</div>
</div>
+<div class="padding"></div>
+
+<div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <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>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 2010-09-04 10:10
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="body">
+
+<p>In the <a href="http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote">Debian
+popularity-contest numbers</a>, the adobe-flashplugin package the
+second most popular used package that is missing in Debian. The sixth
+most popular is flashplayer-mozilla. This is a clear indication that
+working flash is important for Debian users. Around 10 percent of the
+users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
+installed.</p>
+
+<p>In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
+(«<a href="http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf">Skolelinux
+i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
+stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs</a>»), one of the most important problems
+schools experienced with <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
+Edu/Skolelinux</a> was the lack of working Flash. A lot of educational
+web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
+the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
+good reason to stay with Windows.</p>
+
+<p>I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
+said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
+everything you told him but could work fairly well. This was a
+comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
+non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
+understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
+example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
+it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
+distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
+pages they want to visit.</p>
+
+<p>This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
+and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
+distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
+Video to working out of the box. For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
+to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
+the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
+unstable. The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
+The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
+release team have not had time to reply to it yet. I hope they agree
+with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
+accept the new package into Squeeze.</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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
+
+ </div>
+</div>
+<div class="padding"></div>
+
+<div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html">Software updates 2010-10-24</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 2010-10-24 22:45
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="body">
+
+<p>Some updates.</p>
+
+<p>My <a href="http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2">gnash pledge</a> to
+raise money for the project is going well. The lower limit of 10
+signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
+More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
+how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
+:)</p>
+
+<p>On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
+about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
+generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
+It is called
+<a href="http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html">kcov</a>,
+and can be used using <tt>kcov <directory> <binary></tt>.
+It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
+after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
+libglib2.0-dev. Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
+solvable. I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.</p>
+
+<p>Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for <a
+href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html">a
+new alpha release of Debian Edu</a>, and just published the second
+alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
+<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Skolelinux</a>
+release. Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
+school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
+client servers and diskless workstations. A nice touch added
+yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
+clients to get a Linux desktop on request.</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>.
+
+ </div>
+</div>
+<div class="padding"></div>
+
+<div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_in_3D.html">Debian in 3D</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 2010-11-09 16:10
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="body">
+
+<p><img src="http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/23/e0/c4/f9/2b/debswagtdose_preview_medium.jpg"></p>
+
+<p>3D printing is just great. I just came across this Debian logo in
+3D linked in from
+<a href="http://blog.thingiverse.com/2010/11/09/participatory-branding/">the
+thingiverse blog</a>.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+
+ 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>.
+
+ </div>
+</div>
+<div class="padding"></div>
+
+<div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_buildbot_slave_and_Debian_kfreebsd.html">Gnash buildbot slave and Debian kfreebsd</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 2010-11-20 07:20
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="body">
+
+<p>Answering
+<a href="http://www.listware.net/201011/gnash-dev/67431-gnash-dev-buildbot-looking-for-slaves.html">the
+call from the Gnash project</a> for
+<a href="http://www.gnashdev.org:8010">buildbot</a> slaves to test the
+current source, I have set up a virtual KVM machine on the Debian
+Edu/Skolelinux virtualization host to test the git source on
+Debian/Squeeze. I hope this can help the developers in getting new
+releases out more often.</p>
+
+<p>As the developers want less main-stream build platforms tested to,
+I have considered setting up a <a
+href="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/">Debian/kfreebsd</a>
+machine as well. I have also considered using the kfreebsd
+architecture in Debian as a file server in NUUG to get access to the 5
+TB zfs volume we currently use to store DV video. Because of this, I
+finally got around to do a test installation of Debian/Squeeze with
+kfreebsd. Installation went fairly smooth, thought I noticed some
+visual glitches in the cdebconf dialogs (black cursor left on the
+screen at random locations). Have not gotten very far with the
+testing. Noticed cfdisk did not work, but fdisk did so it was not a
+fatal problem. Have to spend some more time on it to see if it is
+useful as a file server for NUUG. Will try to find time to set up a
+gnash buildbot slave on the Debian Edu/Skolelinux this weekend.</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/nuug">nuug</a>.
