Haul

Five days and counting

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 08:45:33 +0200

Dear weblog readers,

There is now a mere five days until I'm getting married. Married. Let's taste that one a little longer. A fine dictionary I offen use says this about marriage:

married: united in wedlock; the union of two people; interconnected or joined; wedded
marriage: the social institution under which a man and woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments; a relationship in which two people have pledged themselves to each
other in the manner of a husband and wife, without legal sanction

These definitions of course go on with explaining the various different legal, ceremonical, religious and inter human relation sides of being married. Today I have a bunch of tasks to complete. There is calls being made to both the museum (Sverresborg) and the restaurant (Bagle) at wich the dinner will be held. In addition I'm finalizing work on getting someone to play a guitar at the ceremony, getting songs readied for printing, buying a big white umbrella for Jorunn (just to make sure it will not rain (#@$curses$$¡£!)

With the five days to go it'll be a rollercoaster ride week and just to make things more complicated Visma is moving to the new office building tomorrow, with me and Andreas going to share a new corner top-floor office with two other colleagues.

Debian-Edu: Skolelinux 3.0 "Terra" available for free download!

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 12:44:54 +0200

(PRESS RELEASE - remember kids, you saw it here first)

Debian-Edu: Skolelinux 3.0 "Terra" available for free download!

Oslo - July 22., 2007

Skolelinux 3.0 is ready. This is an community release with comprehensive support from regional and national projects in Germany, Spain, France, Greece and Norway. The Skolelinux project is now a part of Debian under the name Debian-Edu. Several other projects have made additional functionality to Skolelinux tailored for national needs. Skolelinux now supports more than 50 countries.

Whats new in Skolelinux 3.0:
based on Debian 4.0 "etch" and therefore compatible to LSB 3.1, using kernel 2.6.18 and KDE 3.5.5

Full support for networked Thin clients, !LowFat (diskless) clients, Workstations and Laptops. With the !LowFat clients users got full PC functionality with extremely low maintenance cost. The use of !LowFat clients gives full support for sound, video, USB memory stick's and DVDs without the need for a local installation.

Skolelinux now got more than 80 applications selected for pedagogic uses, supporting more than 50 languages. Many new applications are introduced in addition to popular classic as !GCompris, KDE-Edu, Iceweasel (unbranded version of Firefox) and OpenOffice.org.

Installation is a breeze: Both the installation and source code for all software are now distributed on a single DVD now supporting three different processor platforms as i386, PowerPC and AMD64. This makes it more easy to choose hardware, and to study the recipes behind the software. Those interested can excercize their freedom to learn, participate and share knowledge more easily. Installation CDs are also available, but requires a working Internet connection for installation.

About Skolelinux:
Skolelinux is a complete tailored software solution for the needs of any educational institution or school. It is a ready computer system were the school does not need to piece together the components.

Skolelinux is the result of the work of the Debian Edu project and Debian Edu is an official Debian subproject. It is installed in a great number of schools in Norway, Germany, France and other countries. Municipalities and Commercial Service Providers run Skolelinux across multiple schools, operated and maintained centrally. Service providers report that the "lowfat clients" require half the maintenance cost of other desktop alternatives.

The next milestone of Skolelinux development will be to merge the Debian-based LinEx distro into Debian Edu[2]. Currently LinEx is used by more than 250,000 students and public employees in the region of Extremadura in Spain.

In depth:
"Lowfat clients" is also known as Diskless workstations. They run applications locally on the client. All software comes from the server instead of locally from the client hard drive. Recommended minimum requirement for client machines is > 256 MB RAM and 800 MHz CPU. Skolelinux now got improved tools for system survailance and maintenence.

Roadmap for next merging of LinEx and Debian-Edu:
- http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/LinEx2DebianEdu-Roadmap

Please note that the documentation for the 3.0 Terra release is only available in English at the moment and contains some rough edges. We have considered releasing before the end of the summer holidays more important
and we will fix those rough edges in the coming weeks, when we also expect more translations to show up. Those fixes will be included in the upcoming 3.0 r1 release.

