Apunts de software lliure / Notes about free software

shutting down a iomega storcenter

2011-11-14T18:48:00.000+01:00

For my backups I am using a iomega storcenter device.

All management is done by web interface and I needed a way to shut it down from a script.

Here is the script.

1 COOKIE_FILE=/tmp/iomega-stor-center-cookie.txt
2 IP=192.168.1.3
3 curl -c $COOKIE_FILE -k --data "login=admin&passwordx=" https://$IP/index.html
4 #curl -b $COOKIE_FILE -k --data "restart=identifyDevice" https://$IP/stg-device.html?t=6
5 curl -b $COOKIE_FILE -k --data "restart=Poweroff" https://$IP/stg-device.html?t=6
6 rm /tmp/iomega-stor-center-cookie.txt

wanna know how much a house will cost?

2011-07-25T21:08:00.001+02:00

Never wonder how much will a new house will cost?

http://www.escalimetre.cat/calculadora-obra-nova

The calculator has been done using google gadgets technology and the web with google sites. Check out the lite calculator gadget, too:

http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open&hl=ca&gl=ca&url=http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/113741165758947641218/calculadora-preu-obra-simple-14032001.xml

who owns your virtual identity

2011-05-10T11:52:00.001+02:00

Just read this article:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/05/10/0039249/Who-Owns-Your-Social-Identity?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

Technically speaking we could have an identity provider that provides our identity as a service to different services like google, yahoo, ... even to our University , or why not, to our bank... Well there is already openid, but also other technologies like shibboleth, opensso, ....

So the problem is not really technical, but more "ethical". Who should be the provider? Governments? I do not think so.... maybe we should do the same as we do with internet domains, maybe...

just a random thought

client authentication in applets

2011-05-03T19:50:00.000+02:00

Just a tip. When working with applets, the key needs to be in the java keyring. Having that key in the mozilla keyring is not enough. At least not with the default configuration of java and mozilla.

overlap of identity technologies

2011-05-03T19:48:00.001+02:00

I've just found this very interesting page

http://sites.google.com/site/oauthgoog/Overlap

It is a very clear explanation on identity technologies, like a map I would say.

Shibboleth identity provider

2011-05-03T19:48:00.000+02:00

We (at openTrends) recently finished a project about installing an identity provider (IDP) based on shibboleth. It was not an easy one but we succeeded!

The most difficult part was managing all the configuration files. Certificates are stored in multiple files and that makes it difficult to configure and maintain.

We connected that identity provider to a CAS (Central Authentication System) that the organization already had installed and then to different Service Providers, that is, web applications that we wanted to get access to:

google apps
metalib

Thought shibboleth looks complicated, it is being used specially in US. Alternatives are simpleSAMLphp and openSSO, both SAML compliance.

Installing and maintaing an Identity provider is not an easy task. It needs to be monitorized, upgraded, in cluster, ... and is a very important piece of the infraestructure. That is why Identity as a Service (IDaaS) can be a very good solution.

Mobile World Congress is over

2011-02-23T19:01:00.001+01:00

MWC finished last Thursday. I was there on Monday afternoon and on Thursday morning. There were a LOT of people and a LOT of new gadgets.

On Monday I went to see the Android stand, maybe one of the biggest (I have to admit that I had not visit all the stands). On Thursday I visited my colleagues at openTrends and the appPlanet.

The most interesting part (for me) was the appPlanet. I just went to a conference by CISCO on cloud computing but it was very interesting, as it was the more "developer/technical" part of the conference.

I also went to a conference on Barcelona Activa by intel were the MeeGo developer framework and appstore were introduced. It was very interesting, too, and we all got a tablet!

My summary of the MWC would be:

android 3.0 preview
nvidia powered tablets (like motorola tablets) that can perform as good as a PC (there were demos of 3D games all over)
LG 3D tablet. A 3D tablet without wearing any special glasses (I got a little headache and I think I could had got motion sickness if I had been playing with it for a while... but was cool to see what it can be done with a tablet).
Samsung Galaxy
Blackberry tablet
Tablets that connect to SAP
tablets, tablets, and more tablets
ideas on monetizing your mobile apps in an appstore

Google summer of code 2011

2011-02-23T18:44:00.002+01:00

Check it out:

http://www.google-melange.com/

Important dates:

For mentoring organizations:

February 28:

19:00 UTC

Mentoring organizations can begin submitting applications to Google.

March 11:

23:00 UTC

Mentoring organization application deadline.

For students

March 18-27:

Would-be student participants discuss application ideas with mentoring organizations.

March 28:

19:00 UTC

Student application period opens.

April 8:

19:00 UTC

Student application deadline.

do not miss the deadlines!

Invited speaker to an MBA

2011-02-02T21:51:00.000+01:00

This week I was invited by Xavi Amatriain to give a short speech at an international MBA course at EADA. I was there to talk about free software business models and to introduce openTrends, the company I am working by right now that is specialized on free software services (we are 70 engineers right now and all working on free software consultancy).

The speech was 30 minutes long, so it was quite short but I had the feeling that students found it very interesting, at least I was asked a lot of questions. I gave the same speech on Monday and on Tuesday, and both went very similar.

In order to make it more fun, I used a couple of comic strips by Dilbert in order to explain the differences between propietary software business models and free software business models. Students found it funny and I think they got the idea. Here the strips:

EADA is the in the top 100 schools for MBA in the world (Finantial Times MBA Global MBA 2011 ranking) and was an honour to be there.

It was a great experience!

linkat4-edu beta

2010-12-24T13:32:00.000+01:00

[language=catalan]

Per Nadal la linkat4-edu beta! La linkat4-edu es basa en openSUSE 11.2 i ja es pot descarregar de ftp://download-linkat.xtec.cat/distribution/linkat-4.0/iso/linkat-4.0-Live-edu-beta1-i686.iso

Aquesta linkat l'hem desenvolupat des d'openTrends amb un OpenSUSE Build Service i amb el KIWI . Esperem que us agradi!

La linkat4-edu és una distribució de software educatiu lliure per a les escoles de Catalunya.

Talking at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) - Barcelona

2010-11-27T22:54:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I gave a talk at Pompeu Fabra University at Barcelona. The talk was about "Scope, Risk and Quality, the keys for a project Manager" and the audiency were students from the last year of Computer Engineer.

I had a lot of fun and it was a very nice experience. I want to thank Pau Arumí who asked me to do that talk.

I hope students also found it interesting.

removing duplicated photos from your hard drive

2010-09-25T00:03:00.003+02:00

These last days I've been trying to organize my photo collection. I realized that some of them were in more than one folder, that is, some photos were duplicated or triplicated on my hard drive.

So, I wrote a python script to solve my problem, and here it is:

import os

import sys

import hashlib

def removeDuplicatedImages(dirname):

print "DEBUG: looking for images at "+dirname

list_of_images={}

list_of_images_to_remove=[]

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(dirname):

for file in files:

filename=root+os.sep+file

f=open(filename,'r')

md5sum=hashlib.md5(f.read()).hexdigest()

f.close()

if not list_of_images.has_key(md5sum):

list_of_images[md5sum]=[filename]

else:

print "DEBUG: removing " + filename

os.remove(filename)

return

if __name__ == '__main__':

if len(sys.argv)!=2:

print "Usage " + sys.argv[0] + "dirname"

sys.exit()

dirname=sys.argv[1]

removeDuplicatedImages(dirname)

updates forecast for openSUSE (UFO) ...

2010-07-20T17:33:00.005+02:00

Recommended updates frequency
for openSUSE 11.0, 11.1 and 11.2

Last Saturday I did a presentation in "la volcanica" event (http://www.volcanica.cat) . It was a short presentation summarizing our work done in the UFO project.

UFO is the shortname for Updates Forecast for Opensuse, and is a project that tries to get a prediction model for openSUSE updates, so that we can know how many updates will be in a period of time.

Our results until today are:

1- a big amount of the recommended updates are released during the next 3 months after releasing an openSUSE version.
2- security updates though are being released over the whole life of the openSUSE version
3- when the next openSUSE version is released, most of the recommended updates (>70%) have been published

So, when you make an appliance based on openSUSE, the best moment to release it is after 3 months, because, as long as you are including the updates on it, you'll be avoiding a big amount of updates to your clients, and when the next openSUSE is published (6-8 months) you will mostly be having security updates, so you can concentrate on working on the next version of your appliance.

I know the results may look obvious, but our goal is to put the numbers on it, so we can compare different versions, distributions, and calculate the amount of resources needed to maintain an appliance.

Infraestructure as a Service key technologies

2009-11-07T20:37:00.003+01:00

There is a lot of things happening around cloud computing (a lot more to come I hope). Infraestructure as Service (IaaS) is one of the things. Cloud computing is not only IaaS but it is also Software as a Service (SaaS) and also Platform as a Service (SaaS).

A SaaS example would be gmail or salesforce. That is a software we access from our browser but we do not know were it is.

A PaaS example would be the Google App Engine. In Google App Engine we have a platform ready to be used to create our own applications, applications like gmail that then would be used as SaaS.

An IaaS example would be Amazon. We can create virtual images there, use storage, get an IP address, ... and then we are invoiced for the usage of that (CPU, bandwith, Hard disc).