+
+ </div>
+</div>
+<div class="padding"></div>
+
+<div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <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>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 2010-11-20 22:50
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="body">
+
+<p>I'm still running upgrade testing of the
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
+Gnome and KDE Desktop</a>, but have not had time to spend on reporting the
+status. Here is a short update based on a test I ran 20101118.</p>
+
+<p>I still do not know what a correct migration should look like, so I
+report any differences between apt and aptitude and hope someone else
+can see if anything should be changed.</p>
+
+<p>This is for Gnome:</p>
+
+<p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ apache2.2-bin aptdaemon at-spi baobab binfmt-support
+ browser-plugin-gnash cheese-common cli-common cpp-4.3 cups-pk-helper
+ dmz-cursor-theme empathy empathy-common finger
+ freedesktop-sound-theme freeglut3 gconf-defaults-service gdm-themes
+ gedit-plugins geoclue geoclue-hostip geoclue-localnet geoclue-manual
+ geoclue-yahoo gnash gnash-common gnome gnome-backgrounds
+ gnome-cards-data gnome-codec-install gnome-core
+ gnome-desktop-environment gnome-disk-utility gnome-screenshot
+ gnome-search-tool gnome-session-canberra gnome-spell
+ gnome-system-log gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more
+ gnome-user-share gs-common gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
+ gstreamer0.10-tools gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
+ gtk2-engines-smooth hal-info hamster-applet libapache2-mod-dnssd
+ libapr1 libaprutil1 libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap
+ libart2.0-cil libatspi1.0-0 libboost-date-time1.42.0
+ libboost-python1.42.0 libboost-thread1.42.0 libchamplain-0.4-0
+ libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0 libcheese-gtk18 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
+ libcryptui0 libcupsys2 libdiscid0 libeel2-data libelf1 libepc-1.0-2
+ libepc-common libepc-ui-1.0-2 libfreerdp-plugins-standard
+ libfreerdp0 libgail-common libgconf2.0-cil libgdata-common libgdata7
+ libgdl-1-common libgdu-gtk0 libgee2 libgeoclue0 libgexiv2-0 libgif4
+ libglade2.0-cil libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.4-cil libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
+ libgnome2.24-cil libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeprint2.2-data
+ libgnomeprintui2.2-common libgnomevfs2-bin libgpod-common libgpod4
+ libgtk2.0-cil libgtkglext1 libgtksourceview-common
+ libgtksourceview2.0-common libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
+ libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil
+ libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil
+ libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
+ libmono-system2.0-cil libmtp8 libmusicbrainz3-6
+ libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libopal3.6.8
+ libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpt-1.10.10-plugins-alsa
+ libpt-1.10.10-plugins-v4l libpt2.6.7 libpython2.6 librpm1 librpmio1
+ libsdl1.2debian libservlet2.4-java libsrtp0 libssh-4
+ libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtidy-0.99-0
+ libxalan2-java libxerces2-java media-player-info mesa-utils
+ mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime nautilus-sendto
+ nautilus-sendto-empathy openoffice.org-writer2latex
+ openssl-blacklist p7zip p7zip-full pkg-config python-4suite-xml
+ python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-axiom
+ python-beautifulsoup python-bugbuddy python-clientform
+ python-coherence python-configobj python-crypto python-cupshelpers
+ python-cupsutils python-eggtrayicon python-elementtree
+ python-epsilon python-evolution python-feedparser python-gdata
+ python-gdbm python-gst0.10 python-gtkglext1 python-gtkmozembed
+ python-gtksourceview2 python-httplib2 python-louie python-mako
+ python-markupsafe python-mechanize python-nevow python-notify
+ python-opengl python-openssl python-pam python-pkg-resources
+ python-pyasn1 python-pysqlite2 python-rdflib python-serial
+ python-tagpy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-conch
+ python-twisted-core python-twisted-web python-utidylib python-webkit
+ python-xdg python-zope.interface remmina remmina-plugin-data
+ remmina-plugin-rdp remmina-plugin-vnc rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
+ rhythmbox-plugins rpm-common rpm2cpio seahorse-plugins shotwell
+ software-center svgalibg1 system-config-printer-udev
+ telepathy-gabble telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy
+ totem totem-coherence totem-mozilla totem-plugins
+ transmission-common xdg-user-dirs xdg-user-dirs-gtk xserver-xephyr
+ zip
+</p></blockquote>
+
+Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ arj bluez-utils cheese dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop ekiga eog
+ epiphany-extensions epiphany-gecko evolution-exchange
+ fast-user-switch-applet file-roller gcalctool gconf-editor gdm gedit
+ gedit-common gnome-app-install gnome-games gnome-games-data
+ gnome-nettool gnome-system-tools gnome-themes gnome-utils
+ gnome-vfs-obexftp gnome-volume-manager gnuchess gucharmap
+ guile-1.8-libs hal libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 libavahi-core5
+ libavahi-ui0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2 libcamel1.2-11 libcdio7
+ libcucul0 libcurl3 libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdmx1 libdvdread3
+ libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-9 libeel2-2.20 libepc-1.0-1
+ libepc-ui-1.0-1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libfaad0 libgadu3
+ libgalago3 libgd2-noxpm libgda3-3 libgda3-common libggz2 libggzcore9
+ libggzmod4 libgksu1.2-0 libgksuui1.0-1 libgmyth0 libgnome-desktop-2
+ libgnome-pilot2 libgnomecups1.0-1 libgnomeprint2.2-0
+ libgnomeprintui2.2-0 libgpod3 libgraphviz4 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