Contact information:
General information about Debian-Edu or Skolelinux:
- E-mail: debian-edu AT lists.debian.org

* Media contacts
- Norway:
Anders Kringstad Hanssen
<akai AT skolelinux.no>
+47 932 82 137 (cellphone)

Knut Yrvin
<knuty AT skolelinux.no>
+47 908 95 765 (cellphone)

- Germany:
Kurt Gramlich
<kurt AT skolelinux.de>

- Spain:
José "L. Redrejo" Rodríguez
<jredrejo AT edu.juntaextremadura.net>

- France:
Thierry Stauder
<thierry AT skolelinux.fr>

- Pakistan:
Tariq Farooqi
<tariq AT linuxpakistan.net>
+92-21-6622134 (cellphone)

For more information about Debian-Edu/Skolelinux please see our webpage at http://www.skolelinux.org.

Download:
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Download

A complete list of improvements have been made available at http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/ReleaseNotes

Dell and the Ubuntu move

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Fri, 25 May 2007 07:46:46 +0200

So, after months of speculation, hard tinkering among the free software camp-people and alot of public press -- Dell went public with its offering of Ubuntu Linux pre-installed on computers from their 'DellDirect'-webpages. Dell will not provide software-support. That goes to Cannonical - the company thats business is based on the success of Ubuntu.

I have been thinking abit about this, and first off I can't help think 'Why now?, why Ubuntu?'

It would be clear that Dell have recieved a lot of response to their request for response about what people would like to see happen with their offerings. Ubuntu was the single most requested 'feature' most consumers asked for. That would explain 'why Ubuntu', mostly. Seccondly this shows the push behind Cannonical, the financial backing company of the Ubuntu distribution. Mark Shuttleworth and his team of sales, marketing and support have really gotten it right.

The Ubuntu slogan 'Linux for human beings' seems fitting for the outline of this deal. This is for sure an explosive bundle: Dell have for years had some problems with it's business reputation among 'professionals' for being 'low-end'. With one of the Ubuntu-people on the image of the latest edition of the Ubuntu-webpage proudly wearing a Dell jumper that has for sure changed at the Cannonical/Ubuntu camp. The planet is buzzing with ideas, embracement and acceptance right now. I think Dell will see a surge in direct shopping of Linux-ready(!) computers from it's webpages.

I for my part have ran Ubuntu on my Dell PowerEdge-servers for years. I think I have about 60 of them in production right now, and others at work have about 20 Windows-based servers. My laptop is a Dell - Inspiron 9400 (yes people I have a permit for moving it around!). It has never seen anything else than the Edgy Eft and the Feisty Fawn. Clearly the hardware and the Linux-kernel is working well. Old differences in terms of hardware-based RAID-controllers, missing drivers for hardware, etc are now a story of the past. Both servers and laptops works great with Linux.

I guess you have it there. Ubuntu was just 'right' for Dell. It's been the single most successful Linux-distribution the past year in numbers of downloads and hits (distrowatch says so). Dell wanted to get a shot of the free software fun and Linux-business before their peers took it all home. I can't say that I'm either surprised or pessimistic right now. This will for sure mean alot more press, a lot more people atleast reviewing Linux as a choice and option and ofcourse - support for Linux-based solutions will grow among the hardware-makers as they rush to get some of the droppings Dell leave behind.

Way to go Cannonical - Dude, you're getting Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (7.04): Yet a great improvement

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 12:50:17 +0200

Yesterdays release of Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (7.04) marks yet another great improvement for users of free and open source operatingsystems. The Ubuntu delveopers have laid down a great deal of work into making Feisty a stable, polished and very well-working release. The improvements are probably best aknowledged by the fact that they are mostly subtile to newcomers and might not be seen because you just expect such things to work in a polite manner. The new 'upstart' that loads Ubuntu within 30 seconds on most computers represent one feature I believe many users will tend to forget after getting used to fast bootups, until they try to boot either another Linux-distro or go back to Windows. Another such feature is the new and greatly improved 'Network Manager' that incorporates wireless, wired and VPN-connectivity within a single application. It's also very usable and adds another simple layer of helping hands on the wheel for users.