Using IaaS we can have PaaS for our developers and SaaS for our end users, so for me, IaaS is the key technology for cloud computing.

But, which are the key technologies on IaaS that are playing an important role?

In my opinion, those technologies are:

1- Virtualization. That is the first technology that would come to my mind. We have different hypervisors: Xen, KVM and vmware.

2- JeOS. Just Enough Operating System. Once we have virtualization into play, we need and OS to create virtual images. JeOS are minimum operating systems. LimeJEOS would be an example, the openSUSE JeOS.

3- Software appliances. But what we do with virtual images with JeOS? We can build software appliances. For example a zimbra software appliance, so we have something like the gmail but on an appliance that can be installed and moved to any server that has the right hypervisor. But in which format will be create the appliance? vmware, xen, kvm? Let's create an xml description of what we want, so we can build it in any. That is what KIWI does.

4- Software appliances management. Ok. We have the appliance. What we want to manage that appliance. Set the root password, configure the network, timezone,.... so we need an interface to manage that. For example WebYaST and openwbem. WebYaST is a web interface for managing suse appliances and openwbem is the CIM implementation as a REST API.

5- Update Server. Experience tell us that, once you have done an appliance, you should not update the appliance from different update servers, but usually your appliance will have some software that does not come from openSUSE. For example, if you built a zimbra appliance, you will for sure want the latest zimbra on a stable openSUSE, but the stable openSUSE won't have that version, so you will install zimbra from source. So you need to update both openSUSE and zimbra. That is the reason why you need an update server that merges both updates and distributes those to your appliances. Proxy repo does that.

6- vpn. Virtual private networks. On a cloud, you may not have all the appliances on the same network but you want them to behave like that. By using openvpn, you can have appliances on different networks (and different hypervisors) and they will behave like they are at the same network. Moreover, if you migrate them, they will still have the same ip adress.

7- SSO. Single sign on. Ok. You have different appliances and you provide SaaS to different software. You will for sure will like your users to not have to identify on each application with a different user, will you? So you need a single sign on, like openID or CAS.

8- Management interface for the cloud. The cloud needs a management interface that let you create, destroy, migrate, etc. For example amazon has its own interface, as well as vcloud. We have also opensource solutions like eucalyptus, open nebula and abiquo.

For sure there are more technologies involved on IaaS but in my opinion those 8 are the key ones. Of course would be great to read your comments specially if you disagree.

a week after opensuse conference

2009-09-27T11:49:00.003+02:00

openSUSE was a week before and it look like it was a lot of time ago.... it was great to be at Nurenberg again although I was only from Wednesday to Saturday morning. I had the oportunity to talk to a lot of people from Novell-SUSE and everyone was extremelly kind . Thanks everyone for that.

At gallery.opensuse.org I've found a photo of myself during my talk and I am posting it here as this is the prove I was there :) .

During the talk (Updates forecast for openSUSE) a lot of discussion went on and we'll for sure use all the feedback . That was a very productive presentation for us.

Thanks to Novell-SUSE for organizing this event.

proxying opensuse repositories

2009-08-03T16:57:00.002+02:00

When building a custom distribution or an appliance, you must create a custom repository where to store the updates. Actually you should create a set of repositories, so you can test the updates before delivering to your users.

Proxyrepo is a tool we've created for managing such repositories. We are using it on at least one custom linux distribution. It works quite well for us and is a good tool for managing the updates based on our current methodology.

Here is a little description on how it works:

It mirrors different repositories (opensuse, opensuse build service repositories, and external repositories) and let you move the rpms and the updateinfo.xml files from that repository to the testing repository.

Not all the rpms go to the testing repository, only a subset, that is, the ones that are at your distribution or appliance. Also, a list of rpms called "blacklist" is checked. The blacklist are those rpms that should not go to our clients before being reviewed. These rpms are the rpms that were modified for any reason for building the distribution or appliance.

Moreover, the information on the different updateinfo.xml files is splitted into parts so later on they will be merge to only one and only one updateinfo.xml file.

From testing you move your rpms and updateinfo.xml files to unstable, where a repository is actually created merging all the updateinfo.xml files and creating the other needed files.

Once unstable is verified, the repository is moved to qa, so the qa team can verify that. After that, the repo is sent to production so your users will get the updates.

When the qa team detects some kind of bug, the production repository is copied back to the qa repository, and the qa is copied back to unstable, so developers can work again on it on testing and push again the updates.

You can get the sourcecode by :

git clone git://gitorious.org/opensuse/proxyrepo.git

It is a set of shell scripts that uses rsync, wget, createrepo tool and enhancerepo (a modified version of enhancerepo that is also at the git repository).

linkat 3.0 beta 2

2009-07-15T13:04:00.004+02:00

The beta 2 for the linkat 3.0 has been released. Linkat is an education distribution based on openSUSE and openSUSE edu . Linkat is the distribution that the Education Ministry of Catalunya (Spain) is installing on different schools and, a part from the education software, it has some default values for installing linkat 3.0 as a server, a client, or a standalone. Moreover, once installed, LTPS can be configured. You can download a copy from:

ftp://ftp.grn.es/mirrors/linkat/3.0/

I have developed some YaST modules for this project, made some rpms, and set up an update repository.

update forecast for opensuse: milestone 0.1

2009-07-15T11:49:00.004+02:00

Update forecast has reached milestone 0.1!

Update forecast is a project for creating a prediction model for openSUSE updates, extensible to any distribution updates, so we can have a prediction of how many updates will come. That is a research project and we do not know whether there is such a model, but for sure the work will be worth it and we'll learn a lot.

This first milestone was to study the openSUSE 11.0 updates and for doing so we implemented a small java application that parses the updateinfo.xml file, the file that has the information of the publication of the updates. As a result, we wrote a white paper that was presented at the Free Software Conference in Barcelona (http://www.jornadespl.org) last week.

You can download the code and the white paper from sourceforge: http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/updateforecast .

You can download the presentation from http://www.jornadespl.org/biblioteca/viii-jornades/xerrades-curtes/model-predictiu-dactualitzacions-software

This project is being sponsored by the Ministry of Industry Science and Technology of the Spain, the European Union, ITechGrup and A65.cat.

openSUSE Factory open

2009-06-29T15:15:00.003+02:00

This new is some days old but haven't checkout the news for a while:

http://news.opensuse.org/2009/06/18/opensuse-factory-is-now-open/

openSUSE Factory is open! That means that people outside Novell will have a chance to real participate on the openSUSE distribution. That is GREAT news!

I've seen there is some discussion around it motivated by fear. Fear that people will contribute garbage... Well, I think there are really good programmers on different opensource projects and not all of them are Novell employees. People will be given commit privileges by merit, as it is done on the most important opensource communities.

Congratulations to openSUSE and the people who took this decision.

By the way, to those who think only Novell employees should commit to the distribution because of Quality, use SLES, that is a distribution that is reviewed by Novell, certified, etc.

eyeOS Web Desktop appliance

2009-04-28T13:44:00.003+02:00

What to say about eyeOS? It is a Web desktop, that is, a desktop that can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection and a browser. No VNC or FreeNX trick. It is almost everything javascript (and a few php).

With eyeOS you have an online text processing, spreadsheet, presentation, calendar, contactes, pdf reader, mp3 player, video player, ... and more!

There is a demo online at http://eyeos.info/ as well as some eyeos private server hosting.

Now, you have also an appliance created with SUSE Studio you can run on your computer. Download it from:

http://lin.cat/Web_Desktop_eyeOS_appliance.i686-0.0.1.oem.tar.gz

Login with user tux and password linux and follow the instructions.

Traffic shaper appliance for trying web applications on slow connections

2009-03-23T12:46:00.006+01:00

Are you a web application programer? If so, did you ever wanted to try out a web application you have worked on and see how it would react on a slow connection?

If so, you maybe had looked at tc, a command line utility for linux that shapes your traffic queues.

Daniel Massaguer has looked at that and I helped him create an appliance for that:

http://www.lin.cat/TrafficShaper_router-1.0.2.vmx.tar.gz

It is a linux router and it includes the tc preconfigured as a 1MB ADSL connection and it also outputs nice graphs on that.

But hold on, you need also a client that connects to the router. No problem, he has also done this:

http://www.lin.cat/Traffic_Shaper_client-1.0.2.vmx.tar.gz

It is an appliance that includes firefox and konqueror so you can connect to the web application you want to try.

This way you can try your web applications and see how they will look like on a 1MB ADSL.

Interesting, uh?

This appliances are vmware appliances, so all you need is a vmware server/player, that you can download from free from vmware.com.

If you want to know more about it, how to install them and how they were implemented, download the white paper from:

http://www.lin.cat/trafficShaper.pdf

By the way, they were build with SUSE Studio.

Jabber appliance

2009-03-17T15:23:00.002+01:00

This is an Instant Messaging based on jabber. First time it boots it configures itself. Give it a try!

http://lin.cat/Instant_Messaging_jabber_Server-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

Programming languages 101 appliance

2009-03-17T15:12:00.005+01:00

This appliance has been implemented for teaching programming languages. It includes compilers, interpreters, and programming environments for multiple languages.