+ libgtkhtml2-0 libgtksourceview1.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-0
+ libgucharmap6 libhesiod0 libicu38 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
+ libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libkpathsea4 liblircclient0 libltdl3 liblwres50
+ libmagick++10 libmagick10 libmalaga7 libmozjs1d libmpfr1ldbl libmtp7
+ libmysqlclient15off libnautilus-burn4 libneon27 libnm-glib0
+ libnm-util0 libopal-2.2 libosp5 libparted1.8-10 libpisock9
+ libpisync1 libpoppler-glib3 libpoppler3 libpt-1.10.10 libraw1394-8
+ libsdl1.2debian-alsa libsensors3 libsexy2 libsmbios2 libsoup2.2-8
+ libspeexdsp1 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libsvga1
+ libswfdec-0.6-90 libtalloc1 libtotem-plparser10 libtrackerclient0
+ libvoikko1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxklavier12
+ libxtrap6 libxxf86misc1 libzephyr3 mysql-common rhythmbox seahorse
+ sound-juicer swfdec-gnome system-config-printer totem-common
+ totem-gstreamer transmission-gtk vinagre vino w3c-dtd-xhtml wodim
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+[nothing]
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This is for KDE:</p>
+
+<p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ autopoint bomber bovo cantor cantor-backend-kalgebra cpp-4.3 dcoprss
+ edict espeak espeak-data eyesapplet fifteenapplet finger gettext
+ ghostscript-x git gnome-audio gnugo granatier gs-common
+ gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio indi kaddressbook-plugins kalgebra
+ kalzium-data kanjidic kapman kate-plugins kblocks kbreakout kbstate
+ kde-icons-mono kdeaccessibility kdeaddons-kfile-plugins
+ kdeadmin-kfile-plugins kdeartwork-misc kdeartwork-theme-window
+ kdeedu kdeedu-data kdeedu-kvtml-data kdegames kdegames-card-data
+ kdegames-mahjongg-data kdegraphics-kfile-plugins kdelirc
+ kdemultimedia-kfile-plugins kdenetwork-kfile-plugins
+ kdepim-kfile-plugins kdepim-kio-plugins kdessh kdetoys kdewebdev
+ kdiamond kdnssd kfilereplace kfourinline kgeography-data kigo
+ killbots kiriki klettres-data kmoon kmrml knewsticker-scripts
+ kollision kpf krosspython ksirk ksmserver ksquares kstars-data
+ ksudoku kubrick kweather libasound2-plugins libboost-python1.42.0
+ libcfitsio3 libconvert-binhex-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libdb4.6++
+ libdjvulibre-text libdotconf1.0 liberror-perl libespeak1
+ libfinance-quote-perl libgail-common libgsl0ldbl libhtml-parser-perl
+ libhtml-tableextract-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl
+ libio-stringy-perl libkdeedu4 libkdegames5 libkiten4 libkpathsea5
+ libkrossui4 libmailtools-perl libmime-tools-perl
+ libnews-nntpclient-perl libopenbabel3 libportaudio2 libpulse-browse0
+ libservlet2.4-java libspeechd2 libtiff-tools libtimedate-perl
+ libunistring0 liburi-perl libwww-perl libxalan2-java libxerces2-java
+ lirc luatex marble networkstatus noatun-plugins
+ openoffice.org-writer2latex palapeli palapeli-data parley
+ parley-data poster psutils pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat
+ pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils quanta-data rocs rsync
+ speech-dispatcher step svgalibg1 texlive-binaries texlive-luatex
+ ttf-sazanami-gothic
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ amor artsbuilder atlantik atlantikdesigner blinken bluez-utils cvs
+ dhcdbd djvulibre-desktop imlib-base imlib11 kalzium kanagram kandy
+ kasteroids katomic kbackgammon kbattleship kblackbox kbounce kbruch
+ kcron kdat kdemultimedia-kappfinder-data kdeprint kdict kdvi kedit
+ keduca kenolaba kfax kfaxview kfouleggs kgeography kghostview
+ kgoldrunner khangman khexedit kiconedit kig kimagemapeditor
+ kitchensync kiten kjumpingcube klatin klettres klickety klines
+ klinkstatus kmag kmahjongg kmailcvt kmenuedit kmid kmilo kmines
+ kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk kodo kolf kommander konquest kooka
+ kpager kpat kpdf kpercentage kpilot kpoker kpovmodeler krec
+ kregexpeditor kreversi ksame ksayit kshisen ksig ksim ksirc ksirtet
+ ksmiletris ksnake ksokoban kspaceduel kstars ksvg ksysv kteatime
+ ktip ktnef ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuickshow
+ kverbos kview kviewshell kvoctrain kwifimanager kwin kwin4 kwordquiz
+ kworldclock kxsldbg libakode2 libarts1-akode libarts1-audiofile
+ libarts1-mpeglib libarts1-xine libavahi-compat-libdnssd1
+ libavahi-core5 libavc1394-0 libbind9-50 libbluetooth2
+ libboost-python1.34.1 libcucul0 libcurl3 libcvsservice0
+ libdirectfb-1.0-0 libdjvulibre21 libdvdread3 libfaad0 libfreebob0
+ libgd2-noxpm libgraphviz4 libgsmme1c2a libgtkhtml2-0 libicu38
+ libiec61883-0 libindex0 libisccc50 libisccfg50 libiw29
+ libjaxp1.3-java-gcj libk3b3 libkcal2b libkcddb1 libkdeedu3
+ libkdegames1 libkdepim1a libkgantt0 libkleopatra1 libkmime2
+ libkpathsea4 libkpimexchange1 libkpimidentities1 libkscan1
+ libksieve0 libktnef1 liblockdev1 libltdl3 liblwres50 libmagick10
+ libmimelib1c2a libmodplug0c2 libmozjs1d libmpcdec3 libmpfr1ldbl
+ libneon27 libnm-util0 libopensync0 libpisock9 libpoppler-glib3
+ libpoppler-qt2 libpoppler3 libraw1394-8 librss1 libsensors3
+ libsmbios2 libssh2-1 libsuitesparse-3.1.0 libswfdec-0.6-90
+ libtalloc1 libxalan2-java-gcj libxerces2-java-gcj libxtrap6 lskat
+ mpeglib network-manager-kde noatun pmount tex-common texlive-base
+ texlive-common texlive-doc-base texlive-fonts-recommended tidy
+ ttf-dustin ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-sjfonts
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ dolphin kde-core kde-plasma-desktop kde-standard kde-window-manager
+ kdeartwork kdebase kdebase-apps kdebase-workspace
+ kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdeutils kscreensaver
+ kscreensaver-xsavers libgle3 libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libnetpbm10
+ netpbm plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-networkmanagement
+ xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
+ xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ kdebase-bin konq-plugins konqueror
+</p></blockquote>
+
+ </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>.