Summarized I think we're off to a great new year for free- and open source software. The release of Ubuntu 7.04 is certainly one of the dotted markings on the timeline so far this year.
Thank you!

NEW BIKE!

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:04:05 +0200

OK, so here's the story:
Last season I spent about 2359 km on my bike, bikeriding with the wonderful geeks of wheelz.biz. That distance was laid down on a Hardrocx Cross Machine 2005 bike (please notice the fine "Jan Ullrich"-style grin). It's not a bad bike, but keeping up with machines like Magnus' Bianchi 928 Carbon Ultegra Mix 10, not to mention Asbjørn's Giant TCR Composite can be a real PITA. My new bike ain't much of a contender to the Bianchi or the Giant, but it's a start, a good one. It's a Merida 07 Road Racing, complete with Shimano Ultegra 20 gearing, Tiagra 105 brakes and Merida RHS Single Carbon frame and Carbon Lite fork.

Tollef at /.

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:42:46 +0100

Today Tollef, to many known as tfheen or Mithrandir on IRC was featured on /. with the announcement of the software freeze of Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. The /.-post spawns from an article at ZD Net Australia. The article over at ZD Net Australia outlines among other things the road beyond Feisty with 3D (berryl/compiz) and includes Mark Shuttleworths weblog post about proprietary drivers a while ago. The freeze have not been featured on Planet Ubuntu yet so we might see a big splash of posts soon.

Feisty Fawn is due in April 2007.

Jorunn turns 25

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 10:00:00 +0100

Congratulations on your birthday honey. Hope you'll get better for the
family-gathering tomorrow and the party on Satuday. Love you :-*

Discovering new things in Ubuntu/Gnome

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:20:28 +0100

I TOTALLY love the feature that I discovered today when browsing the last few days of posts on Planet Ubuntu. Steven Harms has a GREAT post about things that you'd never think about unless you knew them or really really just looked into all the options available these days. His post unveiled a feature that I'm SO going to use! The "Connect to server" function in "Places" on the Gnome menu in Ubuntu for sure was somewere I thought about going when connecting to a Samba-server or Windows system, but never ever did I think that you could do SSH connections with it for easy file-transfers (yes ranters I do know about SSHfs, but this is graphical stuff). Cool! Thank you Steven!

Congratulations to the Ubuntu-team (Edgy released, professional users certified)

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 13:10:17 +0200

Yesterday the Ubuntu developers released Ubuntu 6.10, aka Ubutu Edgy Eft as stable on date! Many congratulations go out to them all for a great piece of work. Lots of comments and weblogs from developers all over are located at http://planet.ubuntu.com/ (including a install walk-through for those who haven't installed it themself). More news over at Ubuntu.com.

This morning Canonical Ltd., the company backing development of Ubuntu, announced that the first batch of users have been certified as professional users of Ubuntu. The three required tests, formally known as 'Ubuntu Certified Professional exam' are the LPI 101 and 102 exams and an additional Ubuntu-specific set of questions. As it happen to be; my employer, Visma Ajourit, are one of few sites in Trondheim, Norway that have this kind of testing available. If you'd like to do the test, contact me at work and I'll get you a factsheet + the prices of the exams required. We allow testing on friday mornings at 09.00 local time.

The Linux distribution test

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 12:58:34 +0200

Today I happened to stumble upon yet another of those tests that allow you to see what kind of Linux-distribution you should run. Really! The last time I did one of these I ended up with RedHat Enterprise Linux, so maybe this time I'd get something I'm more likely to use? Sure thing!

From the test:

We found the following perfect match(es):

Ubuntu

Homepage: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/

Screenshots: Click to view screenshots of this distribution

Ubuntu
is a free, open source operating system that starts with the breadth of
Debian and adds regular releases (every six months), a clear focus on
the user and usability (it should "Just Work", TM) and a commitment to
security updates with 18 months of support for every release. Ubuntu
ships with the latest Gnome release as well as a selection of server
and desktop software that makes for a comfortable desktop experience
off a single installation CD.