This one has been implemented by Daniel Massaguer, who is a teacher assistant at the University of California, Irvine campus. It has been done with susestudio. Give it a try! You'll like it!

http://lin.cat/Programming_Languages_101-1.0.0.vmx.tar.gz

gnucash appliance

2009-02-21T10:57:00.002+01:00

This appliance is a gnucash one for managing your accounts. Is an appliance and so it only has this software that gets fullscreen. The only thing you need to know is that the user with you have to login is tux, password linux.

This is a vmware image you can run on a vmware server. It was built with suse studio and it is based on opensuse.

Feel free to download it and give it a try.

I would be very happy to get some feedback on it.

http://www.lin.cat/cash_gnucash_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

eeepc appliance

2009-02-17T16:28:00.002+01:00

http://www.wafaa.eu/index.php?/archives/171-First-Studio-Production.html

Here you'll find how Andrew Wafaa with the Suse Studio web application created an appliance for the eeepc.

Interesting project on how to make a hardware appliance with Suse Studio.

elisa media center appliance

2009-02-17T16:24:00.003+01:00

I've just read a post from snorp http://snorp.net/2009/02/13/fun-with-studio/ were he explains how he did a media center appliance with suse studio. You can download it from http://snorp.net.nyud.net/files/Elisa_Media_Center-0.0.1.oem.tar.gz.

The most difficult part seems installing the right drivers for the hardware, that snorp solved on the firstboot of the appliance.

Give it a try!

fosdem09 is over

2009-02-11T13:28:00.001+01:00

Fosdem was fun. Fosdem is the kickoff of new projects every year and in one year will see which succeded.

Not all the presentations were good, but there were some that were very good and made it worth it.

This year I had my 5 minutes on the Suse Studio presentation (at the opensuse dev room), presenting the 20 appliances I made with it.

Three years ago I went to Fosdem for the first time and presented the instlux project as a lightning talk. The following year instlux was part of the opensuse project and I presented linkat (together with Jordi Bruguera), an edu distribution based on SLES and openSUSE, that this year was presented as a collaboration project with opensuse edu. So every year, one project. We'll see next year what I have to tell!

XFCE4 appliance

2009-02-10T20:03:00.002+01:00

Suse studio has templates for icewm, gnome and kde, but did not have an XFCE4. This is an XFCE4 appliance that can be used as a template. It boots into kdm and after logging as user tux, password linux, you'll get into xfce4, this cool light window manager.

You can download it from http://www.lin.cat/XFCE4-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

Enjoy !

limejeos development appliance

2009-02-10T19:55:00.003+01:00

LimeJeos is a project at the opensuse community for building a very small linux, that is a JeOS (Just enough Operating System) based on opensuse as a base for appliances.

This JeOS is defined as a kiwi project.

This appliance has a checkout version of the code in svn of this project and all the kiwi tools needed to create a limejeos appliance and so, an appliance based on limejeos.

Just login as user root, password linux, and you'll find everything you need in the work directory. You can also make a "svn update" to get the latest code.

It is based on opensuse11.0 and has been built with the suse studio, a web application for building appliances based on openSUSE. LimeJeOS and the suse studio have in common that they both use kiwi.

Download it and give it a try!

http://www.lin.cat/LimeJeOS_development-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

clock appliance

2009-02-10T19:48:00.004+01:00

Just a clock. Nothing else nothing more. Based on the xeyes appliance, I just changed the xeyes by the xclock. This is an example of how to clone from the xeyes and change the application.

Download it from http://www.lin.cat/clock_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

planet appliance

2009-02-06T17:46:00.002+01:00

Want to build your planet like the gnome planet for example? So take this appliance:

http://www.lin.cat/planet_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

login as user root (password linux) and go edit the files in /etc/planet with the rss you want.

It is configured that hourly it will get the rss feeds by running a cron job.

So easy with an appliance, huh?

It was also easy to do with the suse studio.

openSUSE Build Service appliance

2009-02-06T17:29:00.002+01:00

Haven't you thought about having your own openSUSE Build Service? So here you have it. Built with suse studio and based on opensuse 11.0 with the latest openSUSE Build Service code (1.5 release candidate).

Get it from http://www.lin.cat/Open_Build_Service_stable_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

Like the mojoportal, this appliance has its own firefox so just login with user tux password linux. If you wanted to use it from other hosts, configure the hosts obs1, obs2 and obs3 on your dns (or on your /etc/hosts ) to point to the IP address you have on this appliance.

Enjoy!

mojoportal appliance

2009-02-06T17:18:00.002+01:00

This one is the first Mono web application appliance I've made. I downloaded the latest release from the mojoportal web page. Mojoportal is a Content Management System. I am not any expert on that, but you don't have to make an appliance of it. Mojoportal can work with postgresql, mysql and sqlite. This appliance is configured with sqlite.

But this time, instead of connecting to it through your browser, I embedded a firefox that connects to it so that you only have to boot and you'll see mojoportal working (login as user tux, password linux).

That is a variation from all the webapp appliances we've seen so far. We can think like a merge of a webapp appliance and a kiosk appliance.

That is because it was thought as a livecd appliance, that is, a demo appliance, more than a virtual image ready for production, but it make me thing it could have also been done with all of them. What do you think?

Get it from:

http://www.lin.cat/mojoportal-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

phppgadmin appliance

2009-02-06T17:11:00.002+01:00

It looks like I am spamming today, isn't it? Tonight FOSDEM09 will start and want to have entries for all of the appliances I've made with suse studio before giving away the DVDs with those 20 ones.

After doing the phpmyadmin, the next logical thing I could have done was to do the phppgadmin, right? So here it is. Based on the LAPP appliance, I added a php interface for the postgresql database called phppgadmin:

http://www.lin.cat/postgresql_pgAdmin_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

When connecting to the IP address through your web browser, type postgres as user and the same value as password and you'll connect to your databases. Not very secure, so be careful.

Feedback will be very welcome!

phpmyadmin appliance

2009-02-06T17:04:00.003+01:00

When I had the LAMP appliance done, I thought "let's add a php interface for managing the mysql, right?" and did this one.

After configuring the network, you can connect through your internet browser and you'll connect to the phpmyadmin web interface where you will see your mysql database. Then you can add databases, tables, make inserts, ... with this php web application so well-known for that.

It does not have any security at all, so be careful with it.

http://www.lin.cat/Mysql_phpmyadmin_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

Like all the other ones I am talking about this days, it has been done with suse studio as an invited user.

xeyes appliance

2009-02-06T12:56:00.003+01:00

I love this one! Actually it does nothing else than run the xeyes application, that is a couple of eyes following your mouse, but is fun ;) . This is the base for other appliances that run just a single application in fullscreen mode and no window manager at all.

If you want to make such an appliance, use this as your base.

http://www.lin.cat/xeyes_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

wordpress appliance

2009-02-06T12:51:00.002+01:00

Another web application appliance. This time is the software for Publishing in internet known for creating blog sites. That is WordPress.

Once it boots, it asks you to configure the network. Then, you can connect to its IP address by using your internet browser. Things you need to know is that there is a database in localhost with user root and no password and that the root password for the system is linux.

Start building blog communities!

http://www.lin.cat/Publishing_WordPress_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

LAPP appliance

2009-02-06T12:46:00.003+01:00

If the LAMP was the base for linux web appliances based on mysql, lapp is the base for postgresql based appliances.

Download it from http://www.lin.cat/LAPP-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

LAMP appliance

2009-02-06T12:42:00.002+01:00

I've writen about some appliances that are in fact LAMP applications (joomla, sugarcrm, moodle,...) . Actually, all of them have been cloned from the LAMP appliance, that is an openSUSE 11.0 with Apache, Mysql and Php.

If you want to make your own appliance of a lamp application, use this as a base and you'll can focus on the settings of your application while the rest is ready to go.

Download it from http://www.lin.cat/LAMP_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

kiosk appliance

2009-02-03T19:31:00.002+01:00

The kiosk appliance were a browser shows up and connects to a web application is a very typical appliance built using firefox and the r-kiosk extension. This one has been built with suse studio and is based on opensuse 11.0.

Get it from http://www.lin.cat/kiosk_firefox_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz.

egroupware appliance

2009-02-03T19:03:00.003+01:00

egroupware, an opensource groupware for mail, calendar, ... This is an appliance made with suse studio with this groupware. Download it, configure the network and connect through your browser to configure it and use it.

You can download it from http://www.lin.cat/groupware_eGroupware_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

gbrainy appliance

2009-02-03T17:13:00.003+01:00

Train your brain with this gbrainy appliance. It is an appliance with just the gbrainy application. It boots into it, in fullscreen, and you can train your brain with multiple exercises.

Built with suse studio , gbrainy is based on opensuse 11.0.

Download it from http://www.lin.cat/gbrainy_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz and give it a try!

Login as user tux, password linux.

sugarcrm appliance

2009-02-01T21:49:00.003+01:00

This appliance is a CRM appliance based on SugarCRM. Boot it, configure the network and connect to it by using your browser.

As the other ones, the root password is linux, and there is a database on localhost with root user and no password (use localhost , not the IP address).

Give it a try and tell me what you think about it!

http://www.lin.cat/CRM_Sugar_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

Moodle appliance

2009-02-01T21:23:00.005+01:00

Moodle is the most known Course Management Software. Universities around the world are using it as an elearning platform. You can manage students, teachers, courses, activities, ... One very easy way to install Moodle is to just copy a virtual appliance like the one I've made with Suse studio . Give it a try!

