<link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
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+ <item>
+ <title>Debian Jessie, PXE and automatic firmware installation</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Jessie__PXE_and_automatic_firmware_installation.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 14:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the
+problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly.
+And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian.
+Normally something more is needed. But thanks to
+<a href="https://packages.qa.debian.org/i/isenkram.html">my isenkram
+package</a> and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy
+to do this using simple preseeding.</p>
+
+<p>The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install
+firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by
+the kernel modules for the hardware). (It can also install user space
+programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus
+of this story.)</p>
+
+<p>To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding
+values are needed. First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed
+into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed
+in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system. This is done by
+preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the
+isenkram-cli package. The package name is next passed to debootstrap
+for installation. With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel
+will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific
+packages for the machine being installed and install them, because
+isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.</p>
+
+<p>Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because
+most firmware unfortunately is non-free. This is done by preseeding
+the apt-mirror-setup step. This is unfortunate, but for a lot of
+hardware it is the only option in Debian.</p>
+
+<p>The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get
+firmware installed automatically by the installer:</p>
+
+<p><blockquote><pre>
+base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli
+apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true
+</pre></blockquote></p>
+
+<p>The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install
+both firmware and user space packages when using this method. It also
+do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later. Installing both
+firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you
+want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware
+and one for user space programs. The firmware task is enabled by
+default, while the one for user space programs is not. This split is
+implemented in the package currently in unstable.</p>
+
+<p>If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how
+this recipe work for you if you decide to give it a go. :)</p>
+
+<p>So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work. First and
+foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever
+files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/. So the
+isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find. First there
+is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):</p>
+
+<p><blockquote><pre>
+Task: isenkram-packages
+Section: hardware
+Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram)
+ Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are
+ proposed.
+Test-new-install: show show
+Relevance: 8
+Packages: for-current-hardware
+
+Task: isenkram-firmware
+Section: hardware
+Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram)
+ Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware
+ packages are proposed.
+Test-new-install: mark show
+Relevance: 8
+Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware
+</pre></blockquote></p>
+
+<p>The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task
+should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in
+/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/. The scripts use other scripts to get a
+list of packages to install. The for-current-hardware-firmware script
+look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine:
+
+<p><blockquote><pre>
+#!/bin/sh
+#
+PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH
+export PATH
+isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l
+</pre></blockquote></p>
+
+<p>With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by
+tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)</p>
+
+<p>If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is
+installed, run <tt>DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test
+--new-install</tt> to get the list of packages that tasksel would
+install.</p>
+
+<p><ahref="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/">Debian Edu</a> will be
+pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used to install
+firmware now.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
<item>
<title>Ubuntu used to show the bread prizes at ICA Storo</title>
<link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ubuntu_used_to_show_the_bread_prizes_at_ICA_Storo.html</link>
</description>
</item>
- <item>
- <title>Debian Edu interview: Bernd Zeitzen</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Bernd_Zeitzen.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Bernd_Zeitzen.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 31 Jul 2014 08:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>The complete and free “out of the box” software solution for
-schools, <a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu /
-Skolelinux</a>, is used quite a lot in Germany, and one of the people
-involved is Bernd Zeitzen, who show up on the project mailing lists
-from time to time with interesting questions and tips on how to adjust
-the setup. I managed to interview him this summer.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p>
-
-<p>My name is Bernd Zeitzen and I'm married with Hedda, a self
-employed physiotherapist. My former profession is tool maker, but I
-haven't worked for 30 years in this job. 30 years ago I started to
-support my wife and become her officeworker and a few years later the
-administrator for a small computer network, today based on Ubuntu
-Server (Samba, OpenVPN). For her daily work she has to use Windows
-Desktops because the software she needs to organize her business only
-works with Windows . :-(</p>
-
-<p>In 1988 we started with one PC and DOS, then I learned to use
-Windows 98, 2000, XP, …, 8, Ubuntu, MacOSX. Today we are running a
-Linux server with 6 Windows clients and 10 persons (teacher of
-children with special needs, speech therapist, occupational therapist,
-psychologist and officeworkers) using our Samba shares via OpenVPN to
-work with the documentations of our patients.</p>
-
-<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
-project?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Two years ago a friend of mine asked me, if I want to get a job in
-his school (<a href="http://www.gymnasium-harsewinkel.de/">Gymnasium
-Harsewinkel</a>). They started with Skolelinux / Debian Edu and they
-were looking for people to give support to the teachers using the
-software and the network and teaching the pupils increasing their
-computer skills in optional lessons. I'm spending 4-6 hours a week
-with this job.</p>
-
-<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
-Edu?</strong></p>
-
-<p>The independence.</p>
-
-<p>First: Every person is allowed to use, share and develop the
-software. Even if you are poor, you are allowed to use the software
-included in Skolelinux/Debian Edu and all the other Free Software.</p>
-
-<p>Second: The software runs on old machines and this gives us the
-possibility to recycle computers, weeded out from offices. The
-servers and desktops are running for more than two years and they are
-working reliable. </p>
-
-<p>We have two servers (one tjener and one terminal server), 45
-workstations in three classrooms and seven laptops as a mobile
-solution for all classrooms. These machines are all booting from the
-terminal server. In the moment we are installing 30 laptops as mobile
-workstations. Then the pupils have the possibility to work with these
-machines in their classrooms. Internet access is realized by a WLAN
-router, connected to the schools network. This is all done without a
-dedicated system administrator or a computer science teacher.</p>
-
-<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
-Edu?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Teachers and pupils are Windows users. &lt;Irony on&gt; And Linux
-isn't cool. It's software for freaks using the command line. &lt;Irony
-off&gt; They don't realize the stability of the system. </p>
-
-<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, Ubuntu Server 12.04 (Samba,
-Apache, MySQL, Joomla!, … and Skolelinux / Debian Edu)</p>
-
-<p><strong>Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
-get schools to use free software?</strong></p>
-
-<p>In Germany we have the situation: every school is free to decide
-which software they want to use. This decision is influenced by
-teachers who learned to use Windows and MS Office. They buy a PC with
-Windows preinstalled and an additional testing version of MS
-Office. They don't know about the possibility to use Free Software
-instead. Another problem are the publisher of school books. They
-develop their software, added to the school books, for Windows.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
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