<link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
<atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
+ <item>
+ <title>New laptop - some more clues and ideas based on feedback</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_laptop___some_more_clues_and_ideas_based_on_feedback.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sun, 5 Jul 2015 21:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Several people contacted me after my previous blog post about my
+need for a new laptop, and provided very useful feedback. I wish to
+thank every one of these. Several pointed me to the possibility of
+fixing my X230, and I am already in the process of getting Lenovo to
+do so thanks to the on site, next day support contract covering the
+machine. But the battery is almost useless (I expect to replace it
+with a non-official battery) and I do not expect the machine to live
+for many more years, so it is time to plan its replacement. If I did
+not have a support contract, it was suggested to find replacement parts
+using <a href="http://www.francecrans.com/">FrancEcrans</a>, but it
+might present a language barrier as I do not understand French.</p>
+
+<p>One tip I got was to use the
+<a href="https://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=nb">Skinflint</a> web service to
+compare laptop models. It seem to have more models available than
+prisjakt.no. Another tip I got from someone I know have similar
+keyboard preferences was that the HP EliteBook 840 keyboard is not
+very good, and this matches my experience with earlier EliteBook
+keyboards I tested. Because of this, I will not consider it any further.
+
+<p>When I wrote my blog post, I was not aware of Thinkpad X250, the
+newest Thinkpad X model. The keyboard reintroduces mouse buttons
+(which is missing from the X240), and is working fairly well with
+Debian Sid/Unstable according to
+<a href="http://www.corsac.net/X250/">Corsac.net</a>. The reports I
+got on the keyboard quality are not consistent. Some say the keyboard
+is good, others say it is ok, while others say it is not very good.
+Those with experience from X41 and and X60 agree that the X250
+keyboard is not as good as those trusty old laptops, and suggest I
+keep and fix my X230 instead of upgrading, or get a used X230 to
+replace it. I'm also told that the X250 lack leds for caps lock, disk
+activity and battery status, which is very convenient on my X230. I'm
+also told that the CPU fan is running very often, making it a bit
+noisy. In any case, the X250 do not work out of the box with Debian
+Stable/Jessie, one of my requirements.</p>
+
+<p>I have also gotten a few vendor proposals, one was
+<a href="http://pro-star.com">Pro-Star</a>, another was
+<a href="http://shop.gluglug.org.uk/product/libreboot-x200/">Libreboot</a>.
+The latter look very attractive to me.</p>
+
+<p>Again, thank you all for the very useful feedback. It help a lot
+as I keep looking for a replacement.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ <title>Time to find a new laptop, as the old one is broken after only two years</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Time_to_find_a_new_laptop__as_the_old_one_is_broken_after_only_two_years.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Fri, 3 Jul 2015 07:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>My primary work horse laptop is failing, and will need a
+replacement soon. The left 5 cm of the screen on my Thinkpad X230
+started flickering yesterday, and I suspect the cause is a broken
+cable, as changing the angle of the screen some times get rid of the
+flickering.</p>
+
+<p>My requirements have not really changed since I bought it, and is
+still as
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">I
+described them in 2013</a>. The last time I bought a laptop, I had
+good help from
+<a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/category.php?k=353">prisjakt.no</a>
+where I could select at least a few of the requirements (mouse pin,
+wifi, weight) and go through the rest manually. Three button mouse
+and a good keyboard is not available as an option, and all the three
+laptop models proposed today (Thinkpad X240, HP EliteBook 820 G1 and
+G2) lack three mouse buttons). It is also unclear to me how good the
+keyboard on the HP EliteBooks are. I hope Lenovo have not messed up
+the keyboard, even if the quality and robustness in the X series have
+deteriorated since X41.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder how I can find a sensible laptop when none of the options
+seem sensible to me? Are there better services around to search the