First time it boots, it configures the network. If you configure it as dhcp, login as root (linux as password) and use ifconfig to know the IP address. Once you know the network configuration, connect to it with your browser, and follow the instructions.

There is a mysql database configured on localhost you can use. Use user root and no password (leave it blank).

Download URL: Course_Management_System_moodle_applianc-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

joomla appliance

2009-01-30T20:47:00.004+01:00

Also built with suse studio this appliance is a joomla appliance based on openSUSE 11.0 . First time it boots, network is configured (the YaST first-boot network module is loaded, actually). Then, you just have to connect to the IP address with your browser and you'll see the joomla installation pages. Follow the steps and you'll have a joomla system ready to go.

This appliance has a mysql configured as:

host: localhost
user: root
password: [leave it blank]

Use this configuration when prompted during the joomla installation wizard.

As you may know, joomla is a Content Management System. So with this appliance, you are ready to have your own web site, with news, menus, articles, ... and everything joomla has to provide.

Download it from http://www.lin.cat/CMS_joomla_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

Tip: the root password is linux. If you configure the network as dhcp, login as root and use ifconfig to know the IP address you have to connect to.

chess appliance

2009-01-30T16:52:00.004+01:00

The second appliance is a chess game appliance. This one needed a window manager and icewm fits this purpose. This appliance is based on the glchess game. Appliances are one purpose, and the purpose of this one is to play chess. You can play chess against the PC, or you can play chess against a friend of you.

Be the one to kill your opponents' king!

Download it from http://www.lin.cat/chess_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

Log in as

user: tux
password: linux

calculator appliance

2009-01-30T16:46:00.002+01:00

This is the first appliance of a series of 20 appliances I've made with suse studio. Some of them are very simple, like this one, and its purpose is to provide examples. Some, are more complex.

This appliance is nothing more than a calculator based on xcalc software. It does nothing else
than that and it boots into that, so no extra configuration is required.

You can download it from http://www.lin.cat/calculator_appliance-0.0.1.vmx.tar.gz

Feedback is very welcome!

My 20 Appliances

2009-01-29T13:05:00.002+01:00

"My 20 appliances" is a DVD I'll be giving at Fosdem09 filled with 20 appliances built with suse studio . Suse studio is a great web application for building linux appliances based on suse.

If you want one, come to Cornelius talk about suse studio on the opensuse room.

See you there!

openbravo network

2009-01-12T20:40:00.003+01:00

Openbravo network is an ERP appliance based on Openbravo ERP software. Long time ago I participated on the implementation and was a very interesting experience. The appliance was made with rPath technology, the first company making software appliances as far as I know that have an excellent tool for managing them.

The distro was based on RedHat. It was very interesting to see how they were using RedHat's SRPMS and migrating them to their own package management.

rBuilder, the rPath server for making software appliances, is very well thought and you can see they have very good engineers behind. Also the support they were providing by IRC was very very good.

The package management they use, is kind of a mix between traditional package managers and version control systems like svn or bazaar, and that makes it a little difficult for the beginner to start making appliances using their system. Sometimes you need to understand a lot of things to get some simple things done. I think that is the main problem they have, but it is only my opinion ;) . And that is one of the strengths of SUSE Studio. If you are an alpha user, you must have seen how easy is to create an appliance. That is a very good point.

shibboleth appliances

2009-01-12T20:29:00.003+01:00

Recently I did three shibboleth virtual appliances. Man, that was tough! I configured a Shibboleth Identity provider on a Xen virtual machine, and two Shibboleth Service Providers on two other Xen machines.

That was a prototype for a company that wanted to evaluate Shibboleth as a Credential Provider so they can be authenticated on different web applications and share some common attributes.

The IDP (Identity provider) were two java applications that run on a Tomcat container and the Service Provider were one C++ application running as a daemon and one Apache module. They all have to be compiled and configured. There were a lot of certificate exchanging and also an ldap backend for the attributes.

It was a very interesting project. The most difficult part was that some stuff were missing on the documentation and the mailing lists were unuseful, but I succeed!

summarizing 2008

2008-12-22T10:57:00.004+01:00

We are getting to the end of the 2008 and is time to look back and make a small summary.

During this year, I left my job at openTrends were I had been for 2 and a half years, working on very interesting projects, to work at Flumotion. While I was in Flumotion, I started working as a freelance consultant and, after a while, I decided to be freelance 100%. This has been a big decision and, so far, I am very happy about it.

Instlux, the linux from windows installer that I started 3 years ago, is part of the openSUSE distribution since 10.3 version. It has been a great experience and I have known very interesting people thanks to it.

linkat, the linux distribution for catalan schools, is now at the 2.1 version. I have not worked on linkat this year, but I went to fosdem to talk about it. Next February I'll be there, too.

lin.cat, a network of companies that gives level 1 support to linkat has grown up to 32 companies and we cover 90% of Catalunya. This year, we'll be working on l1network, the web application needed for managing this network, that will be published on sourceforge, so others can use it, too.

Openbravo Network was published this year. This is an ERP appliance based on Openbravo for Openbravo partners, based on rPath. I had worked on that at the end of 2007 and was a very interesting project.

I bought a lenovo thinkpad and a vodafone huawei, so I can work anywhere, as well as a small NAS so I make backups of everything.

Opensuse has published the opensuse 11.0 and the opensuse 11.1. This last version has been done using the openbuildservice. At the end of the year, opensuse is publishing this openbuildservice version.

I came out with the name LimeJeOS for the Jeos based on openSUSE. I did not have time to work on that project, but I gave the name.

I've been working with Novell on the Suse Studio, a web application for building appliances. That is a great tool and I am sure is going to be the next big thing on linux.

Virtualization is becoming and every day tool for a lot of companies, using different technologies like vmware, xen, virtual-box, kvm, etc. This is not going to be the next big thing, that's is the current big thing.

My last article as a linux reporter on the Todo Linux was on March, and was about the buildservice. I enjoy a lot writing but I do not have the time now.

I've been working on einestic, a free software for small companies. I am sure this software will be a very usefull software for a lot of them. We'll try to build a L1 network like the linkat one during next year.

Well, it is been a year with a lot of changes, isn't it?

Happy 2009 to every one!

Configuring Vodafone Spain 3G and openSUSE 11.0

2008-12-05T11:20:00.006+01:00

After looking at google and some docs like http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:HUAWEI_E220_Support I did not succeed to configure my Vodafone 3G modem (HUAWEI) with opensuse 11.0 until I looked at the configuration on a windows machine.

To sum it up, the important things I was not doing are that the username and password are vodafone (both of them), and the phone number must be *99***16# .

Also important, that I had to remove the pin by inserting the phone card into a Vodafone phone.

So, if you are having trouble with your Vodafone Spain, check those values on /etc/wvdial.conf:

Phone = *99***16#
Username = vodafone
Password = vodafone

and on /etc/ppp/chap-secrets and /etc/ppp/pap-secrets:

vodafone * vodafone

Also, the network manager does not work always for me, so I ended up by removing it (on yast2-network general section) and using wvdial instead on a terminal:

sudo wvdial

Hint: You can use wvdialconf with your modem plugged to get a sample wvdial.conf where you only have to change the values I mentioned.

limejeos at volcanica.cat

2008-09-20T12:30:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I did a talk (30') about limejeos at volcanica (http://www.volcanica.cat) . The talk included a small demo were we created a web server appliance, using limejeos as a base and kiwi as the tool. The web server appliance included an html page as part of the demo.

There were few people but they were very interested, specially on the demo. The demo actually was:

[everything as root]

0- Create a mirror for opensuse packages. Actually I copied the DVD into a folder and make this folder available from http (for example in /srv/www/htdocs/suse and install apache2).

1- checkout a copy of limejeos:
svn co https://forgesvn1.novell.com/svn/opensuse/trunk/distribution/images/LimeJeOS

actually 0 and 1 were done previous to the demo.

2- create a new folder for our appliance and copy the build.sh script and the generic folder (from openSUSE11.0 folder)

3- edit the generic/config.xml and:

3.1- Add the apache2 and apache2-prefork package (add it after the vim package)

3.2- Replace the opensuse repo by a the local mirror (for example http://localhost/suse)

4- edit the generic/config.sh and add "insserv apache2" at the end

5- create the folders generic/root/srv/www/htdocs

6- edit the file generic/root/srv/www/htdocs/index.html

7- Then, and only because of time issues, edit the build.xml and remove all the kiwi lines except the two ones for the vmx.

8- Run build.sh

It took 6 minutes to create the vmware folder (out-vmx) with the vmware files. Then we copied somewhere else and changed the owner so we could open it with the vmware-console. And then, opened the vmware console (as the user that owns the files) and click on "open machine" and "play".

Of course, we opened a firefox and point it to http://apliance_ip and we were able to see the index.html content.

It took about 15-20 minutes to do all the demo, and I realized that was the most interesting part of the talk. We had a small issue (always on a demo...) about trying to reconfigure the network while we were running kiwi. So, do not configure the network while you are running kiwi. ;) .

At that was all. I enjoyed a lot and drove back home.

catalan student + limejeos = 6000 euros

2008-09-08T19:58:00.005+02:00

Catalan government has just announced a list of projects on his particular "summer of code" (even thought summer is to end).