+
+ </div>
+</div>
+<div class="padding"></div>
+
+<div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <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>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 2010-11-22 11:20
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="body">
+
+<p>Most of the computers in use by the
+<a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu/Skolelinux project</a>
+are virtual machines. And they have been Xen machines running on a
+fairly old IBM eserver xseries 345 machine, and we wanted to migrate
+them to KVM on a newer Dell PowerEdge 2950 host machine. This was a
+bit harder that it could have been, because we set up the Xen virtual
+machines to get the virtual partitions from LVM, which as far as I
+know is not supported by KVM. So to migrate, we had to convert
+several LVM logical volumes to partitions on a virtual disk file.</p>
+
+<p>I found
+<a href="http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM">a
+nice recipe</a> to do this, and wrote the following script to do the
+migration. It uses qemu-img from the qemu package to make the disk
+image, parted to partition it, losetup and kpartx to present the disk
+image partions as devices, and dd to copy the data. I NFS mounted the
+new servers storage area on the old server to do the migration.</p>
+
+<pre>
+#!/bin/sh
+
+# Based on
+# http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com.au/articles/35011-Six-steps-for-migrating-Xen-virtual-machines-to-KVM
+
+set -e
+set -x
+
+if [ -z "$1" ] ; then
+ echo "Usage: $0 <hostname>"
+ exit 1
+else
+ host="$1"
+fi
+
+if [ ! -e /dev/vg_data/$host-disk ] ; then
+ echo "error: unable to find LVM volume for $host"
+ exit 1
+fi
+
+# Partitions need to be a bit bigger than the LVM LVs. not sure why.
+disksize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-disk | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
+swapsize=$( lvs --units m | grep $host-swap | awk '{sum = sum + $4} END { print int(sum * 1.05) }')
+totalsize=$(( ( $disksize + $swapsize ) ))
+
+img=$host.img
+#dd if=/dev/zero of=$img bs=1M count=$(( $disksize + $swapsize ))
+qemu-img create $img ${totalsize}MMaking room on the Debian Edu/Sqeeze DVD
+
+parted $img mklabel msdos
+parted $img mkpart primary linux-swap 0 $disksize
+parted $img mkpart primary ext2 $disksize $totalsize
+parted $img set 1 boot on
+
+modprobe dm-mod
+losetup /dev/loop0 $img
+kpartx -a /dev/loop0
+
+dd if=/dev/vg_data/$host-disk of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 bs=1M
+fsck.ext3 -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 || true
+mkswap /dev/mapper/loop0p2
+
+kpartx -d /dev/loop0
+losetup -d /dev/loop0
+</pre>
+
+<p>The script is perhaps so simple that it is not copyrightable, but
+if it is, it is licenced using GPL v2 or later at your discretion.</p>
+
+<p>After doing this, I booted a Debian CD in rescue mode in KVM with
+the new disk image attached, installed grub-pc and linux-image-686 and
+set up grub to boot from the disk image. After this, the KVM machines
+seem to work just fine.</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>.
+
+ </div>
+</div>
+<div class="padding"></div>
+
+<div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <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>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 2010-11-22 14:15
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="body">
+
+<p>Michael Biebl suggested to me on IRC, that I changed my automated
+upgrade testing of the
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/~pere/debian-upgrade-testing/">Lenny
+Gnome and KDE Desktop</a> to do <tt>apt-get autoremove</tt> when using apt-get.