+set of available laptops for features? Please send me an email if you
+have suggestions.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ <title>MakerCon Nordic videos now available on Frikanalen</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MakerCon_Nordic_videos_now_available_on_Frikanalen.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MakerCon_Nordic_videos_now_available_on_Frikanalen.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Thu, 2 Jul 2015 14:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Last oktober I was involved on behalf of
+<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">NUUG</a> with recording the talks at
+<a href="http://www.makercon.no/">MakerCon Nordic</a>, a conference for
+the Maker movement. Since then it has been the plan to publish the
+recordings on <a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a>, which
+finally happened the last few days. A few talks are missing because
+the speakers asked the organizers to not publish them, but most of the
+talks are available. The talks are being broadcasted on RiksTV
+channel 50 and using multicast on Uninett, as well as being available
+from the Frikanalen web site. The unedited recordings are
+<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/MakerConNordic/">available on
+Youtube too</a>.</p>
+
+<p>This is the list of talks available at the moment. Visit the
+<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/?q=makercon">Frikanalen video
+pages</a> to view them.</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+ <li>Evolutionary algorithms as a design tool - from art
+ to robotics (Kyrre Glette)</li>
+
+ <li>Make and break (Hans Gerhard Meier)</li>
+
+ <li>Making a one year school course for young makers
+ (Olav Helland)</li>
+
+ <li>Innovation Inspiration - IPR Databases as a Source of
+ Inspiration (Hege Langlo)</li>
+
+ <li>Making a toy for makers (Erik Torstensson)</li>
+
+ <li>How to make 3D printer electronics (Elias Bakken)</li>
+
+ <li>Hovering Clouds: Looking at online tool offerings for Product
+ Design and 3D Printing (William Kempton)</li>
+
+ <li>Travelling maker stories (Øyvind Nydal Dahl)</li>
+
+ <li>Making the first Maker Faire in Sweden (Nils Olander)</li>
+
+ <li>Breaking the mold: Printing 1000’s of parts (Espen Sivertsen)</li>
+
+ <li>Ultimaker — and open source 3D printing (Erik de Bruijn)</li>
+
+ <li>Autodesk’s 3D Printing Platform: Sparking innovation (Hilde
+ Sevens)</li>
+
+ <li>How Making is Changing the World – and How You Can Too!
+ (Jennifer Turliuk)</li>
+
+ <li>Open-Source Adventuring: OpenROV, OpenExplorer and the Future of
+ Connected Exploration (David Lang)</li>
+
+ <li>Making in Norway (Haakon Karlsen Jr., Graham Hayward and Jens
+ Dyvik)</li>
+
+ <li>The Impact of the Maker Movement (Mike Senese)</li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>Part of the reason this took so long was that the scripts NUUG had
+to prepare a recording for publication were five years old and no
+longer worked with the current video processing tools (command line
+argument changes). In addition, we needed better audio normalization,
+which sent me on a detour to
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html">package
+bs1770gain for Debian</a>. Now this is in place and it became a lot
+easier to publish NUUG videos on Frikanalen.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ <title>Hvem fører Medietilsynet tilsyn med?</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvem_f_rer_Medietilsynet_tilsyn_med_.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvem_f_rer_Medietilsynet_tilsyn_med_.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sun, 28 Jun 2015 23:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>I en global verden med eierskap på tvers, trengs det informasjon om
+hvem som har kontrollen i selskaper og bedrifter. Og for å få tilgang
+til slik informasjon for alle som ønsker å analysere eierskap, holder
+med ikke med nasjonale databaser over eierskap, det må globale
+samledatabaser med åpne data til. Heldigvis finnes det en
+internasjonal bevegelse for å gjøre selskapsinformasjon for alle land
+offentlig tilgjengelig. En slik database heter
+<a href="http://opencorporates.com">OpenCorporates</a>, der
+informasjonen er gratis tilgjengelig med en "del på samme
+vilkår"-lisens. De samler inn selskapsinformasjon, eierskap,
+konsesjonstildelinger og lignende. De manglet ganske mye for Norge,
+da bruksvilkårene til Norsk offentlig informasjon i stor grad
+blokkerer OpenCorporates fra å samle den inn.</p>
+
+<p>Men jeg er jo involvert i
+<a href="http://www.frikanalen.no/">Frikanalen</a>, som har