The only restriction is that students must be enrolled on a catalan University. From the 22 projects, 3 of them are about LimeJeOS, so 3 students will have the opportunity to work on limejeos related projects. This 3 students will get 2000 euros each one.

The projects are for creating sofware appliances based on limeJeOS.

So, if you are enrolled on a catalan university on want to work on limejeos, look at :

http://www.lafarga.cat/beques/jordi-massaguer-pla-limejeos

or contact me, as I am the mentor on them.

installation mit instlux von windows

2008-08-31T17:54:00.003+02:00

One day I got an openSUSE 11.0 box and I was checking the manual while waiting for a plane transfer at an airport, when I saw that there was a chapter about how to install openSUSE with instlux!

instlux was my contribution to openSUSE 10.3 and I was so happy when I saw that, not only in the 11.0 DVD but also on the manual. As said, the time I saw that I was in an airport, waiting for a plane transfer, and I was really really happy! My contribution was there! It was a pity that I was traveling alone because I could not tell anyone.

Seeing instlux on a manual has been the best gift to the instlux project. Everything started because I was not able to install linux on a laptop. Then I googled around and found a howto on doing it using the installed windows and grub4dos. After that, and with my linux laptop, I wrote an nsis script that was doing all that and opened a sourceforge project.

I tried to make people know about that, so I started writing to wikis, developers mailing lists, telling people that I knew, until one day that I connect to an only meeting room on the opensuse IRC channel. I told the guys there, and I was invited to talk about that on the fosdem lightning talks, so I sent a presentation as soon as the call was opened, and got accepted.

Then things were better. At Fosdem I met AJ (who I have to thank for that) and talk about it. A lot of people was willing to talk to AJ, so we talked for 5 minutes and that was all. Instlux was included on openSUSE 10.3 and got help from suse people that implemented the missing details.

openSUSE community looked very happy to have instlux, and I was very happy to participate. Actually, what I like more is the feeling of getting involved on a community like openSUSE.

instlux is not the only system for doing that, but I think I can say that was the first one that was implemented as a windows installer and included on a distribution.

Right now, I am not spending time on instlux, as SUSE/Novell has more resources, and I am very happy of that, as I can spend time on other projects.

So, thanks openSUSE guys for letting me get involved!

building the limejeos

2008-08-12T14:13:00.004+02:00

LimeJeos (http://en.opensuse.org/limejeos) is the base for software appliances based on openSUSE. But LimeJeos is not only that, but a kiwi project, that is an xml file, that lets you build it. And that is the most important part. Why? Cause you can build your own software appliance based on LimeJeos (openSUSE) by modifying this xml file, and that is scriptable and so can be automatized on your release process.

What I mean? I mean that you can, for example, everytime you release a new version of your software, create a software appliance, that is a linux livecd, or a vmware, or a Xen, or usb or a disc image, that contains a minimal linux and your application.

Here you have the instructions on how to build your limejeos (this instructions have been copied from http://lizards.opensuse.org/2008/07/16/opensuse-gets-the-jeos/, where you can find more information,too):

Check out the current version of LimeJeOS using the following commands:

svn co https://forgesvn1.novell.com/svn/opensuse/trunk/distribution/images/LimeJeOS

Make sure you have the needed kiwi packages installed. You will need at least: kiwi, kiwi-tools and kiwi-desc-vmxboot and/or kiwi-desc-xenboot from http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/Tools/. When those conditions are met, building the openJeOS images is accomplished by just running the “./build.sh” script from the LimeJeOS repository.

./build.sh

Please note that the build process will need at least twice as much diskspace as the final images, so you’ll need around 2 GB of free disk space at this time to build Lime JeOS.

After you have booted the virtual system, log in as user “root” with password “linux”.

installing a local build service on openSUSE 11

2008-08-06T17:42:00.004+02:00

I recently installed a build service (http://en.opensuse.org/buildservice) on an openSUSE11 for demonstration purposes and here are my notes.

The build service is a GREAT tool in order to help you build packages for openSUSE but also for other distributions like Ubuntu, Fedora, ... so if you are building your own software and would like to distribute it by providing installers for different linux, this may be your tool.

I'll talk about the internals another day, but today I'll talk about how to install it.

The easiest way is to go to http://download.opensuse.org and search for obs. You'll find a product call obs-server. Click on the one-click-install and everything will be done (adding the openSUSE:Tools repo and installing the different components.

Once you have done that, that was pretty easy, you open the file /usr/share/doc/packages/obs-api/README.setup and follow the instructions.

However, I came up with some problems so I am giving the following advice:

1- If you have problems with authentication or authorization on the database, and if your platform is for testing, just use the root mysql user with no password. Warning: never do that on production systems!!

2- If your firefox does not find your application, like happened to me, use virtual hosts. As this is only for demonstration, I edit the /etc/hosts and add:

127.0.42.1 obs

127.0.42.2 obs2

127.0.42.3 obs3

and then change the 127.0.42.* by the corresponding obs* name on

/etc/lighttpd/vhosts.d/obs.conf

/srv/www/obs/webclient/config/environments/production_slave.rb (IMPORTANT: this change is not on the README.setup and you have to do it. I sent a ticket to bugzilla.novell.com so they can add it to it, but until then, you have to remember that, or make a grep)

Adapt the README.setup instructions to use those virtual hosts.

After following the instrucions, you'll be able to login as admin (password opensuse).

You can create a new user from http://obs2 (login with the admin user).

Then, you can login as the new user and create a project and a package. I am attaching here a simple spec you can use to test the building process. One that not requires more than this spec. After that, add the openSUSE10.3 repository (or anyother suse) and press "trigger rebuild".

After that, the build should start. If you do not see any message, press the "update" icon on the build section.

And to end with this very fast introduction on setting up a build service on an openSUSE11, we can change the openSUSE logo by one of our choice by editing the file

/srv/www/obs/webclient/app/views/layouts/application2.rhtml

look for the geeko.jpg and replace that by your own logo.

#
# simple spec file for testing the build service
#

# norootforbuild

Name: simple
License: BSD 3-Clause
Group: System/Fhs
Version: 11.0
Release: 47.1
Summary: Simple rpm
BuildRoot: %{_tmppath}/%{name}-%{version}-build

%description
This package contains a simple file for testing the build service.

%prep

%build

%install
touch $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/simple

%files
%defattr(644,root,root,755)
/simple

installing openSUSE11 on a Lenovox61s (part 2)

2008-08-02T17:42:00.003+02:00

ah it could not have been that easy....

Grub was not installed. I do not know if it has something to do with skipping the partition configuration. So I boot again from the livecd and install grub from there.

Actually it wasn't that straightforward. I did different attempts so I can not be sure 100% which thing make it work, but here is a try:

1- open a terminal
2- su
3- run grub-install

the yast2 boot loader module should appear and then :

4- ask for a proposal (expert button)
5- write to disc (very important! I believe that is very important and if you click next or finish without that it may not work)
6- I try to run grub-install again and the yast module was not opened. I do not know if this is important, I mean the fact that I run it twice, but I am writing it down just in case.

Then I could restart and everything works VERY WELL. It is a pity that the installation was a little tricky....

installing openSUSE11 on a Lenovox61s

2008-08-02T16:42:00.004+02:00

I just bought a Lenovo Thinkpad x61s. I once use a thinkpad x61 and felt in love with it so now, that I am a freelance and need a good laptop, just went for one. And here I am, installing an openSUSE11 on it.

Booting with the LiveCD has been a great success! Everything works! Graphics, sound, ethernet, wireless... it really rocks!

However, when trying to install it, get a problem with the partition setup, that is that parted could not change the sda label (don't know why it wants to do that), so I ended up opening a terminal and using fdisk to create my partition table (opened the 414158 report bug in bugzilla.novell.com ).

After that, I format it using mkfs.ext3 and mkswap and started again the live installer... and then, it worked!! Right now, while I am writing here, the system is being installed (installing from live just rocks!!!!)

So, good job lenovo and suse!

Freelance joke?

2008-08-02T10:46:00.004+02:00

Since yesterday (1st of August) I stop being a Friday Freelance and start being a 100% happy freelance! So, today, as my second freelance day, I wanted to start the day with some laugh and look for freelance jokes on google and youtube... and what I found? I found a lots of freelance blogs, but not jokes ... so I was wondering, don't they have time for jokes, or they are so good that make their work blogs have a higher page rank that anything else :) ?

So I stopped looking for jokes and do like other freelance do, work!

happy freelance!

Portàtils linkat / linkat laptops

2008-07-18T10:07:00.005+02:00

[català]

Ja tenim aquí els primers portàtils recomanats per linkat 2.0! Gràcies a la feina feta per pricoinsa, ja es pot comprar portàtils amb linkat 2.0 preinstal·lat.

Aquest portàtil s'afegeix a la llista d'ordinadors recomanats per linkat http://www.lin.cat/ordinadors_recomanats_linkat.html

on hi podem trobar servidors, estacions de treball, terminals lleugers i, des d'avui, portàtils.

[english]
Linkat laptops! Thanks to the work done by pricoinsa, it is possible to buy laptops with linkat 2.0 preinstalled.

