X-Git-Url: https://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/01450f233accdc7b367ec19dcc89cf80803d3989..6196540208cefd9393f65a7e9223a34e7e0a6fdb:/blog/index.rss diff --git a/blog/index.rss b/blog/index.rss index 13bb58bfe7..08777f9cbc 100644 --- a/blog/index.rss +++ b/blog/index.rss @@ -6,6 +6,93 @@ http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ + + Debian Edu interview: Roger Marsal + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Roger_Marsal.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Roger_Marsal.html + Sun, 30 Mar 2014 11:40:00 +0200 + <p><a href="http://www.skolelinux.org/">Debian Edu / Skolelinux</a> +keep gaining new users. Some weeks ago, a person showed up on IRC, +<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/#debian-edu">#debian-edu</a>, with a +wish to contribute, and I managed to get a interview with this great +contributor Roger Marsal to learn more about his background.</p> + +<p><strong>Who are you, and how do you spend your days?</strong></p> + +<p>My name is Roger Marsal, I'm 27 years old (1986 generation) and I +live in Barcelona, Spain. I've got a strong business background and I +work as a patrimony manager and as a real estate agent. Additionally, +I've co-founded a British based tech company that is nowadays on the +last development phase of a new social networking concept.</p> + +<p>I'm a Linux enthusiast that started its journey with Ubuntu four years +ago and have recently switched to Debian seeking rock solid stability +and as a necessary step to gain expertise.</p> + +<p>In a nutshell, I spend my days working and learning as much as I +can to face both my job, entrepreneur project and feed my Linux +hunger.</p> + +<p><strong>How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu +project?</strong></p> + +<p>I discovered the <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/">LTSP</a> advantages +with "Ubuntu 12.04 alternate install" and after a year of use I +started looking for an alternative. Even though I highly value and +respect the Ubuntu project, I thought it was necessary for me to +change to a more robust and stable alternative. As far as I was using +Debian on my personal laptop I thought it would be fine to install +Debian and configure an LTSP server myself. Surprised, I discovered +that the Debian project also supported a kind of Edubuntu equivalent, +and after having some pain I obtained a Debian Edu network up and +running. I just loved it.</p> + +<p><strong>What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian +Edu?</strong></p> + +<p>I found a main advantage in that, once you know "the tips and +tricks", a new installation just works out of the box. It's the most +complete alternative I've found to create an LTSP network. All the +other distributions seems to be made of plastic, Debian Edu seems to +be made of steel.</p> + +<p><strong>What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian +Edu?</strong></p> + +<p>I found two main disadvantages.</p> + +<p>I'm not an expert but I've got notions and I had to spent a considerable +amount of time trying to bring up a standard network topology. I'm quite +stubborn and I just worked until I did but I'm sure many people with few +resources (not big schools, but academies for example) would have switched +or dropped.</p> + +<p>It's amazing how such a complex system like Debian Edu has achieved +this out-of-the-box state. Even though tweaking without breaking gets +more difficult, as more factors have to be considered. This can +discourage many people too.</p> + +<p><strong>Which free software do you use daily?</strong></p> + +<p>I use Debian, Firefox, Okular, Inkscape, LibreOffice and +Virtualbox.</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 don't think there is a need for a particular strategy. The free +attribute in both "freedom" and "no price" meanings is what will +really bring free software to schools. In my experience I can think of +the <a href="http://www.r-project.org/">"R" statistical language</a>; a +few years a ago was an extremely nerd tool for university people. +Today it's being increasingly used to teach statistics at many +different level of studies. I believe free and open software will +increasingly gain popularity, but I'm sure schools will be one of the +first scenarios where this will happen.