+This seem like a very good idea, so I adjusted by test scripts and
+can now present the updated result from today:</p>
+
+<p>This is for Gnome:</p>
+
+<p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ apache2.2-bin
+ aptdaemon
+ baobab
+ binfmt-support
+ browser-plugin-gnash
+ cheese-common
+ cli-common
+ cups-pk-helper
+ dmz-cursor-theme
+ empathy
+ empathy-common
+ freedesktop-sound-theme
+ freeglut3
+ gconf-defaults-service
+ gdm-themes
+ gedit-plugins
+ geoclue
+ geoclue-hostip
+ geoclue-localnet
+ geoclue-manual
+ geoclue-yahoo
+ gnash
+ gnash-common
+ gnome
+ gnome-backgrounds
+ gnome-cards-data
+ gnome-codec-install
+ gnome-core
+ gnome-desktop-environment
+ gnome-disk-utility
+ gnome-screenshot
+ gnome-search-tool
+ gnome-session-canberra
+ gnome-system-log
+ gnome-themes-extras
+ gnome-themes-more
+ gnome-user-share
+ gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
+ gstreamer0.10-tools
+ gtk2-engines
+ gtk2-engines-pixbuf
+ gtk2-engines-smooth
+ hamster-applet
+ libapache2-mod-dnssd
+ libapr1
+ libaprutil1
+ libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
+ libaprutil1-ldap
+ libart2.0-cil
+ libboost-date-time1.42.0
+ libboost-python1.42.0
+ libboost-thread1.42.0
+ libchamplain-0.4-0
+ libchamplain-gtk-0.4-0
+ libcheese-gtk18
+ libclutter-gtk-0.10-0
+ libcryptui0
+ libdiscid0
+ libelf1
+ libepc-1.0-2
+ libepc-common
+ libepc-ui-1.0-2
+ libfreerdp-plugins-standard
+ libfreerdp0
+ libgconf2.0-cil
+ libgdata-common
+ libgdata7
+ libgdu-gtk0
+ libgee2
+ libgeoclue0
+ libgexiv2-0
+ libgif4
+ libglade2.0-cil
+ libglib2.0-cil
+ libgmime2.4-cil
+ libgnome-vfs2.0-cil
+ libgnome2.24-cil
+ libgnomepanel2.24-cil
+ libgpod-common
+ libgpod4
+ libgtk2.0-cil
+ libgtkglext1
+ libgtksourceview2.0-common
+ libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
+ libmono-addins0.2-cil
+ libmono-cairo2.0-cil
+ libmono-corlib2.0-cil
+ libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil
+ libmono-posix2.0-cil
+ libmono-security2.0-cil
+ libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil
+ libmono-system2.0-cil
+ libmtp8
+ libmusicbrainz3-6
+ libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil
+ libndesk-dbus1.0-cil
+ libopal3.6.8
+ libpolkit-gtk-1-0
+ libpt2.6.7
+ libpython2.6
+ librpm1
+ librpmio1
+ libsdl1.2debian
+ libsrtp0
+ libssh-4
+ libtelepathy-farsight0
+ libtelepathy-glib0
+ libtidy-0.99-0
+ media-player-info
+ mesa-utils
+ mono-2.0-gac
+ mono-gac
+ mono-runtime
+ nautilus-sendto
+ nautilus-sendto-empathy
+ p7zip-full
+ pkg-config
+ python-aptdaemon
+ python-aptdaemon-gtk
+ python-axiom
+ python-beautifulsoup
+ python-bugbuddy
+ python-clientform
+ python-coherence
+ python-configobj
+ python-crypto
+ python-cupshelpers
+ python-elementtree
+ python-epsilon
+ python-evolution
+ python-feedparser
+ python-gdata
+ python-gdbm
+ python-gst0.10
+ python-gtkglext1
+ python-gtksourceview2
+ python-httplib2
+ python-louie
+ python-mako
+ python-markupsafe
+ python-mechanize
+ python-nevow
+ python-notify
+ python-opengl
+ python-openssl
+ python-pam
+ python-pkg-resources
+ python-pyasn1
+ python-pysqlite2
+ python-rdflib
+ python-serial
+ python-tagpy
+ python-twisted-bin
+ python-twisted-conch
+ python-twisted-core
+ python-twisted-web
+ python-utidylib
+ python-webkit
+ python-xdg
+ python-zope.interface
+ remmina
+ remmina-plugin-data
+ remmina-plugin-rdp
+ remmina-plugin-vnc
+ rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder
+ rhythmbox-plugins
+ rpm-common
+ rpm2cpio
+ seahorse-plugins
+ shotwell
+ software-center
+ system-config-printer-udev
+ telepathy-gabble
+ telepathy-mission-control-5
+ telepathy-salut
+ tomboy
+ totem
+ totem-coherence
+ totem-mozilla
+ totem-plugins
+ transmission-common
+ xdg-user-dirs
+ xdg-user-dirs-gtk
+ xserver-xephyr
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ cheese
+ ekiga
+ eog
+ epiphany-extensions
+ evolution-exchange
+ fast-user-switch-applet
+ file-roller
+ gcalctool
+ gconf-editor
+ gdm
+ gedit
+ gedit-common
+ gnome-games
+ gnome-games-data
+ gnome-nettool
+ gnome-system-tools
+ gnome-themes
+ gnuchess
+ gucharmap
+ guile-1.8-libs
+ libavahi-ui0