(This distribution also has a "Live CD" you can use to test the distribution before you install it)

That's all fine with me since I run Ubuntu on my laptop, my workstation, three of my NetCore-servers (of the four others three others run Gentoo and one is still on good old Slackware), a heap of servers at work and I generally push Ubuntu on everyone + their dog and grandmother these days.

Good call. 17 simple questions to answer, and you'll end up with something you might like. Try it yourself!

Elected leader of 'FRISK'

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 15:15:56 +0200

Today at about 12AM I was elected leader of FRISK (Fri programvare i skolen) (that's: "free software in the schools" for you foreigners). The organisation are heading into a new year and lots of things are in stock for us to take upon us as a part of a global and local community. With me I have a board of four people: Andreas Bach (falxx), Jørgen Grønnlund, Klaus Ade Johnstad and Morten Werner Olsen. I look forward to the tasks ahead of me and hope that 2007 really wil become the year things changed in Norway. Fingers crossed!

How Windows Vista will change things

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 11:31:14 +0200

When Microsoft release Windows Vista for the world to buy next year things will change in the software industry. Things will also change within the ranks of kiddies who run pirated editions of Windows, and last but probably worst, things will change for the thousands of legitimate users of workstations. In a weblog over at ZDnet the limits of the new Acceptable User License Agreement (AULA) are described. These contain a number of issues that most users will notice. Among them: You can only transfer (read: change your hardware (new motherboard, HDD or RAM anyone?)) the license once to another computer. If that was not enough, volume users, such as NTNU will have to do manual product activation on each copy, even of their volume licenced computer installations. (That'll take some manpower from the already strained budgets.) The basic edition of Vista (Vista Home Basic) will actually forbid you to have .ISO-files on your harddrive. What the heck is that? If I want to burn a ISO-file or create an ISO-image of the pictures from last years new years party I'd like to do so! Not with Vista Home Basic, no.

I predict that 2007 will provide a bump in numbers of users of other operatingsystems. This could be Apple OSX, Linux or the *BSD-s. Prepare for the year that things will change.

Getting punched in the face might hurt

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 22:26:39 +0200

This is an abbreviation of how I feel tonight. It's not offen that I sit back and feel beaten, betrayed and unwelcome. Today I do feel like that. I don't think I'll be going into details, but when someone you have known for a long time punches your lights out, for all to see - it hurts.

Either you know who you are, or you don't.

Snakefighter: Anna Konda - the robotic firehose

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 13:50:07 +0200

This might be old news to many people, but since I've read a weblog at ZDNet about the robotic Snakefighter developed by SINTEF Slashdot have picked up the story and I bet others will too. The robotic snake named 'Anna Konda' have been developed for fighting fires, subsea work and preventing explosions.

ZDNet bases it's weblog on content from a report on the project and design written by SINTEF employee and media department journalist Åse Dragland. She's also Editor in Chief of GEMINI who first published the article in the 2005/2006 english issue of GEMINI, almost one year after being published in the norwegian edition in february 2005.

I've read up on the project on SINTEFs webpage and this project is really cool. They've created a prototype that is powered by the water running through it, and it's strong enough to penetrate walls. The robot moves at 30 to 60 cm/min and can even get across bumpy terrain (read: rubble within a burning house, rough seafloors, etc.). SINTEF together with several departments from NTNU are working on the project and are also looking for a commercial partner for further developments.

Back from Vättenrundan 2006

nospam@example.com (Anders Kringstad Hanssen) — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 03:10:27 +0200

I should have written this a week ago, but ok:
We're back from Sweden and Vättenrundan 2006. This time I did quite well I feel. Finished the whole thing, got a t-shirt, went home and bikeriding is still fun and all! Times and such can be found over at vatternrundan.se. Asbjørn ain't really sane, but that we all knew; So when he did do Styrkeprøven 2006 too, and finishing in 20 hours and 40ish minutes just one week after the 300 km's in Sweden I can only take my hat of to him. Cool. Way cool!

Pictures and other related stuff will be posted when due. Mr. "I-got-pictures" tend to be a bit slow with these things I guess.