</p> + + + Dokumentaren om Datalagringsdirektivet sendes endelig på NRK http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Dokumentaren_om_Datalagringsdirektivet_sendes_endelig_p__NRK.html @@ -620,113 +707,5 @@ if you want to check it out. The new version is also uploaded into - - Testing sysvinit from experimental in Debian Hurd - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Testing_sysvinit_from_experimental_in_Debian_Hurd.html - Mon, 3 Feb 2014 13:40:00 +0100 - <p>A few days ago I decided to try to help the Hurd people to get -their changes into sysvinit, to allow them to use the normal sysvinit -boot system instead of their old one. This follow up on the -<a href="https://teythoon.cryptobitch.de//categories/gsoc.html">great -Google Summer of Code work</a> done last summer by Justus Winter to -get Debian on Hurd working more like Debian on Linux. To get started, -I downloaded a prebuilt hard disk image from -<a href="http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz">http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/hurd-i386/current/debian-hurd.img.tar.gz</a>, -and started it using virt-manager.</p> - -<p>The first think I had to do after logging in (root without any -password) was to get the network operational. I followed -<a href="https://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/hurd-install">the -instructions on the Debian GNU/Hurd ports page</a> and ran these -commands as root to get the machine to accept a IP address from the -kvm internal DHCP server:</p> - -<p><blockquote><pre> -settrans -fgap /dev/netdde /hurd/netdde -kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[p]finet/ { print $2}') -kill $(ps -ef|awk '/[d]evnode/ { print $2}') -dhclient /dev/eth0 -</pre></blockquote></p> - -<p>After this, the machine had internet connectivity, and I could -upgrade it and install the sysvinit packages from experimental and -enable it as the default boot system in Hurd.</p> - -<p>But before I did that, I set a password on the root user, as ssh is -running on the machine it for ssh login to work a password need to be -set. Also, note that a bug somewhere in openssh on Hurd block -compression from working. Remember to turn that off on the client -side.</p> - -<p>Run these commands as root to upgrade and test the new sysvinit -stuff:</p> - -<p><blockquote><pre> -cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/experimental.list &lt;&lt;EOF -deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental main -EOF -apt-get update -apt-get dist-upgrade -apt-get install -t experimental initscripts sysv-rc sysvinit \ - sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils -update-alternatives --config runsystem -</pre></blockquote></p> - -<p>To reboot after switching boot system, you have to use -<tt>reboot-hurd</tt> instead of just <tt>reboot</tt>, as there is not -yet a sysvinit process able to receive the signals from the normal -'reboot' command. After switching to sysvinit as the boot system, -upgrading every package and rebooting, the network come up with DHCP -after boot as it should, and the settrans/pkill hack mentioned at the -start is no longer needed. But for some strange reason, there are no -longer any login prompt in the virtual console, so I logged in using -ssh instead. - -<p>Note that there are some race conditions in Hurd making the boot -fail some times. No idea what the cause is, but hope the Hurd porters -figure it out. At least Justus said on IRC (#debian-hurd on -irc.debian.org) that they are aware of the problem. A way to reduce -the impact is to upgrade to the Hurd packages built by Justus by -adding this repository to the machine:</p> - -<p><blockquote><pre> -cat > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hurd-ci.list &lt;&lt;EOF -deb http://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/ sid main -EOF -</pre></blockquote></p> - -<p>At the moment the prebuilt virtual machine get some packages from -http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian, because some of the packages in -unstable do not yet include the required patches that are lingering in -BTS. This is the completely list of "unofficial" packages installed:</p> - -<p><blockquote><pre> -# aptitude search '?narrow(?version(CURRENT),?origin(Debian Ports))' -i emacs - GNU Emacs editor (metapackage) -i gdb - GNU Debugger -i hurd-recommended - Miscellaneous translators -i isc-dhcp-client - ISC DHCP client -i isc-dhcp-common - common files used by all the isc-dhcp* packages -i libc-bin - Embedded GNU C Library: Binaries -i libc-dev-bin - Embedded GNU C Library: Development binaries -i libc0.3 - Embedded GNU C Library: Shared libraries -i A libc0.3-dbg - Embedded GNU C Library: detached debugging symbols -i libc0.3-dev - Embedded GNU C Library: Development Libraries and Hea -i multiarch-support - Transitional package to ensure multiarch compatibilit -i A x11-common - X Window System (X.Org) infrastructure -i xorg - X.Org X Window System -i A xserver-xorg - X.Org X server -i A xserver-xorg-input-all - X.Org X server -- input driver metapackage -# -</pre></blockquote></p> - -<p>All in all, testing hurd has been an interesting experience. :) -X.org did not work out of the box and I never took the time to follow -the porters instructions to fix it. This time I was interested in the -command line stuff.<p> - - -