+ libdmx1
+ libgalago3
+ libgtk-vnc-1.0-0
+ libgtksourceview2.0-0
+ liblircclient0
+ libsdl1.2debian-alsa
+ libspeexdsp1
+ libsvga1
+ rhythmbox
+ seahorse
+ sound-juicer
+ system-config-printer
+ totem-common
+ transmission-gtk
+ vinagre
+ vino
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+[nothing]
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This is for KDE:</p>
+
+<p>Installed using apt-get, missing with aptitude</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ ksmserver
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Installed using apt-get, removed with aptitude</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ kwin
+ network-manager-kde
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Installed using aptitude, missing with apt-get</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ arts
+ dolphin
+ freespacenotifier
+ google-gadgets-gst
+ google-gadgets-xul
+ kappfinder
+ kcalc
+ kcharselect
+ kde-core
+ kde-plasma-desktop
+ kde-standard
+ kde-window-manager
+ kdeartwork
+ kdeartwork-emoticons
+ kdeartwork-style
+ kdeartwork-theme-icon
+ kdebase
+ kdebase-apps
+ kdebase-workspace
+ kdebase-workspace-bin
+ kdebase-workspace-data
+ kdeeject
+ kdelibs
+ kdeplasma-addons
+ kdeutils
+ kdewallpapers
+ kdf
+ kfloppy
+ kgpg
+ khelpcenter4
+ kinfocenter
+ konq-plugins-l10n
+ konqueror-nsplugins
+ kscreensaver
+ kscreensaver-xsavers
+ ktimer
+ kwrite
+ libgle3
+ libkde4-ruby1.8
+ libkonq5
+ libkonq5-templates
+ libnetpbm10
+ libplasma-ruby
+ libplasma-ruby1.8
+ libqt4-ruby1.8
+ marble-data
+ marble-plugins
+ netpbm
+ nuvola-icon-theme
+ plasma-dataengines-workspace
+ plasma-desktop
+ plasma-desktopthemes-artwork
+ plasma-runners-addons
+ plasma-scriptengine-googlegadgets
+ plasma-scriptengine-python
+ plasma-scriptengine-qedje
+ plasma-scriptengine-ruby
+ plasma-scriptengine-webkit
+ plasma-scriptengines
+ plasma-wallpapers-addons
+ plasma-widget-folderview
+ plasma-widget-networkmanagement
+ ruby
+ sweeper
+ update-notifier-kde
+ xscreensaver-data-extra
+ xscreensaver-gl
+ xscreensaver-gl-extra
+ xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Installed using aptitude, removed with apt-get</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+ ark
+ google-gadgets-common
+ google-gadgets-qt
+ htdig
+ kate
+ kdebase-bin
+ kdebase-data
+ kdepasswd
+ kfind
+ klipper
+ konq-plugins
+ konqueror
+ ksysguard
+ ksysguardd
+ libarchive1
+ libcln6
+ libeet1
+ libeina-svn-06
+ libggadget-1.0-0b
+ libggadget-qt-1.0-0b
+ libgps19
+ libkdecorations4
+ libkephal4
+ libkonq4
+ libkonqsidebarplugin4a
+ libkscreensaver5
+ libksgrd4
+ libksignalplotter4
+ libkunitconversion4
+ libkwineffects1a
+ libmarblewidget4
+ libntrack-qt4-1
+ libntrack0
+ libplasma-geolocation-interface4
+ libplasmaclock4a
+ libplasmagenericshell4
+ libprocesscore4a
+ libprocessui4a
+ libqalculate5
+ libqedje0a
+ libqtruby4shared2
+ libqzion0a
+ libruby1.8
+ libscim8c2a
+ libsmokekdecore4-3
+ libsmokekdeui4-3
+ libsmokekfile3
+ libsmokekhtml3
+ libsmokekio3
+ libsmokeknewstuff2-3
+ libsmokeknewstuff3-3
+ libsmokekparts3
+ libsmokektexteditor3
+ libsmokekutils3
+ libsmokenepomuk3
+ libsmokephonon3
+ libsmokeplasma3
+ libsmokeqtcore4-3
+ libsmokeqtdbus4-3
+ libsmokeqtgui4-3
+ libsmokeqtnetwork4-3
+ libsmokeqtopengl4-3
+ libsmokeqtscript4-3
+ libsmokeqtsql4-3
+ libsmokeqtsvg4-3
+ libsmokeqttest4-3
+ libsmokeqtuitools4-3
+ libsmokeqtwebkit4-3
+ libsmokeqtxml4-3
+ libsmokesolid3
+ libsmokesoprano3
+ libtaskmanager4a
+ libtidy-0.99-0
+ libweather-ion4a
+ libxklavier16
+ libxxf86misc1
+ okteta
+ oxygencursors
+ plasma-dataengines-addons
+ plasma-scriptengine-superkaramba
+ plasma-widget-lancelot
+ plasma-widgets-addons
+ plasma-widgets-workspace
+ polkit-kde-1
+ ruby1.8
+ systemsettings
+ update-notifier-common
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Running apt-get autoremove made the results using apt-get and
+aptitude a bit more similar, but there are still quite a lott of
+differences. I have no idea what packages should be installed after
+the upgrade, but hope those that do can have a look.</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>.