+TV-konsesjon, og tenkte det kunne være fint om informasjon om alle
+mediakonsesjoner var tilgjengelig i OpenCorporates, så jeg sendte
+avgårde følgende spørsmål til Medietilsynet 2015-06-22:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>Hei. Finnes det en oversikt over enhetene som Mediatilsynet fører
+tilsyn med som åpne data? Jeg lette etter den på
+&lt;URL:<a href="http://data.norge.no/">http://data.norge.no/</a>&gt; og
+&lt;URL:<a href="http://hotell.difi.no/">http://hotell.difi.no/</a>&gt; uten å
+finne noe der, og fant heller ikke noe under
+&lt;URL:<a href="http://www.medietilsynet.no/">http://www.medietilsynet.no/</a>&gt;.</p>
+
+<p>Jeg tenker på alle som har fått kringkastingskonsesjon og alle som
+er omtalt under
+&lt;URL:<a href="http://www.medietilsynet.no/mediebildet/">http://www.medietilsynet.no/mediebildet/</a>&gt;.</p>
+
+<p>Jeg skulle gjerne hatt dette maskinlesbart, og inkludert
+organisasjonsnummer og hva slags forhold mediatilsynet har til
+organisasjonene. Tanken er å importere det i
+&lt;URL:<a href="https://opencorporates.com/">https://opencorporates.com/</a>&gt; for analyse, så det bør ikke ha
+bruksbegresninger som gjør dette umulig.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>To dager senere fikk jeg svar, med de datasettene de hadde
+tilgjengelig. Svaret fra Hanne Sekkelsten hos Medietilsynet var
+informativt og imøtekommende.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>Vi viser til din e-post av 22. juni, der du ber om å få tilsendt oversikter
+over aktører Medietilsynet fører tilsyn med.</p>
+
+<p>Medietilsynet fører tilsyn med kringkastere og audiovisuelle
+bestillingstjenester som omfattes av kringkastingsloven, og med
+eierskap i aviser, fjernsyn radio og elektroniske medier etter
+medieeierskapsloven. I tillegg vil Medietilsynet etter at
+beskyttelsesloven trer i kraft fra 1. juli ha tilsyn med en rekke nye
+aktører. Nærmere informasjon om den nye loven finnes på Medietilsynets
+nettsted, her:
+<a href="http://www.medietilsynet.no/mediebransjen/bildeprogramloven/">http://www.medietilsynet.no/mediebransjen/bildeprogramloven/</a>
+. Vi har ikke utarbeidet oversikter over alle aktørene, men vi sender
+deg her de listene vi har utarbeidet, hentet fra våre databaser. Vi
+har dessverre ikke ferdige rapporter som inneholder
+organisasjonsnummer. Dersom du ønsker flere opplysninger ber vi om at
+du tar kontakt med oss slik at vi kan finne ut av hvilke opplysninger
+du trenger, og hvilke vi kan fremskaffe.</p>
+
+<p>Vedlagt følger:
+
+<ul>
+
+ <li>Konsesjoner - lokalradio FM pr. 31.12.2014 [<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-28-medietilsynsdata/Konsesjoner_lokalradio_fm_felles_31.12.2014.pdf">PDF (original)</a>]</li>
+
+ <li>Konsesjoner - lokalfjernsyn i det digitale bakkenettet for fjernsyn, pr. mars 2015 [<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-28-medietilsynsdata/Lokalfjernsyn_DTT_konsesjoner_mars_2015.docx">DOCX (original)</a>,
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-28-medietilsynsdata/Lokalfjernsyn_DTT_konsesjoner_mars_2015.pdf">PDF</a>]</li>
+
+ <li>Konsesjoner - DAB-radio, status mars 2015 [<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-28-medietilsynsdata/Konsesjonaernummer_DAB.xps">XPS (original)</a>,
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-28-medietilsynsdata/Konsesjonaernummer_DAB.pdf">PDF</a>]</li>
+
+ <li>Registreringspliktige kringkastere - status mars 2015: [<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-28-medietilsynsdata/Registreringspliktige_kringkastere_register_-_aktive.xps">XPS (original)</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-06-28-medietilsynsdata/Registreringspliktige_kringkastere_register_-_aktive.pdf">PDF</a>]
+
+ <ul>
+ <li>Kabelsendt fjernsyn
+ <li>Satellittsendt fjernsyn
+ <li>Nett-tv
+ <li>Kabelsendt radio
+ <li>Satellittsendt radio
+ <li>Nett-radio
+ </ul></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>Vi må ta forbehold om at det kan være enkelte feil i oversiktene
+siden disse ikke er oppdaterte pr. dags dato. Vi vil foreta nye
+oppdateringer i august.</p>
+
+<p>Med hilsen</p>
+
+<p>Hanne Nistad Sekkelsten
+<br>Seniorrådgiver | Senior Legal Adviser
+<br>Medietilsynet | Norwegian Media Authority
+<br>A: Nygata 4, NO-1607 Fredrikstad
+<br>T: [telefonnummer fjernet]
+<br>E: [adresse fjernet] | W: www.medietilsynet.no
+</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Desverre er formatene for ustrukturerte til maskinell behandling og
+mangler endel informasjon, men det er gode oversikter over hvem
+Medietilsynet fører tilsyn med. Filene er på formatene PDF, XPS
+(XML-basert PDF-lignende format fra Microsoft) og DOCX, så det vil