This laptop is added to the list of linkat hardware http://www.lin.cat/ordinadors_recomanats_linkat.html

where one can find servers, workstations, thin clients and, since today, laptops.

linkat 2 released

2008-05-20T00:13:00.003+02:00

Linkat2 has been publically released and is downloadable from here

Linkat2 is the linux distribution that the catalan government (Spain) will be installing in all the schools (about 3000) during the next 2 years. Linkat2 is based on SLED10 and include OpenSUSE software as well as some educational software developed by the government itself.

A very good new for the open source community! You can find more info at http://linkat.xtec.net (in catalan).

Flumotion 0.5.2 'Can Tomas' released

2008-04-28T10:10:00.005+02:00

The Flumotion team proudly announces a new release of the development 0.5 branch of the Flumotion Streaming Server.

After the winter release that was bursting with features, for 0.5.2 the work has been focused on stabilizing Flumotion and improving user experience. Check the 0.5.2 release notes for all the details.

Flumotion is a streaming media server created with the backing of Fluendo.
It features intuitive graphical administration tools, making the task of setting up and manipulating audio and video streams easy for even novice system administrators.
Flumotion is released under the GPL.

More info at http://www.flumotion.net

100 of linkat2 schools the government said

2008-04-04T00:18:00.004+02:00

The catalan government has just announced that a hundred of schools will have linkat2 next september. Linkat2 is based on SLED10 and on openSUSE software. In two years all schools will have linkat2. All that was announced during the expodidactica http://www.expodidactica.com . You can read (in catalan) the new at

http://www.3cat24.cat/noticia/268294/barcelones/Un-centenar-de-centres-disposaran-a-partir-del-proxim-curs-del-programari-lliure-Linkat-amb-mes-de-2000-aplicacions-educatives

linkat 2.0 a l'escola a la Garrotxa

2008-04-02T09:07:00.006+02:00

(català, catalan)

Dissabte 12 d'Abril:
10:00 - 14:00 Linkat 2.0 a l'escola al IES Bosc de la Coma de la Garrotxa

Horari de l'event:

10:00 - 11:00 Un ordinador per cada dos alumnes. Ficció o realitat?, per Jordi Massaguer Pla, lin.cat: Serveis professionals en linkat
11:00 - 13:30 Demostració d'OpenOffice, per Joaquim Pérez, expert en OpenOffice
13:30 - 14:00 Experiència real a l'aula per Josep Almar, IES Puig Cargol, Calonge.

Organitzat per SITIC, Consell Comarcal de la Garrotxa, TeleJet, lin.cat, aeic i linkat

més info a http://lin.cat/events_linkat.html#20080412_2

One more week to apply for Google Summer of Code

2008-04-02T08:45:00.005+02:00

You still have time! The new deadline for student applications is Monday, April 7, 2008.

http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2008/03/one-more-week-to-apply-to-google-summer.html

2 alumnes per ordinador a les aules catalanes

2008-03-28T20:53:00.006+01:00

[català, catalan]

Voleu saber com es pot aconseguir tenir 2 alumnes per ordinador en comptes de 6 com tenim ara a les nostres escoles? I tot amb el mateix pressupost en informàtica i respectant el medi ambient! Llegiu l'article publicat al TodoLinux del mes de Març on explico com es pot aconseguir en un període de 4 anys (i tinguent en compte el creixement demogràfic).

Hi esteu d'acord? No hi esteu d'acord? Teniu dubtes? Envieu els vostres comentaris en aquest mateix "post".

Podeu trobar més informes sobre linkat a la web de lin.cat a la secció d'informes.

Cocktail.lin.cat and LimeJeOS at the Summer Of Code - submit your applications before 31st March!

2008-03-24T18:50:00.007+01:00

If you are a student and want to get 4500$ this summer for working on a free software project, submit you application to google before the 31st of March. Moreover, if you would like to get involved in a project for building software appliances and linux distributions, propose a LimeJeOS and cocktail.lin.cat project as openSUSE projects when submitting.

More info at: http://cocktail.lin.cat/summer_of_code_2008.html

cocktail.lin.cat updated with a draft of the design

2008-03-22T17:30:00.004+01:00

cocktail.lin.cat has been updated with a sketch of what it would be, a web application for building software applications. You can see the functional design and a first approach of the interface design.

LimeJeOS: The openSUSE based JeOS

2008-03-17T17:49:00.004+01:00

A new project called Lime JeOS (LInux Minimal Edition Just enough Operating System) has been created at the openSUSE community.

Lime JeOS is a project meant to be the base for sofware appliances. Similar to Ubuntu JeOS but more powerful as it is build on the openBuildService.

LimeJeOS is part of a very ambitious project: cocktail.lin.cat .

Cocktail.lin.cat is a project for building software appliances on top of openSUSE. It uses LimeJeOS (pronounced like lime juice), Eis (Enterprise Information Software pronounced like Ice) and KIWI (The openSUSE imaging system) for building them.

So LimeJeOS is only the first step to make building software appliances in a very easy and powerful way based on openSUSE. Software appliances will be a must use and must know technology in the near future, as it has many benefits for ISVs and software companies.

linkat install party

2008-03-12T18:35:00.002+01:00

(català)

El dissabte dia 12 d'abril de 2008 a les 10 del matí es realitzarà una "Install Party Linkat" al IES Montsià d'Amposta. Es presentarà la nova Linkat 2.0 feta pel departament d'Educació de la Generalitat de Catalunya.
Hi haurà la presència de responsables del projecte per introduir-nos en el món de GNU/Linux al món educatiu. La instal·lació es realitzarà a una de les aules de l'IES Montsià, però si vols portar el teu ordinador portatil també t'ajudarem a posar la Linkat.

Horari de l'event:

10:00 - 11:00 Xerrada sobre les novetats de Linkat 2.0
11:00 - 13:30 Install Party
13:30 - 14:00 Pissarra digital, per David Comuñas

Organitzat per Atictes i el departament d'Educació de la Generalitat de Catalunya.

call for participation: VII Free software meeting in Barcelona

2008-03-12T18:21:00.006+01:00

As every year since 2002, "La Càtedra de Programari Lliure de la UPC" organizes this event. This year this event is going to be at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and it is going to be focused on multimedia free software applications, as in this University there is a lot of research on this area. CLAM, a free multimedia audio research framework has its main researchers and developers working on that University and will take part on the organization.

This is an annual meeting point for Universities, Researchers, Administration and all the society to share and discuss what is being done in free software in Catalunya.

Last year I was there presenting a paper about instlux. Linkat was also presented there, and a lot of other interesting projects. I hope this year I can present also a very interesting paper. The call for papers is open till the April 28th.

More info at (in catalan):

http://cpl.upc.edu/

no more comkat but openSUSE edu. Long life to openSUSE edu

2008-03-10T16:08:00.005+01:00

The project comkat has been moved to openSUSE educational project.

The COMmunity repository for linKAT has been a project for those developers willing to collaborate to linkat, a linux distribution for the catalan schools run by the government. Comkat was run by individuals as volunteers.

When the comkat project started, there was no possibility to have an account for anybody at the open build service . That was one of the main reason to build an own repository where anybody could drop her rpms. Another reason was that it did not exist any specific project for education at openSUSE. Keep in mind that education projects should contain education software and that software should be for all ages.

However, things have changed. Anyone can get an open build service account, and right now there is a project, the openSUSE education project, that did not exist before.

These two points make the comkat project director (me) decided to move to the openSUSE education project (I am already a mantainer of the Education:Desktop and Education:Server subprojects at the BuildService), so we could join efforts and contribute to the openSUSE community.

So, long life to the openSUSE education project!

linkat logo done by Artur Tallada and Marià Cano.

instlux as part of the openSUSE project

2008-03-05T19:20:00.003+01:00

instlux became part of the openSUSE project with the 10.3 public release of openSUSE. The instlux project will no longer be mantained at sourceforge, but at the openSUSE community, which is a big community and I am very proud of contributing the project to it.

So, from now on:

homepage: http://en.opensuse.org/Instlux

bug traquer: http://en.opensuse.org/Submitting_Bug_Reports

support (forums, mailing lists, etc.):
http://en.opensuse.org/Communicate

The only thing that will remain at sourceforge will be code, that is, the svn. However there will be no new releases at sourceforge, as they will be released together with the openSUSE releases.

You can read about instlux at the novell connection magazine:

http://www.novell.com/connectionmagazine/2007/q4/tech_talk_3.html?sourceid=NCM_q4_07_tt3

Being instlux part of openSUSE is a very good thing for the project, actually I can not think about anything better, as being part of a bigger community gives instlux a better future that does not depend only on me having free time.

The photo has been taken by Zioluc and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 license

Fosdem 2008 impressions

2008-02-25T20:25:00.004+01:00

Just back from this great event that is fosdem, the most important event for community free software developers in Europe.

I have assisted to great talks and I am sure I have also missed some other great talks. Just to mention some:

on Sunday there were two very interesting talks about virtualization, one about Xen and the other one about VirtualBox
on Sunday there was a very interesting talk about kiwi, the system imaging creator for openSUSE isos, livecds and usb sticks. A must use technology for building custom distributions.
on Saturday there were very interesting talks about the build service, the openSUSE tool for building rpms and debs. A must use technology for building custom distributions, too.

Many thanks to the openSUSE people that let us present linkat and for their interest on the project, specially to Francis Giannaros.