+
+ </div>
+</div>
+<div class="padding"></div>
+
+<div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html">Why isn't Debian Edu using VLC?</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 2010-11-27 11:30
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="body">
+
+<p>In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
+presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
+Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
+to play a video file or stream. Only if VLC fail will I drag out
+gmplayer to see if it can do better. The reason is mostly the failure
+model and trust. When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
+reporting the problem. When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
+just hangs. The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.<p>
+
+<p>But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
+mplayer in <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian
+Edu/Skolelinux</a>. The reason is simple. We need a good browser
+plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
+not very good. For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
+is no way for the user to pause the video. Also, when I
+<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia">last
+tested the browser plugins</a> available in Debian, the VLC plugin
+failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked. If
+the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
+package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.</P>
+
+<p>While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
+annoying. The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
+keyboard shortcuts. When the player is in full screen mode, its
+shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
+For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode. I
+wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
+window mode. Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
+the current video. It is very nice when playing short videos from the
+web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
+what is going on.</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>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web</a>.
+
+ </div>
+</div>
+<div class="padding"></div>
+
+<div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <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>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 2010-12-10 08:20
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="body">
+
+<p>With this weeks lawless
+<a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/06/wikileaks/index.html">governmental
+attacks</a> on Wikileak and
+<a href="http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/06/war_on_speech">free
+speech</a>, it has become obvious that PayPal, visa and mastercard can
+not be trusted to handle money transactions.
+A blog post from
+<a href="http://webmink.com/2010/12/06/now-accepting-bitcoin/">Simon
+Phipps on bitcoin</a> reminded me about a project that a friend of
+mine mentioned earlier. I decided to follow Simon's example, and get
+involved with <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>. I got
+some help from my friend to get it all running, and he even handed me
+some bitcoins to get started. I even donated a few bitcoins to Simon
+for helping me remember BitCoin.</p>
+
+<p>So, what is bitcoins, you probably wonder? It is a digital
+crypto-currency, decentralised and handled using peer-to-peer
+networks. It allows anonymous transactions and prohibits central
+control over the transactions, making it impossible for governments
+and companies alike to block donations and other transactions. The
+source is free software, and while the key dependency wxWidgets 2.9
+for the graphical user interface is missing in Debian, the command
+line client builds just fine. Hopefully Jonas
+<a href="http://bugs.debian.org/578157">will get the package into
+Debian</a> soon.</p>
+
+<p>Bitcoins can be converted to other currencies, like USD and EUR.
+There are <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/trade">companies accepting
+bitcoins</a> when selling services and goods, and there are even
+currency "stock" markets where the exchange rate is decided. There
+are not many users so far, but the concept seems promising. If you
+want to get started and lack a friend with any bitcoins to spare,
+you can even get
+<a href="https://freebitcoins.appspot.com/">some for free</a> (0.05
+bitcoin at the time of writing). Use
+<a href="http://www.bitcoinwatch.com/">BitcoinWatch</a> to keep an eye
+on the current exchange rates.</p>
+
+<p>As an experiment, I have decided to set up bitcoind on one of my
+machines. If you want to support my activity, please send Bitcoin
+donations to the address
+<b>15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</b>. Thank you!</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+
+ 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>.
+
+ </div>
+</div>
+<div class="padding"></div>
+
+<div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html">Some thoughts on BitCoins</a>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 2010-12-11 15:10
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="body">
+
+<p>As I continue to explore
+<a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder
+what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws
+and regulations here in Norway. Here are some random notes.</p>
+
+<p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are
+verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction
+is known to everyone. This means that if a BitCoin address has been
+published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is
+possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to
+that address. There is even a web service to look at the details for
+all transactions. There I can see that my address
+<a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a>
+have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the
+<a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a>
+address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address
+<a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A>
+of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far. Thank you to each and
+every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The
+fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given
+address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to
+generate and hand out a new address for each transaction. I'm told
+there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or
+organisation without the person or organisation revealing it
+themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p>
+
+<p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and
+regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border
+without declaring it. There are money laundering, tax and accounting
+laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin.
+If the Skolelinux foundation
+(<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX
+Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to
+normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted?
+Given that it is impossible to know if money can across the border or
+not, should everything or nothing be declared? What exchange rate
+should be used when calculating taxes? Would receivers have to pay
+income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in
+BitCoin? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p>
+
+<p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and
+accepted by a lot of users. It must be possible to get easy access to
+the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be
+easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get
+access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really
+a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin,
+so I wonder when my kind of shop would start accepting BitCoins. I
+would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs
+and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time
+if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby
+to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular. I'm sure they
+will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which
+probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I
+believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming
+currencies.</p>
+
+<p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is
+CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is
+competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles
+to see which one get the next lump of cash). The "winner" get 50
+BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to
+join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins,
+by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines
+and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50
+BitCoins. Check out
+<a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a>
+if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a
+machine to participate there yet, but have seen that running on ones
+own for a few days have not yield any BitCoins througth mining
+yet.</p>
+
+<p>Update 2010-12-15: Found an <a
+href="http://inertia.posterous.com/reply-to-the-underground-economist-why-bitcoi">interesting
+criticism</a> of bitcoin. Not quite sure how valid it is, but thought
+it was interesting to read. The arguments presented seem to be
+equally valid for gold, which was used as a currency for many years.</p>
+
+ </div>
+ <div class="tags">
+
+
+
+ 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>.
