
+ * Virtual stargazer Stellarium 0.13.0
+ * golearn 0.9
+ * tuxpaint 0.9.22
+ * New version of debian-installer from Debian Jessie.
+ * Debian Jessie includes about 42000 packages available for
+ installation.
+ * More information about Debian Jessie 8.0 is provided in the release
+ notes[6] and the installation manual[7].
+
+ [6] <URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes</a> >
+ [7] <URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual">http://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual</a> >
+
+Fixed bugs
+----------
+
+ * Inserting incorrect DNS information in Gosa will no longer break
+ DNS completely, but instead stop DNS updates until the incorrect
+ information is corrected (Debian bug #710362)
+ * and many others.
+
+Documentation and translation updates
+-------------------------------------
+
+ * The Debian Edu Jessie Manual is fully translated to German, French,
+ Italian, Danish and Dutch. Partly translated versions exist for
+ Norwegian Bokmal and Spanish.
+
+Other changes
+-------------
+
+ * Due to new Squid settings, powering off or rebooting the main
+ server takes more time.
+ * To manage printers localhost:631 has to be used, currently www:631
+ doesn't work.
+
+Regressions / known problems
+----------------------------
+
+ * Installing LTSP chroot fails with a bug related to eatmydata about
+ exim4-config failing to run its postinst (see Debian bug #765694
+ and Debian bug #762103).
+ * Munin collection is not properly configured on clients (Debian bug
+ #764594). The fix is available in a newer version of munin-node.
+ * PXE setup for Main Server and Thin Client Server setup does not
+ work when installing on a machine without direct Internet access.
+ Will be fixed when Debian bug #766960 is fixed in Jessie.
+
+See the status page[8] for the complete list.
+
+ [8] <URL: <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Status/Jessie</a> >
+
+How to report bugs
+------------------
+
+<URL: <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs">http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/HowTo/ReportBugs</a> >
+
+About Debian
+============
+
+The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly
+free community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of
+the largest and most influential open source projects. Thousands of
+volunteers from all over the world work together to create and
+maintain Debian software. Available in 70 languages, and supporting a
+huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal
+operating system.
+
+Contact Information
+For further information, please visit the Debian web pages[9] or send
+mail to press@debian.org.
+
+ [9] <URL: <a href="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</a> >
+</pre>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+ 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>.
+
+
+ </div>
+ </div>
+ <div class="padding"></div>
+
projects / homepage.git / blobdiff