Many thanks to the Fosdem organization, too, that make the 8th fosdem edition possible.

I've just uploaded the photos to my flickr account at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jordimassaguerpla

You can see photos from the linkat presentation at (thanks toni!):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/toniher/tags/fosdem2008/

CLAM 1.2 publicat

2008-02-15T14:25:00.004+01:00

L'equip del CLAM ha publicat la versió 1.2 on hi ha incorporat el treball fet sota el paraigües del Google Summer of Code així com el fet en el "Barcelona Media Foundation Audio Research Line".

Podeu trobar més info a:

http://clam.iua.upf.edu/

Estan treballant en temes realment impressionants que val la pena no perdre's, com la simulació acústica en 3D o el testfarm, l'eina d'integració contínua que utilitzen, a més a més de tota la recerca en audio que, de forma molt intel·ligent, estan aportant a la societat a través de codi lliure. Un exemple de transmissió de coneixament a seguir.

JClic ja és Debian

2008-02-15T14:12:00.004+01:00

El programari educatiu JClic, desenvolupat per Francesc Busquets i utilizat arreu del món en centres educatius, forma part ja de la distribució Debian. La informació del package la podeu trobar a:

http://packages.debian.org/sid/jclic

Debian té tot una política estricta (i ha de ser així) per a què un aplicatiu pugui formar part de la distribució. JClic compleix aquesta política i ha estat acceptat.

JClic té més de 1000 activitats, contribuïdes per la comunitat en diferents idiomes.

En la secció d'enllaços del projecte jclic http://clic.xtec.net/es/com/linkoteca.htm podeu trobar comunitats de llocs molt diversos: alemania, argentina, frança, chile, múrcia, aragó, balears, ....

El codi es troba a la Farga

https://projectes.lafarga.cat/projects/jclic/scm

i el projecte de traducció del jclic està hostatjat al launchpad

https://translations.launchpad.net/jclic/ .

Enhorabona als membres del project jclic!

proud to be a lizard

2008-02-06T21:25:00.000+01:00

I'm very proud to be an openSUSE member. Today, the openSUSE board has accepted my application.

"openSUSE Members" are specifically distinguished contributors who have brought a continued and substantial contribution to the openSUSE project.

2 alumnes per ordinador: és possible?

2008-02-05T23:26:00.000+01:00

Estic redactant un article que demostra com, utilitzant linkat2.0, la tecnologia LTSP, hardware reciclat i hardware de baix cost, podríem aconseguir que catalunya tingués 2 alumnes per ordinador, com a Extremadura, en comptes dels 6 que hi ha actualment (segons estudis estadístics de la generalitat). Ho creieu possible? Si voleu col.laborar en la revisió, contacteu-me a

No centOS for SUSE, that is the difference

2008-02-05T23:09:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I published a post into the opensuse mailing lists explaining why there is no centOS and won't be as long as novell does not change its release policy.

What I am talking about is that RedHat publishes the source code of every update (SRPMS) when the updates are sent to its customers. Theses source updates are public, so anyone can take them and recompile them and, as long as they take out the branding stuff (and RedHat tells you where to look for it), distribute them. That is what people from centOS do. Why RedHat do that? It is being told that this is the first step for some companies before getting a RedHat subscription. So it is bringing customers to RedHat. What about the ones that will never pay? Well, they would have never paid either, so... if you do not believe it, take a look at:

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise/5Client/en/os/SRPMS

and look for the dates of the updates.

Then, what happens with Novell? Novell publishes the source code (SRPMS) when they publish the updates. That means, you are either a Novell customer, so you can get the source code for every update that is sent to you, or you wait until Novell publishes the Service Packs. That is, when the Service Packs are public, so the updates. If you have doubts, take a look at the dates of:

http://forgeftp.novell.com/sledsource/SLED-10-i386-srpms/src/
http://forgeftp.novell.com/sledsource/SLED-10-SP1-i386-srpms/src/

Novell business model differs from the RedHat one on that aspect (and in others for sure). Actually I have the feeling that RedHat looks after big clients, that is clients that will pay RedHat for a Premium Support and, as they may have a lot of servers, will pay a lot. In contrast, Novell looks after, a part from the big clients, the medium size clients, by building a partnernet network all around the world. Medium size clients will be the ones that may not be paying if they had a NovellCentOS option. However, it is only my perspective....

You can follow the discussion at the opensuse lists at:

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2008-02/msg00294.html

Ordenador linkat 2.0

2008-01-14T19:27:00.002+01:00

En el portal lin.cat: Serveis professionals en linkat encontramos la sección "ordinadors recomanats per linkat 2.0" . Es una lista de ordinadores que són compatibles con linkat 2.0 Beta 1, ya que la Beta 1 es la versión más actual de que disponemos en estos momentos.

En estos momentos, en esta lista solo hay uno, pero se prevé que augmente cuando se publique definitivamente la linkat 2.0.

La compatibilidad hardware ha sido un problema para linkat y linux en general. Por esta razón, esta sección puede ser muy importante para el futuro del proyecto educativo de Cataluña.Vean si no los esfuerzos de Ubuntu con Dell y de Novell con Lenovo.

Ordinador linkat 2.0

2008-01-14T19:03:00.000+01:00

Al portal lin.cat: Serveis professionals en linkat podem trobar "ordinadors recomanats per linkat 2.0". Això és una llista d'ordinadors que han estat comprovats que són compatibles amb linkat 2.0 Beta 1, ja que la Beta 1 és la versió més actual de què es disposa en aquests moments.

En aquests moments, en aquesta llista només n'hi ha un, però es preveu que s'incrementi amb la proximitat de la publicació definitiva de la linkat 2.0.

La compatibilitat hardware és la pedra amb què linkat i linux en general sempre topa. Per això aquesta secció pot esdevenir molt important per al futur del projecte educatiu. Vegeu si no els esforços que Ubuntu i Novell estan fent en aquest sentit (Ubuntu amb Dell i Novell amb Lenovo).

Alliberat eZforOb: botiga virtual per a Openbravo

2007-12-21T12:12:00.002+01:00

Des d'openTrends Solucions i Sistemes S.L., la companyia de software lliure on treballo, s'ha alliberat una versió de la botiga virtual del eZPublish[1] que es conecta al Openbravo ERP[2] mitjançant web services[3].

A la pràctica el que permet és tenir una botiga virtual on podem vendre els productes que tinguem al Openbravo ERP i gestionar els pagaments des de l'Openbravo ERP.

Podeu descarregar-vos el codi font des de:

http://ez.no/developer/contribs/applications/ezforob

[1] eZPublish és un CMS (sistema de gestió de continguts) lliure que incopora una botiga virtual. Està implementat en php i funciona amb la BdD postgresql.
[2] Openbravo ERP és un ERP (Enterprise resource planning) lliure adaptat al pla comptable espanyol. Està implementat en java i ofereix una interfície mitjançant web-services per a punts de venta externs, com per exemple una botiga virtual.
[3] http://wiki.openbravo.com/wiki/index.php/Web_Services_Introduction

comunitat de banners publicitaris

2007-12-14T19:03:00.001+01:00

L'intercanvi de banners és ja un clàssic a internet. El que és interessant és la xarxa que es genera, o la comunitat si volem, entre els "intercanviadors" de banners. Servtelecom ofereix de forma gratuïta un servei d'autobanner que pretén formar una comunitat d'aquest estil de forma gratuïta. Es basa en que el teu banner apareixi automàticament en altres webs si afegeixes tu l'autobanner a la teva, un banner que mostrarà banners de les altres webs que hi participin. Tot de forma automàtica i gratuïta. Sembla un projecte interessant.

més info a:

http://recursosgratis.servtelecom.com/

Beta del Linkat 2.0

2007-11-30T21:48:00.000+01:00

Ja tenim la beta del linkat 2.0!! Llegeixo de la llista admpub@softcatala.org:

"Teniu disponible a:

http://download-linkat.xtec.cat/distribution/linkat-2.0/iso/linkat-2.0-beta1-dvd.iso

la beta 1 de la Linkat 2.

Aquesta beta està pensada per fer instal·lacions noves i per tant no l'utilitzeu per actualitzar linkats existents. Així tampoc es recomana que l'utilitzeu en entorns de producció. Pel que fa l'script de configuraciò d'aula aquest és operatiu i altament configurable per la qual cosa el nom: servidor.intracentre i la ip es poden canviar "a gust del consumidor".

Finalment us agrairem que reporteu qualsevol "bug" que trobeu a la distribució.

A:

https://projectes.lafarga.cat/projects/linkat/tracker

s'ha obert un lloc per tal de reportar aquests bugs (cal estar donat d'alta a LaFarga).

Dilluns obrirem un fòrum de Linkat 2 per rebre suggeriments, crítiques constructives :-), i la notícia es farà pública al portal. També penjarem imatges vmware per fer més propera la Linkat a tothom.

Esperem que aquesta beta us agradi.
"

Alliberar la beta de forma pública i habilitar el tracker és, al meu entendre, una bona decisió pel que felicito al departament per això.

anàlisi de la comunitat linkat

2007-11-30T15:39:00.000+01:00

Des del portal lin.cat s'ha escrit un informa d'investigació sobre la comunitat linkat existent. En l'informe hi trobem l'elecció d'un indicador per a mesurar aquesta comunitat i sobretot per mesurar els canvis que puguin haver-hi quan surti la 2.0, que per altra banda està a punt a punt de sortir. L'indicador es basa en les coneccions al sistema de descàrregues del linkat. Aquesta informació ha estat facilitat des del projecte linkat per a fer l'estudi.