+være en stor jobb å strukturere informasjonen på en måte som kan
+importeres i OpenCorporates. Svaret er ikke i tråd med
+<a href="http://lovdata.no/dokument/SF/forskrift/2013-04-05-959">Forskrift
+om IT-standarder i offentlig forvaltning</a> som sier epostvedlegg
+skal sendes som PDF, så jeg har gjorde PDF-utgaver av XPS og
+DOCX-utgavene tilgjengelig for å gjøre det enklere for alle å se
+innholdet.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
<item>
<title>Graphing the Norwegian company ownership structure</title>
<link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Graphing_the_Norwegian_company_ownership_structure.html</link>
</description>
</item>
- <item>
- <title>First Jessie based Debian Edu beta release</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_beta_release.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_Jessie_based_Debian_Edu_beta_release.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sun, 26 Apr 2015 14:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><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>
-</description>
- </item>
-
- <item>
- <title>Debian Edu interview: Shirish Agarwal</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Shirish_Agarwal.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Shirish_Agarwal.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><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>
-</description>
- </item>
-
- <item>
- <title>I'm going to the Open Source Developers' Conference Nordic 2015!</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_m_going_to_the_Open_Source_Developers__Conference_Nordic_2015_.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/I_m_going_to_the_Open_Source_Developers__Conference_Nordic_2015_.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Tue, 7 Apr 2015 10:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>I am happy to let you all know that I'm going to the <a
-href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/">Open Source Developers'
-Conference Nordic 2015</a>!</p>
-
-<p>It take place Friday 8th to Sunday 10th of May in Oslo next to
-where I work, and I finally got around to submitting
-<a href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/talk/6192">a talk proposal for
-it</a> (dead link for most people until the talk is accepted). As
-part of my involvement with the
-<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User Group member
-association</a> I have been slightly involved in the planning of this
-conference for a while now, with a focus on organising a Civic Hacking
-Hackathon with our friends
-over at <a href="http://www.mysociety.org/">mySociety</a> and
-<a href="http://www.holderdeord.no/">Holder de ord</a>. This part is
-named the 'My Society' track in the program. There is still space for
-more talks and participants. I hope to see you there.</p>
-
-<p>Check out <a href="http://act.osdc.no/osdc2015no/talks">the talks
-submitted and accepted so far</a>.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
- <item>
- <title>Proof reading the Norwegian translation of Free Culture by Lessig</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Proof_reading_the_Norwegian_translation_of_Free_Culture_by_Lessig.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Proof_reading_the_Norwegian_translation_of_Free_Culture_by_Lessig.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sat, 4 Apr 2015 09:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>During eastern I had some time to continue working on the Norwegian
-<a href="http://www.docbook.org/">docbook</a> version of the 2004 book
-<a href="http://free-culture.cc/">Free Culture</a> by Lawrence Lessig.
-At the moment I am proof reading the finished text, looking for typos,
-inconsistent wordings and sentences that do not flow as they should.
-I'm more than two thirds done with the text, and welcome others to
-check the text up to chapter 13. The current status is available on the
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>
-project pages. You can also check out the
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf?raw=true">PDF</a>,
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/blob/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub?raw=true">EPUB</a>
-and HTML version available in the
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/tree/master/archive">archive
-directory</a>.</p>
-
-<p>Please report typos, bugs and improvements to the github project if
-you find any.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
</channel>
</rss>
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