+
+ </div>
+</div>
+<div class="padding"></div>
+
+<div class="entry">
+ <div class="title">
+ <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>
+ </div>
+ <div class="date">
+ 2010-12-22 14:55
+ </div>
+
+ <div class="body">
+
+<p>The last few days I have spent at work here at the <a
+href="http://www.uio.no/">University of oslo</a> testing if the new
+batch of computers will work with Linux. Every year for the last few
+years the university have organized shared bid of a few thousand
+computers, and this year HP won the bid. Two different desktops and
+five different laptops are on the list this year. We in the UNIX
+group want to know which one of these computers work well with RHEL
+and Ubuntu, the two Linux distributions we currently handle at the
+university.</p>
+
+<p>My test method is simple, and I share it here to get feedback and
+perhaps inspire others to test hardware as well. To test, I PXE
+install the OS version of choice, and log in as my normal user and run
+a few applications and plug in selected pieces of hardware. When
+something fail, I make a note about this in the test matrix and move
+on. If I have some spare time I try to report the bug to the OS
+vendor, but as I only have the machines for a short time, I rarely
+have the time to do this for all the problems I find.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, to get to the point of this post. Here is the simple tests
+I perform on a new model.</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>Is PXE installation working? I'm testing with RHEL6, Ubuntu Lucid
+and Ubuntu Maverik at the moment. If I feel like it, I also test with
+RHEL5 and Debian Edu/Squeeze.</li>
+
+<li>Is X.org working? If the graphical login screen show up after
+installation, X.org is working.</li>
+
+<li>Is hardware accelerated OpenGL working? Running glxgears (in
+package mesa-utils on Ubuntu) and writing down the frames per second
+reported by the program.</li>
+
+<li>Is sound working? With Gnome and KDE, a sound is played when
+logging in, and if I can hear this the test is successful. If there
+are several audio exits on the machine, I try them all and check if
+the Gnome/KDE audio mixer can control where to send the sound. I
+normally test this by playing
+<a href="http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20101012-chef/ ">a HTML5
+video</a> in Firefox/Iceweasel.</li>
+
+<li>Is the USB subsystem working? I test this by plugging in a USB
+memory stick and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
+
+<li>Is the CD/DVD player working? I test this by inserting any CD/DVD
+I have lying around, and see if Gnome/KDE notices this.</li>
+
+<li>Is any built in camera working? Test using cheese, and see if a
+picture from the v4l device show up.</li>
+
+<li>Is bluetooth working? Use the Gnome/KDE browsing tool to see if
+any bluetooth devices are discovered. In my office, I normally see a
+few.</li>
+
+<li>For laptops, is the SD or Compaq Flash reader working. I have
+memory modules lying around, and stick them in and see if Gnome/KDE
+notice this.</li>
+
+<li>For laptops, is suspecd/hibernate working? I'm testing if the
+special button work, and if the laptop continue to work after
+resume.</li>
+
+<li>For laptops, is the extra buttons working, like audio level,
+adjusting background light, switching on/off external video output,
+switching on/off wifi, bluetooth, etc? The set of buttons differ from
+laptop to laptop, so I just write down which are working and which are
+not.</li>
+
+<li>Some laptops have smart card readers, finger print readers,
+acceleration sensors etc. I rarely test these, as I do not know how
+to quickly test if they are working or not, so I only document their
+existence.</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>By now I suspect you are really curious what the test results are
+for the HP machines I am testing. I'm not done yet, so I will report
+the test results later. For now I can report that HP 8100 Elite work
+fine, and hibernation fail with HP EliteBook 8440p on Ubuntu Lucid,
+and audio fail on RHEL6. Ubuntu Maverik worked with 8440p. As you
+can see, I have most machines left to test. One interesting
+observation is that Ubuntu Lucid has almost twice the framerate than
+RHEL6 with glxgears. No idea why.</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>.
+
+ </div>
+</div>
<div class="padding"></div>
<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="debian.rss"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/xml.gif" alt="RSS Feed" width="36" height="14"></a></p>
<h2>Archive</h2>
<ul>
+<li>2011
+<ul>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (11)</a></li>
+
+</ul></li>
+
<li>2010
<ul>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
-<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (7)</a></li>
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
+
+<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
</ul></li>
<h2>Tags</h2>
<ul>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (11)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (2)</a></li>
+
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (10)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (35)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (46)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (57)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (40)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (7)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (56)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (84)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (1)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (8)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (11)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (3)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (3)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (5)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (8)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (2)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (4)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (5)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (11)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (73)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (103)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (95)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (116)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (14)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (18)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (15)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (34)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (10)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (2)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (4)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (11)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (22)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (3)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (13)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (23)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (1)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (10)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (7)</a></li>
+
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (19)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (1)</a></li>
- <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (7)</a></li>
+ <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (14)</a></li>
</ul>
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