Podeu trobar l'informa a http://www.lin.cat .

Penseu que les dades al final només poden ser orientatives, doncs existeix un proxy a educació per on teòricament passen tots els centres públics, pel que fa difícil de mesurar. Tot i això, els fitxers en els proxies no viuen per sempre, pel que segueix sent un indicador útil per a mesurar l'evolució de la comunitat.
Espero els vostres comentaris!

build service de canonical

2007-11-30T15:35:00.001+01:00

Canonical s'apunta també a la moda dels build services, és a dir, un servei on compilar els teus paquets per a la teva distro preferida. Canonical l'anomena el Personal Package Archive.

Un motiu més per pensar que el futur va cap aquí, si no veieu rPath i el seu rBuilder on-line, i opensuse i el seu OpenBuildService ( i ara també el Personal Package Archive de Canonical).

Molt interessant!

més info a: http://www.ubuntu.com/news/launchpad-ppa

a veure però quan ho fan gpl com els d'openSUSE!

Linkat a la Térmens LAN Party

2007-11-30T15:32:00.000+01:00

Última LAN party de l'any. El 21 22 i 23 de desembre tindrà lloc la que pot ser l'última LAN Party de l'any. A més aquest any hi haurà una instal.lació de linkat utilitzant tecnologies LTSP, les tecnologies de les aules de baix cost. Més info a:

http://www.informaticaiwireless.com/tlp/?p=41

dos catalans en el projecte openSUSE edu

2007-11-28T13:23:00.000+01:00

Des d'ahir al vespre, Jordi Bruguera i Jordi Massaguer (jo) han passat a formar part del projecte d'Educació de la comunitat openSUSE. El projecte d'educació d'openSUSE, anomenat també openSUSE Edu Cd, consisteix en la creació de cds addicionals per a openSUSE, anomenats add-ons. Aquests poden ser instal.lats durant la instal.lació del sistema o a posteriori, ja sigui des d'un suport CDROM o des d'un repositori web. A més dels CDs també es manté un repositori d'actualitzacions propi per a poder mantenir els sistems actualitzats.Els dos Jordis han estat assignats com a "mantainers", tant en el projecte Education:Desktop[1] com en el Education:Server[2] gràcies a la seva experiència en el projecte Linkat, on formen part de l'equip de desenvolupament.

Personalment em fa molta il.lusió pertànyer a aquesta comunitat i espero poder aportar el millor de mi en aquesta experiència. Espero que sigui tan bona experiència com amb el projecte instlux-openSUSE.

[1] https://build.opensuse.org/project/show?project=Education%3Adesktop [2]https://build.opensuse.org/project/show?project=Education%3Aserver

Gràcies! Instlux, dos anys, 100.000 descàrregues

2007-11-14T00:01:00.000+01:00

Gràcies!

Gràcies a tots aquells que heu descarregat instlux.

Gràcies a tots aquells que n'heu parlat en fòrums, blogs, portals, revistes, ...

Gràcies a tots aquells que heu aportat bugs, features requests, ...

Gràcies a tots aquells que heu aportat codi, ...

Gràcies a vosaltres que heu fet possible que en dos anys desde la primera publicació s'hagi descarregat 100.000 vegades!!

nova versió del sistema operatiu eyeOS

2007-11-05T08:07:00.001+01:00

Impressionant la nova versió. Des de la versió 0.9 que no m'ho mirava i realment es veu un projecte molt impresionant. Llegeixo al seu blog que aquesta nova versió pot importar documents word i llegir correu, dues característiques que li mancaven per a ser funcional. Només puc felicitar als desenvolupadors!

eyeOS és un sistema operatiu web, és a dir, que ens hi conectem des del navegador i tenim un escriptori amb un conjunt d'aplicacions disponibles. Entre aquest conjunt, hi trobem un bloc de notes, un gestor de contactes, algun joc, un reproductor de música, un gestor d'arxius ... i des d'ara un lector de correu, que era una peça fundamental que els faltava, a més a més d'un reproductor de video que ens permet veure pel.lícules en DivX!

YaST Tools for Creating Installation Media and Appliances

2007-11-02T20:32:00.000+01:00

Just looked at the latest news from openSUSE guys, and read that openSUSE 10.3 comes with yast tools for creating installation medias, livecds, xen images, .... that is for creating either appliances or custom distributions! Really impressive!

YaST Tools for Creating Installation Media and Appliances

2007-11-02T20:27:00.000+01:00

openSUSE 10.3 ve de sèrie amb eines per a crear:
- Addon CDs: CDs amb aplicacions complementaries que es poden afegir durant l'instal.lació, com el openSUSE edu CD.
- LiveCDs: LiveCDs amb openSUSE i les aplicacions que nosaltres volguem.
- Xen: Imatges de sistemes virtuals amb l'openSUSE i les aplicacions que volguem.
- USB sticks: Sticks USB amb l'openSUSE i els aplicacions que volguem.

Realment la gent d'openSUSE estan fent una feina impressionant! Entre això i el BuildService, fer distribucions derivades serà més fàcil que mai!

Podeu llegir més informació al portal de news d'opensuse.

Com fer GIFS animats amb el GIMP

2007-11-02T20:17:00.000+01:00

Fa dies que buscava un programa per a fer GIFS animats per a fer els banners del lin.cat. Finalment he trobat un post en fòrum explicant com es pot fer amb el GIMP! Ja pensava que no trobaria cap programa per Linkat i resulta que el programa ja el tenia instal·lat! De tant senzill que és que no se m'havia ocorregut! Bàsicament, cada capa de dibuix és un frame, i llavors ho graves com a gif i el mateix GIMP et pregunta si vols fer-ne una animació, així de fàcil!

lin.cat estrena secció de formació

2007-11-01T22:05:00.000+01:00

A més a més de serveis de manteniment, instal.lacions, reciclatge d'ordinadors, venta d'ordinadors preinstal.lats i llibres de text, també es pot trobar serveis de formació en linkat al portal lin.cat: Serveis professionals en Linkat.

La url de la nova secció és: http://lin.cat/formacio_linkat.html

Amb aquesta nova secció, l'oferta de serveis a les escoles és completa. Tots els serveis en Linkat que pugui necessitar una escola els pot trobar ja en el portal.

anàlisi comunitat instlux

2007-10-30T09:28:00.000+01:00

Tal com ha fet el jordi mas en el seu blog publico també un petit anàlisi del projecte lliure instlux que vaig presentar a les jornades de programari lliure d'aquest any, celebrades a Girona i organitzades per la Càtedra pel Programari Lliure de la UPC.

Podeu descarregar, tant l'informe com la presentació des de:

http://www.jornadespl.org/ponencies/instlux-instalb7lar-el-linux-des-del-windows/

Canonical thinks that GPL is not really opensource

2007-10-29T11:08:00.000+01:00

I've just received the following email from the launchpad team:

Subject: Your project in Launchpad (instlux)

Hello there,

You registered a project in Launchpad, but the project doesn't seem
to be a real Open Source project. I've disabled it for now, but let me
know if you think it should be reactivated and I'll reconsider.

Instlux is a GPL project. Its source code has been for 2 years at sourceforge and it is licensed under the GPL license.

Moreovers, it has external contributions in its code, it has been collaborating with other opensource projects (win32 loader known also as "goodbye microsoft") and it is part of the openSUSE distribution. Actually instlux started on the Ubuntu wiki pages!

Why Canonical thinks that instlux is not really opensource?

By the way, do not forget that the one that is not opensource is launchpad.

I hope it is just a misunderstanding.

Aules de baix cost amb Sun Ray

2007-10-29T09:28:00.001+01:00

Llegeixo al blog del Pedo Valcarcel una experiència d'instal.lació d'una aula de baix cost utilitzant linkat i Sun Rays, els clients lleugers de Sun.

Les aules de baix cost són realment un model molt interessant al permetre tenir aules informàtiques on abans no n'hi havia, reduïnt també el cost de manteniment, i per tant augmentar el ratio ordinadors/alumnes a les escoles.

Es busquen empreses de formació en Linkat

2007-10-22T20:18:00.000+02:00

Hola,

des del portal "lin.cat: Serveis professionals en Linkat" es vol crear una nova secció: la secció d'empreses de formació. La formació és molt important per a l'èxit d'una implantació i és per això que des del portal es vol oferir també aquest servei. Per a què la formació sigui coherent i de qualitat, es col·laborarà amb el departament en els materials de formació. D'aquesta manera, la formació serà coherent amb la que oferta el departament. La col·laboració començarà per utilitzar els materials que es posen a disposició des del departament, en llicència creative commons, i aportar rectificacions, així com material nou, amb la mateixa llicència.

Esperem que d'aquesta manera es pugui oferir la millor formació possible. Aquelles empreses que hi estigueu interessades, no dubteu en enviar un email a info [a] lin [punt] cat.

salutacions,

jordi massaguer i pla
http://jordimassaguerpla.blogspot.com/